Right around this time a year ago, Jerry Sloan saw it coming.
     
With eight players in the final season of their respective contracts, trouble ? selfishness, even downright divisiveness ? seemed inevitable.
     
By season's end, the Jazz head coach had proven himself quite the clairvoyant.
     
"We had a lot of distractions last year," Sloan said Monday, one day before his club opened training camp in preparation for the 2002-03 NBA season.
     
"I really believed, and said at the beginning of last year, that had we stayed focused on basketball . . . we would have come out in pretty good shape," Sloan added. "As it turned out, we lost a tough (first-round playoff) series (with Sacramento). And, you know, that's pretty bitter."