Okur heading home to Turkey to be with his family News Utah Jazz

Before returning to his native Turkey for the offseason, Mehmet Okur had planned to spend at least three or four more weeks in Utah. But with the Jazz's season having ended with Monday night's Game 5 first-round NBA playoff loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, and with his father's health still not well, he and his wife Yeliz instead decided to head home right away. "We've got to go early and support my family, be with them," Okur said. Last November, Abdullah Okur was hospitalized in intensive care due to an epileptic seizure and subsequent aspiration pneumonia.

Mehmet Okur left the team early in a five-game road trip then and returned as his father ? who had been falling in and out of consciousness ? underwent a tracheostomy and gastrostomy to help stabilize his condition. Abdullah Okur also has had two cancer-related operations in the last six years, one to remove part of his lung and another about seven months later to remove a brain tumor. "He's doing better," Mehmet Okur said Monday after cleaning out his locker at EnergySolutions Arena. "He's getting rehab right now. But, the way he is right now, it's kind of ups and downs. A couple days, feels good; one day, not really good." The Jazz's starting center, meanwhile, said he'll need about another month ? or maybe more ? to fully heal his strained right hamstring. "Probably, if I don't do anything Basketball ? just, like, cardio stuff, and bicycle, and stretching more ? a few months," he said. Okur injured the muscle in Utah's second-to-last game of the regular season, and missed the first three games of the Jazz-Lakers series before returning to play in the final two games at much less than full strength. Okur ? whose strong outside shooting and ability to spread the floor was missed early in the series ? has until the end of June to decide whether or not he'll opt out of the final season of his contract with the Jazz. But, make no mistake, the one-time NBA All-Star sounds sincerely interested in staying put. "If you look at the other side, it's a business, too," he said. "And this system, these teammates and coaches, everybody ? they make me All-Star, and they make a better player, a better person," added Okur, who signed a six-year, $50 million deal with the Jazz after winning an NBA championship as a reserve with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. "So, it's going to be my first choice here. If not, it's a business." So rather than even test the open market when it opens July 1, and rather than return for just one more year to play out the final season on his current deal, the 2007 All-Star sounds most interested in coming to terms with the club on a multi-year contract extension. The two sides have until the last day of June to do that, as well. When asked if he liked the idea of an extension to remain in Utah, Okur said, "I do," with a telling smile and to many laughs from reporters. But, Okur added, "the thing I have to do first is go and support my family, be with them. Then, contract." Jazz brass is fine with that, and seems inclined to do what it can to keep Okur ? who averaged 17.0 points per game and hit a career-best 44.6 percent from 3-point range this season ? with the organization long-term. "Did we miss Memo (in the playoffs)? Sure," general manager Kevin O'Connor said of someone whose shooting percentage from behind the long-distance line ranked sixth-best in the regular season among all NBA shooters ? not just big men ? and just 2.1 percent off of the league-best 46.7 mark posted by Golden State shooting guard Anthony Morrow. Only one other big man, Indiana's Troy Murphy, shot better than Okur from 3-point range. "The Jazz, and everybody else ? do we want Memo back?" O'Connor said. "Yeah." E-MAIL: tbuckley@desnews.com