BombsquadSammy wrote:Nice. A funny story from that era is that y'all swept us in the '94 regular season 4-0 (including breaking our winning streak), then we drew you in the first round of the playoffs. I told all my friends we were going to get swept and they mocked my lack of faith, so we put money on game one-- which the Spurs won; they then proceeded to lose the next three games and bow out of the playoffs. So the only time the Spurs beat the Jazz that season, I lost money on it.
Lol. Sounds like my kind of luck
BombsquadSammy wrote:We're awfully fortunate and I hold Pop in pretty high regard, but in my opinion, Sloan is not only one of the great coaches in league history, but he's far-and-away the most underrated as well. I rarely see his name mentioned in discussions about GOAT coaches, and it should be. It makes me sad that he never took another job, especially after the way he went out; I feel like he would've been great in OKC during the Durant era.
We probably wouldn't agree much on Sloan. Jerry really should have hung it up a couple years before he did. The big difference between him and Pop is Pop's ability to adjust to the modern game and to different players. Jerry was fantastic during the Stockton and Malone years, but really didn't do all that well after they left. He did fine with Deron and Boozer, but then just lost the team when we replaced Booze with Al Jefferson. We made the WCF one year, but only because Dallas got knocked out in the 1st round by the 8th seed. Those Deron/Boozer teams were really 2nd round exit teams at best.
Jerry thought the 3 point shot was gimmicky and a trend that would pass. Our GM wanted to draft Chris Paul, but went with Deron Williams because that's who Sloan wanted. Then when Deron turned out not to be John Stockton, Sloan just couldn't figure out how to use him differently. For the last 2 years, Jerry would try to force the same plays over and over, regardless of the fact that the defense was keyed in to everything we were doing. Deron finally broke down and started free lancing a little, and this really pissed Sloan off. Later, after Sloan quit, Deron was made out to be a spoiled brat for being disobedient, but if you go back and watch those games that year, and the year before that matter, you'll see that Deron tried his best to do what Sloan wanted, and finally just broke down because he hated losing and wanted to try anything to change it, which is something Jerry couldn't do.
There are also many instances of Sloan playing inferior players over better ones, simply because he liked a guy more or had a better relationship with him. Our best 3point shooter would get benched if he made 3 in a row, just because Sloan felt it was outside of what he felt our offense should be doing. I could go on for days, but I know I'm already dragging on a bit.
One thing I will say, is that Deron Williams got thrown under the bus unfairly in the whole Sloan quitting incident. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Deron, the worst thing about him is he was grumpy to deal with when he was losing, and I'd much prefer that to someone who is fine with it.
Another thing most people don't really realize, but Sloan had lost the whole team by the time he quit IMO. It wasn't just a one player problem, as Jerry had butted heads with many players over the years. This is a big reason why he never took another job, as was his health. Sloan has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and a form of dementia. My honest opinion is that he was in the early stages of dementia for a year or two before he quit, which explains why a hard-nosed, never say die coach would walk out and quit in the middle of a season.
Anyway, the tl;dr version is that I feel Sloan's stubornness with the game prevented him from being successful after S&M left. Sorry for derailing your game thread with this, but as you can see, I'm pretty set in my feelings on Sloan.
Times have really changed.