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http://nba.fanhouse.com/2008/07/15/in-u ... heir-hair/

TrueHoop guest host Maurice Brooks found this bizarre column out of Utah, in which the Salt Lake Tribune's Ross Siler uncovers Jazz coach Jerry Sloan's crusades against bleached hair and Kyrylo Fesenko's goofy persona. Fesenko bleached his hair, which apparently (as Siler tells it) sparked these comments from the coach.
"He's got a long way to go to make himself a better player," Sloan said. "He has skills, but sometimes the outside things will take you right out of this game. If those things are more important than basketball, that's where you get in trouble."

"A lot of people have skills," Sloan added. "A lot of them are sitting on the sidewalk wondering what happened 20 years ago when they had a chance. He's got to figure out what he wants to do and play basketball or be a clown."
Ooh, harsh! This might be derived from other Fesenko maturity issues (there's an allusion to a short attention span and more than one tardy arrival to practice), but that doesn't make curmudgeonly old Sloan's connection between a peroxide kit and unsavory personality traits any less funny.

But maybe Sloan has a point. This could -- at least in part -- explain Darko.

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Being late to practice is no way to stay in good graces with Sloan, and its obvious that he doesn't like bleach blondes.

They talked about this on 1320 this morning for what seemed like eternity. Pk and DJ ere bashing him to no end over this. I can see maturity being an important factor but I don't see how changing your hair color plays into this. I do think that Fes needs to grow up and mature but this is off the mark.

I honestly think this is one of those situations where we as the public don't know the whole story.

It sure is easy to throw Sloan under the bus for getting mad about someone's bleached hair...

But at the same time, this story to me is one of those that has a lot of holes in it. For as long as Sloan has been around, I find it odd to have him say something that point-blank and have it only be about bleached hair and one tardiness. Give the dude some credit -- he knows when a player is dinking around and not focused. He's been around a while.

I think there are more issues here than we know of.

On the radio they talked about a Flash game where Fes had 2 rebounds in 3 quarters. Between the 3rd and 4th, the assist coach asked Fes if he saw Coach Sloan sitting on the 6th row. Fes came out in and the first 6 minutes of the quarter he had something around 5 blocks and 7 rebounds.

hoops4life wrote:They talked about this on 1280 this morning for what seemed like eternity. Pk and DJ ere bashing him to no end over this. I can see maturity being an important factor but I don't see how changing your hair color plays into this. I do think that Fes needs to grow up and mature but this is off the mark.

DJ and PK are on 1320 not 1280 but that's besides the point.
About the situation with Fes, I think that this shows that he might be perfect trade fodder and a way to clear up some roster space. After all he admits that he is lazy and we know that that will not go well with Sloan.

Ok, finally Jerry's got his new Ostertag. Now we'll go to the finals!!
I'm happy to hear that "old farmer-Jerry" speachs again. I hope this time Miller let Jerry ride the team on his own.

AK once sported a mohawk and Sloan was like: WTF?

JTSPEED wrote:

hoops4life wrote:They talked about this on 1280 this morning for what seemed like eternity. Pk and DJ ere bashing him to no end over this. I can see maturity being an important factor but I don't see how changing your hair color plays into this. I do think that Fes needs to grow up and mature but this is off the mark.

DJ and PK are on 1320 not 1280 but that's besides the point.
About the situation with Fes, I think that this shows that he might be perfect trade fodder and a way to clear up some roster space. After all he admits that he is lazy and we know that that will not go well with Sloan.

yeah, whoops. I was flipping between channels on the way to work.

He has a lot of questionable behavior, has a chef, doesn't want to get a driver's lic, and doesn't want to learn english.

Who cares about his hair color? I would be worried if he got a tattoo of Fred Flintstone.

ColdBlue wrote:Who cares about his hair color? I would be worried if he got a tattoo of Fred Flintstone.

Awesome!!!

Guys, Sloan is 66 years old, he is lucky to have his pants on correctly, lets not read too much into his ramblings.

I doubt Sloan's actually concerned about the hair. It's not even mentioned in his comments; that's just an inference from the SLT.

Fesenko seems plenty likable, but one of the reasons IS because he acts like a clown. He will have to tone down his antics to succeed here, but I have no reason to believe he can't or won't.

He's a goofball, but hey, Sloan got along with Ostertag for way too many years here, I see no reason they wouldn't keep Fes around.

He will be fine, it's just blond hair. AK used to throw down the mohawk, and I don't think Memo has ever seen a comb.

its JUST hair dye, if sloan is mad at that then maybe just maybe he IS a little to old for this modern day basketball.

Sloan just wants his players to be professional. You can tell when players are not serious enough about their job for Sloan. Be it Chris Morris, Greg Ostertag, CJ Miles, or now Fes.

You look at that group and you think man, those guys could all have been good if they'd have just had the right attitude. But, none of them seem to have had the lunchpail attitude that one needs to thrive under Sloan.

If Fes never figures this out, he'll wash right out of the league.

This perfectly demonstrates why Sloan himself has never tipped a 'Just For Men' bottle in to his shopping basket. He couldn't handle the overpowering obligation to join the circus.

really. i coudn't care less bout Fess hairs.... and i'd be VERY satisfied if he become Ostertag 2.0 (anyway he's more athletic than Tag)

Seriously this is an overreaction on Sloan's part. AK had bleached his hair before, there were no problems. In my opinion hairstyles dont reflect your focus on the court.

Racer X wrote:... In my opinion hairstyles dont reflect your focus on the court...

Research? Studies? Where is the statistical evidence to authenticate such an outrageous claim?

And when will we get Sloan's appraisal of Deron's new beard and how it relates to his aptitude?

You guys blow me away some times. In the first place, its not the dyed hair that has Jerry commenting here. The hair is more of a symbolic representation of the kid's off the court problems. It was a well known fact that before he was drafted that he had certain unidentified character issues that he would have to overcome. My guess is these are what Jerry is refering to.

You will notice that AK tried every 'do under the sun and Jerry never said a damn word, cause he didn't care. Fes, on the other hand, seems to have a problem with maturity, and needs to put all of his energy into making it in this league, or we will be moving on to our next big white project.