Mattress Mack Out in Utah!!!

[College Boy]

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) —A person with knowledge of the situation says Jerry Sloan stepping down as Utah Jazz coach.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_d ... nba-319641

[College Boy]

First it was Fisher in Tennessee, now Sloan. It doesn't appear to be a good time to be a longtime coach of our rival team.

[MaxRider]

i got the news last night on the general board
really shock
he's been jazz coach since 1988
that's 22.5 seasons
i can imagine i work for the same company for that long (well maybe cause i aint that old yet)

[TMU]

Shocking. I can't imagine this Jazz team without Sloan. I also find it hard to believe that he's retiring mid-season.

[TMU]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=A ... ring021011

Sloan’s relationship with Williams had grown progressively worse over the course of the season, league sources said, and the coach had tired of dealing with the team’s best player. The frustration escalated on Wednesday night when Sloan and Williams clashed in the locker room at halftime.

“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.” Still, Williams, who can become a free agent in the summer of 2012, has remained the Jazz’s best and most consistent player after the departure of several key teammates. Williams has always had a reputation for wanting to win badly and being a strong leader.

After feeling undermined, one source said Sloan told Jazz owner Greg Miller that if this is how he wanted to run a franchise, he could do it without him as coach.

Let's see what this punk can do without his HOF coach. I hope he's up for the challenge.

[Optimism Prime]

Shocking. I can't imagine this Jazz team without Sloan. I also find it hard to believe that he's retiring mid-season.

This. I hate the Jazz as much as anyone, but Sloan outlasted nearly 250 coaches. He was an institution as much as anyone in the league. A hard-nosed coach who got to work with hard-nosed guys like Stockton and Malone; I hate them, but I respect them. And it really is sad (objectively) that they didn't win a title. Hell, it's a downright travesty that Sloan never won COY--it looked like this year might've been his chance, but... then this.

I'm shocked at this happening, but the rumors of why... don't surprise me. Not that Deron is evil or anything, but that if Sloan felt like it wasn't working out, he'd leave.

Maybe more than any other coach in history, he know when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em... and now, he's walking away.

Jerry, I hate your team, but I have the utmost respect for you. All the best.

[Kal El]

when i saw this on the general board i didn't think anything of it, but now it seems that it is indeed real... WOW!

[texasholdem]

So if Adelman is fired at the end of the season: Your new Houston Rockets coach Jerry Sloan?

[MaxRider]

So if Adelman is fired at the end of the season: Your new Houston Rockets coach Jerry Sloan?

i don't know why people think we fired JVG
his contract ended and we didn't offer him a new one
i think Adelman still have one more year left in his contract
didn't he sign 4 years contract?

[PocketRockets]

Man I just lost a lot of respect of williams. There are tons of superstars in the league today. But to win championships consistently, you need a great coach. One reason the Suns, SVG, and the knicks probably won't win championships any time soon. Granted, Sloan never won anything of significance, it's hard to replace a coach of his caliber.

[KiDdFrESh]

I couldn't believe the reports either. Sloan has been there coach ever since I dispised the Jazz as a child . Now that he's gone the Jazz will be exposed.

Rockets should be aiming for Deron & Dwight in 2012. Lets make it happen!!

I can dream right? lol

[texasholdem]

So if Adelman is fired at the end of the season: Your new Houston Rockets coach Jerry Sloan?

i don't know why people think we fired JVG
his contract ended and we didn't offer him a new one
i think Adelman still have one more year left in his contract
didn't he sign 4 years contract?

Coaches can be and are fired all the time regardless if they have a contract or not.

[MaxRider]

So if Adelman is fired at the end of the season: Your new Houston Rockets coach Jerry Sloan?

i don't know why people think we fired JVG
his contract ended and we didn't offer him a new one
i think Adelman still have one more year left in his contract
didn't he sign 4 years contract?

Coaches can be and are fired all the time regardless if they have a contract or not.

i know you can fired the coach at anytime
but how can you called it fired if the contract ended?

[MaxRider]

Man I just lost a lot of respect of williams. There are tons of superstars in the league today. But to win championships consistently, you need a great coach. One reason the Suns, SVG, and the knicks probably won't win championships any time soon. Granted, Sloan never won anything of significance, it's hard to replace a coach of his caliber.

never like that guy
he looks like a @$$ to me

[spolgar]

My read:

I think the blame goes both ways. To up and quit like this in the middle of the season after acquiring talent, and old blood playing with renewed effort, seems to smack of a resolute unwillingness to compromise. That and with the old owner handing the reins to the son and being the longest tenured coach in the league seems to have made him feel less secure, and his tight grasp on the running of the team is turning people off.

And to blow up a man who is 40 years your senior, taught you everything you knew about professional basketball and has provided a system that has produced winning seasons despite having the likes of Carlos Arroyo at the point, isn't a much better look.

Nonetheless, it's the end of an era. No coach has been able to produce results this consistently for this length of time. Pat Riley and Phil Jackson haven't had to sit through a rebuilding period. Sloan put in his dues as a player and as a coach, and I'm sorry to see him go, without a ring, especially like this.

[tha_rock220]

This is the same Jerry Sloan who coached one of the dirtiest teams in basketball for years. His philosophy was be overly physical and dare the officials to blow the whistle. I'm not the least bit sad that he didn't win a ring because that would mean the Jazz, and in all likelyhood Stockton and Malone, would have a title. No thanks.

I respect Jerry Sloan's toughness and willingness to endure 20+ years of coaching, and he did a lot of things I admired(not punishing DeShawn Stevenson for shoving the **** out of Wrong Rim Ricky Davis), and it's kind of saddening to see him leave, but at the same time good riddance.

[Kal El]

what a way end a career though...

[spolgar]

I don't really get the vitrol of some of the folks here against the Jazz. 3 years out of the playoffs in the first round, by the same team can get a little infuriating, but this is kicking someone when they are down.

Jerry Sloan once got in the face of Wes Unself after being knocked down a multitude of times and being dared not to get up. In his defense, if you don't alert your adversaries to your presence in this league, then you might as well not be. In no way did Jazz's "dirty play" come close to the same degree of violence that defined the playing style of the Ewing/Van Gundy Knicks, and yet Van Gundy is still regarded here as an excellent defensive coach, and let's not go with the Auerbach Celtics and Daly's Pistons.

All tough players played a little rough. Bill Cartwright's flying elbows got him a wide berth, as Houston fans we should know that after what he did to Hakeem's eye and got him to wear goggles. Horace Grant refused to wear them at one point in the 90/91 season because folks kept on pulling them off when the refs looked the other way. For as long as I can remember, playing in the post meant being subjected to all kinds of chicanery when the refs couldn't see exactly what was going on.

League play has steadily declined in physical contact over the years. As Jerry Sloan has been doing it "the old way" since his playing days, I think he's simply applying what he learned in Chicago when he was a player and never got the memo from David Stern to change his ways. I think the rivalry between the two teams might have escalated the physicality of the matchups some, but we as fans might also see and remember mild slights to be greater than what they really are.

Stockton and Malone, two of the greatest in their positions, not winning a title, is the single greatest testament to the Chicago Bulls and the Houston Rockets during that era. However, it's still a shame that many whom had the talent and the drive deserving of a ring, did not.

[Ribalding]

Don't talk about those people "deserving" rings. Not here.

[spolgar]

I wasn't speaking in specifics If you would like, I could pretend I was thinking of Barkley too when I wrote that.