JERRY SLOAN WITH UTAH JAZZ PICK-AND-ROLL GREATS, JOHN STOCKTON AND KARL MALONE
Posted on 05/23/2020 9:31:56 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Jerry Sloan walked up the steps to the stage at the Basketball Hall of Fame to give his enshrinement speech in 2009, almost as if he were dreading what the next few minutes would bring.
He never wanted the spotlight.
“This is pretty tough for me,” Sloan said that night.
Talking about himself, that wasn’t easy. But basketball, he always made that seem simple.
Sloan, who spent 23 years as coach of the Utah Jazz and took the team to the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998, died Friday at 78. The team said that for four years he had Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia.
Sloan presided over the glory days of the John Stockton and Karl Malone pick-and-roll-to-perfection era in Salt Lake City. He is fourth on the NBA's victory list.
“Before coming to Utah, I was certainly aware of Coach Sloan and what he meant to the NBA and to the coaching world,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said Friday. “But, upon living in Utah, I became acutely aware of just how much he truly meant to the state.”
Sloan was a two-time All-Star as a player with the Chicago Bulls, led his alma mater, Evansville, to a pair of NCAA college division national championships and was an assistant coach on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team that won a gold medal at the Atlanta Games. He fell in love with the game as a student in a one-room Illinois schoolhouse, never forgetting his roots.
“His more than 40 years in the NBA also paralleled a period of tremendous growth in the league, a time when we benefited greatly from his humility, kindness, dignity and class,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Back when I enjoyed NBA. I seemed to stop enjoying the sport after the millennium.
Oh goodie another CV19 death no doubt!!
RE: Oh goodie another CV19 death no doubt!!
Did you read the article?
I wanted Malone and Stockton to get that ring. I loved watching them play even though I am an Eastern Conference guy and Sixers fan.
The Jazz should have won in 1999.
I saw Jerry Sloan play many, many times for my Chicago Bulls. One of my favorites. His mentor was Bulls’ coach Dick Motta, another Utah connection.
Same here.
I used to be a fan of Wizards but always wanted Malone and Stockton to get their ring.
RIP.
Those were great days for the NBA.
Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lear in the backcourt with Bob Love and Chet Walker up front.
A pretty good team that ran into the Lakers every year in the playoffs, or so it seemed.
Sloan is best measured by the cluster of men who would die for him. That would include Hall of Famers Stockton and Malone, but also his right hand assistant Phil Johnson and 7’4” Jazz center/restaurant owner Mark Eaton. Athletes either clung to Sloan in fierce loyalty or fled from him.
Sloan famously decided to retire after a game in February of 2011 in which the Jazz lost to the Chicago Bulls. During halftime of that game, there was a disagreement between Sloan and Deron Williams that apparently pushed the legendary head coach to his tipping point. Sloan retired and Williams was traded. Now, the two have at least made amends. In a story of appearing on UtahJazz.com, Williams went to Sloan’s house to talk about the divide and what happened some seven years ago. [The two shook hands and buried the hatchet just as both men wanted.]
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