Sloan Provides Jazz Players With a Tough Act to Follow

[RonnieBrewer (Reverse Layup)]

Sloan Provides Jazz Players With a Tough Act to Follow
By Michael Wilbon
Friday, June 1, 2007; Page E03

SAN ANTONIO

It used to be, even after some runs deep into the playoffs, that Jerry Sloan
would sit down on the final night of the season and face one question after
another about the window of opportunity closing on John Stockton, Karl Malone
and the Utah Jazz's chances of contending. Great as they were and as close as
they got, there was a certain sad inevitability about their last four or five
seasons.

But Sloan, who just completed his 19th year as an NBA coach, certainly didn't
hear that question Wednesday night, even though Utah was bounced from the
playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs in five games. Nobody needs to ask because
the Jazz's window of opportunity is wide open right now. Utah has the
fifth-youngest team in the NBA, advanced to the Western Conference finals
despite that inexperience and is led by a 25-year-old power forward in Carlos
Boozer, a 22-year-old point guard headed toward greatness in Deron Williams
and a creative staff of talent evaluators with an impressive track record of
finding complementary pieces.

Not even a 25-point loss in Game 5 here to close the series and some
frustrated finger-pointing in the Utah locker room afterward should darken
the overall positive outlook.

One of the biggest reasons the Jazz has such a bright future is Sloan at the
whip-hand, as hard, as demanding, as uncompromising on his basketball values
as ever. Asked if he thought the franchise could retool post-Stockton/Malone
without winning the lottery, while operating in a small market with limited
appeal to the marquee free agents, Sloan said in a recent conversation:
"There are still some guys who want to get on the yellow school bus every day
and go play. We've been fortunate to find a lot of guys who'll go bust their
butts. It's very difficult to find them . . . very hard."

Sloan isn't just preaching. Everything about him is tough, without pretense
or contemporary interpretation. Sloan isn't within 25 years of reaching old
school. Asked by ESPN's Shelley Smith if he knew what an iPod is, Sloan, now
65, said he thought it was the stand for a camera. You want to know how tough
Sloan is? Here's how tough:

It was probably 1971 when Norm Van Lier was with the Cincinnati Royals. "We
were playing an exhibition game against [Sloan's] Bulls, I think on the campus
of Illinois State," Van Lier recalled the other day. "Jerry and I got to
pushing and shoving each other and then fighting. . . . Well, play continued
at the other end and Jerry and I kept going at it. The rest of the guys looked
up and said, 'Where the hell are Norm and Jerry?' We had rolled right out of
the gym into the halls of the arena. . . . I think we knocked over a popcorn
machine."

In the offseason, the Bulls went to Sloan to say they had an opportunity
to trade for Van Lier (whom Chicago had drafted then traded in 1969), but
wondered if Sloan, an original member of the Bulls, would acquiesce to
playing with a man he had fought so doggedly. Sloan, as he's recounted many
times, told management any man who would fight him all the way out of the gym
and into the halls during a preseason game was a man he wanted to play with. 
And the two became back-court mates for the rest of their careers, perhaps
the toughest and best defensive back court in NBA history.

They're still exceptionally close, more than 35 years later. Van Lier, in a
phone conversation from Chicago, where he works as an analyst for Bulls games,
said: "You know what I called what Jerry had: controlled madness. I didn't know
if Jerry would have the patience for coaching. But I knew he'd be no-nonsense
with players, whether you were a superstar or not. I used to get to [Chicago
Stadium] early, put my jersey on and go underneath the [stands] to take a
pregame nap. . . . Jerry would come and find me, wake me up and start screaming
at me, 'Get your butt ready to play!' He'd pound me in my chest. 'Norm! You
ready to play? You ready to rock?' He's that way now. . . . He's ready and he
wants you to be ready."

