20 Years Later, Sloan Still Going Strong in Utah

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↵Twenty years of Jerry Sloan with the Jazz. It’s hard to wrap your mind around and yet, seems like a no-brainer. In today’s league, coaches are on a short leash if they can’t wring something out of a bad or inchoate roster. They’re fired if they underachieve with a decent one. And if they come this close, but can’t get over the top, it might be time for someone else to do the job. But Sloan has stuck around in Utah not just because he’s all the team’s really ever known (could you imagine Phil Jackson spending 20 years in Chicago?), but because you just won’t find a better coach. His style can be overbearing, his outlook on the game prehistoric. Then again, sometimes he’ll surprise you by experimenting with line-ups, embracing a “soft” big man or, perhaps most importantly, inspiring unequivocal devotion in the players that matter.↵
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The persistent irony, of course, is that Sloan has never won a Coach of the Year award. But at this point, what would it even mean? He doesn’t need the recognition. And unlike Susan Lucci, he’s in a business where reputation, not hardware, defines a person’s worth. Of course his resume would look better with a ring -- and who knows, if Boozer and Williams stick around, he might have another shot at one. And yet Sloan’s as much a presence, a fighter, a symbol as he is the employee meant to win games. He hates to lose, but unlike Larry Brown -- who once upon a time came in to make teams better, while annoying the hell out of everyone in the process -- Sloan’s as much about exerting intensity and intelligence each and every night. And if that’s not enough, try harder. And if that doesn’t work, well, no one can say Jerry Sloan didn’t do Jerry Sloan.↵
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↵Aside from the whole state treasure thing in Utah, what’s kept Sloan around is the strength of his brand. Again, like Brown once had. But the difference is, Sloan never promises anything, just expects that everyone give as much of a damn as he does. Hence the surprising overachieving teams in the wake of Stockton/Malone. They weren’t heartwarming underdogs, or guys forced into a system. They were players living up to the high standards, the challenge, of just having Sloan around everyday. ↵↵In a weird way, the coach he’s most like is Don Nelson. You couldn’t find two more different coaches, even if Sloan’s teams have gotten quicker and more fluid in recent years. Yet what matters is that, in their own way, both have become institutions, important neural center in the National Basketball Association. There’s an almost NCAA ball of yore purity to this, or maybe it just says that, in this age of ever-shifting roster and coaching carousels, some great men can rise above it all and just hunker down to try and win games.↵

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