Jerry Sloan retires

Jerry Sloan of the Utah Jazz is retiring, effective immediately. Longtime assistant Phil Johnson is also retiring. Jazz assistant Tyrone Corbin is Sloan's replacement.

Sloan said that he doesn't have the same energy level he used to have, which is understandable considering that he's 68. From the portion of the video I saw, he seems at peace with himself over the decision. Although I'm sure he'll miss coaching, his wry smile and humor made him look like a man at peace with himself and probably relieved.

I've stated my admiration for Sloan many times. I wish him all the best.

Outside

I'll miss him too. He was as tough a coach as he was a player and, when you played against Jerry Sloan the player, you felt it for days afterwards.

Sloan & Norm Van Leer formed a very formidable back court in the late 60's & early 70's-MD

Man this is a bummer. I respect this guy and love the old scoo cloth he is cut from.

http://www.sportsgrid.com/nba/longtime-jazz-coach-jerry-sloan-resigns-clash-with-star-player-to-blame/

After an unprecedented 22-plus years as the head coach of the Utah Jazz, Jerry Sloan resigned, possibly as the result of a fight with a player. Sloan racked up 1,127 wins with the Jazz, and had winning seasons in 21 of his 22 seasons as head coach, but he will end his reign as the longest tenured head coach in American professional sports.

The move came as a surprise, considering Sloan agreed to a one-year contract extension last week. The Jazz have been struggling lately, losing six of their last 10 games, and Yahoo! Sports reports Sloan felt like had lost the grip of his team, or at least his best player, Deron Williams. He reportedly decided to resign after having a clash with Williams during halftime Wednesday.

“He decided right there in halftime that he was done,” a league source told Yahoo! Sports. “He felt like ownership was listening more to Williams than they were to him anymore. He was done.”One source said Sloan had become tired of Williams “blaming everything on everyone else.”

Sloan and Williams have had a contentious relationship from the beginning, and judging by tweets from Salt Lake Tribune’s Brian T. Smith, Sloan’s relationship with Williams and other Jazz players doesn’t seem to be improving.

As for a clash with Deron Williams being to blame for Sloan's retirement, I think it's a little more nuanced than that, as indicated in this article in the Salt Lake Tribune.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/sports/51233535-77/sloan-williams-jazz-season.html.csp

Both Sloan and Williams are fierce competitors, so clashes will happen. He supposedly had similar clashes with Karl Malone, and Sloan said in his press conference that he'd had clashes with players since he joined the league. (He certainly wasn't someone to back down as a player.) I think he's being truthful when he downplays any individual confrontation or player relationship and points instead to not having the energy to deal with it anymore.

Has the game passed him by? Has he lost the ear of his players? Perhaps. I know they've gone through a tough stretch recently, but still, look at their roster. Here are their top 10 players in descending order by minutes played.

Deron Williams, all-star PG
Al Jefferson, 6-10, very good player but undersized at center
Paul Millsap, 6-8, very good player but undersized at PF
CJ Miles, decent G
Andrei Kirilenko, decent F off the bench
Raja Bell, journeyman G-F
Earl Watson, journeyman G
Ronnie Price, decent G
Gordon Hayward, rookie F
Francisco Elson, nondescript C averaging 2.4 pts, 1.8 reb

What record would you expect from that team? Maybe Jerry Sloan has "lost it," but I say he's done a pretty good job getting them to 31-23, 3.5 games behind Oklahoma City in the Northwest division.

The key point of the article I posted was this

“He felt like ownership was listening more to Williams than they were to him anymore. He was done.[i]

Karl Malone had a few choice words too.

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/articles/2011/02/12/malone_says_sloan_would_never_quit_anything/?page=1

Not one player attended Sloan's farewell press conference. Not one.

They better win now, brother, they better win now. Utah LOVES Jerry Sloan and if he was pushed out by a bunch of millionaire prima donnas who don't prove they were right in demanding change, it could get ugly.

bob

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