What Sloan has done against type in recent years, quicker than many of his
peers, is adapt to the game's evolution toward more scoring. As rigid as Sloan
is about certain basketball principles, as much as he made his reputation as a
player on defense, he has tinkered with his system to fit the talent he has
rather than the other way around. This season, for instance, Utah had the
seventh-highest scoring offense in the NBA and Sloan gave Williams, his
second-year guard, more rope than he gave Stockton three years into his career.

Van Lier said, "I like Utah's team concept, the way they go after it, the
attitude they play with and the fact that they don't back down."

What Sloan will want to see between the end of the Game 5 blowout and
training camp is, yes, even less backing down. Utah did a little too much of
it against San Antonio. "Guys think shaking hands before the game is hard
work," he said. "Look, I never expected these players to play like I had to
in order to survive in the league. I didn't have any talent. I couldn't
outrun Tom Boerwinkle [his plodding 7-foot Bulls teammate] down the floor. .
. . But I'd run for 48 minutes. The only skill I had was playing hard."

The general perception in league circles is that if more Jazz players take on
Sloan's combative personality in the months before next season's playoffs,
Utah might be able to take one more step, even in the loaded Western
Conference. In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday night's loss, Williams
and Boozer were clearly and justifiably ticked off about the lackluster play
of some teammates. They didn't name names, but the Charmin-soft play of
Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko, who were offensive no-shows during the
Spurs series, comes to mind.

Boozer battled Tim Duncan, the game's best player. Williams played sick and
injured, often brilliantly. Derek Fisher flew to and from New York, where his
infant daughter saw specialists about her eye cancer. It made Boozer angry to
see what he perceived as some teammates who weren't, to use Sloan's phrase,
ready to rock. "I will never say anything negative directly to a teammate
because I love my team and I believe in that code," Boozer said. "But we need
guys that are always going to give everything they have. . . . When you have
your vacation plans already, that's not a championship vision."

Sounds like Boozer already has a healthy dose of Sloan's attitude in him, as
does Williams, as does Fisher. Sloan just wants the combativeness they've
demonstrated to be infectious. It'll be necessary if Utah is going to get
back to this point next year.

"What I want to see," Sloan said, "is what happens after you become pretty
good and you have to prove yourself every night when people expect you to win.
Guys live off what they did for a year or two, and make a lot of money. . . .
Me? It's what you do tomorrow. We're trying to learn how to win. I'm not in
this business for individual honors. I didn't play for those reasons and I
don't coach for those reasons. I come back and do this because I love to have
a bunch of guys who want to go play."



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/05/31/AR2007053102085.html 

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※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) 
◆ From: 59.41.170.147
→ kreen:
推 hardaway:
推 RonnieBrewer:worth reading
推 HornyJazz:巴士大叔史龍教練員
推 hardaway:the Charmin-soft play of Okur and AK comes to mind...
→ hardaway:其實我後來才發現 Deron 說的好像有點過火了...
→ hardaway:Sloan 球員生涯看起來很不錯呢 @@
推 RonnieBrewer:都改口了, 比較娩轉
推 HornyJazz:那種話Deron小朋友來說還好 Boozer附和比較嚴重
→ RonnieBrewer:Boozer被老板反將一軍
→ HornyJazz:所以LHM才會對於Boozer著墨比較多
→ RonnieBrewer: Sloan的球衣掛在芝加哥
→ hardaway:嗯嗯，這個我知道。只是一直不清楚他是哪方面出色。
→ hardaway:我是看到Deron有一句是說叫那些不想留下來的球員去找老闆
→ hardaway:和GM。 那句就超過了...
→ HornyJazz:據說防守相當兇狠
推 hardaway:perhaps the toughest and best defensive back court in
→ hardaway:NBA history. 另外一個搭檔是誰？沒聽說過...
→ RustyLaRue:..看這篇之前要先有心理準備?
→ odyy:請安心服用
推 monmo:hardway你說的那句在哪篇外電? 蝶龍嗆聲那句....
推 RonnieBrewer:deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660225671,00.html
推 CarlosBoozer:還不錯
→ sam369:
推 gratitude:有沒有幾個球員才打第一次playoff就想變身成馬史的八卦?