Good article on Sloan

[beav]

Campaign Sloan-gan: Vote Jerry in 2003

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Sam Smith

Special to ESPN.com

Jerry Sloan should be Coach of the Year!

Jerry Sloan should be Coach of the Year!

Jerry Sloan should be Coach of the Year!

No one gets the most out of his players like Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan.

Now do you know what this column is about?

Did I mention that Jerry Sloan should be Coach of the Year?

Forget the flavors of the month, this season's being Eric Musselman because we in the media are stupid. (OK, present company excluded. It's an awesome responsibility to be right so often, but I take it on. Just be it!)

The media vote for most of the annual NBA awards, including Coach of the Year. This is how we do it: We go back to our predictions from October and compare them to the standings in April. If a team is doing much better than we predicted, then the coach must have done an amazing job because there's no way we could be wrong. After all, we are the media.

So no one picked the Golden State Warriors to do much of anything. Why? Because they haven't. No one paid much attention to Troy Murphy working his body into that of a real NBA power forward in the summer and Gilbert Arenas showing he could play when put in the lineup late in the season when no one was watching. Nor did anyone make much of the fact that Antawn Jamison remains a legitimate 20-point-plus scorer. This is not to say Musselman hasn't done a nice job of fitting a system to his players' abilities, one of the least appreciated skills of a good coach. But the Warriors weren't as bad as everyone thought. And this is a rookie coach.

Like last season with winner Rick Carlisle or a few years back with Doc Rivers. Carlisle did a nice job getting players to buy into a system of play, but he already had the league's best rebounder and an All-Star scorer in Jerry Stackhouse. It wasn't exactly an empty cupboard in Detroit. He got it together, as Rivers did with a Magic team vastly underrated because there were no stars. But there were star role players such as Ben Wallace, Bo Outlaw and Darrell Armstrong. And they didn't make the playoffs. But the media didn't have them winning 25 games. So it must have been a good job. And Rivers and Carlisle have proven they are good coaches.

But I'll take the guy who proves it over 15 years, a guy like Jerry Sloan.

Sloan, by the way, has never been voted Coach of the Year. Not once. Even though his teams have won at least 50 games 10 times, won at least 60 games three times and made the playoffs every season. And sure he's had Karl Malone and John Stockton, but they aren't exactly Shaq and Kobe, Bird and McHale and Magic and Kareem. They're tough guys, future Hall of Famers. And they haven't exactly been surrounded by much talent.

Take this season. Malone, even though he's averaging about 20 points per game, hasn't been the same. He's shooting more jump shots and his statistics are down in most categories. The same has happened with Stockton, whose playing time has been substantially reduced for several years. And it's not like there's another Jazz player approaching All-Star status. There are role players such as Matt Harpring, who -- interestingly -- is having his best season. He replaced Donyell Marshall, who had his best seasons in Utah. Bryon Russell and Shandon Anderson left and have been busts. Calbert Cheaney was brought in and his career has been resurrected.

Why does all this happen? Because Jerry Sloan coaches.

There's a system of play. There's commitment to detail. There's an emphasis on hard work and effort. From everyone. No shortcuts. Players say Sloan isn't a taskmaster in practice. No extra long sessions after losses; no gimmicks or pop psychology. Just effort. Then win or lose, that's fine.

There's no one better to see before a big game than Sloan. He always says how he looks forward to the game to see how the players will respond. Because Sloan isn't selling himself. He knows it's the players' game and they'll determine the outcome. He just wants to find a way to help them, which is all a great coach can do. He also keeps their eyes where they should be.

One never hears about problems with Jazz players. Sure, there's the occasional debate with Greg Ostertag. But players are loyal. Salt Lake City isn't the prime location for NBA players, but no one ever complains about playing for Sloan. And he has dealt with many of the goofballs, such as John Starks, Chris Morris and Mel Turpin. He has had tough ones to coach, such as Adreian Dantley, Blue Edwards and David Benoit. No one ever does better after they leave Sloan. Guys such as Mike Brown and Thurl Bailey disappear after they leave.

No one executes like the Jazz. Still. Forty- and 41-year-old guys who couldn't get drafted today based on their athletic ability are cutting up opponents, with the same plays they've used for 15 years. And it's not just with Stockton and Malone but with new guys -- guys who've failed in other places. Sloan just takes them in, shows them what to do and expects them to do it. Until they finally do it.

Coaching is simple to Jerry Sloan, which might be one reason why he doesn't win awards. He doesn't believe he does anything special. He draws up plays, expects his players to run them and then work as hard as they can to keep the other team from running their plays and scoring. So what's the big deal? I know Sloan will be mad at me for writing this. He's no genius, he'll say, just a southern Illinois farmer coaching some basketball.

The word you hear is he won't be doing it after this season, that they're about to break it up in Utah. And after he turns 61 later this month, Sloan will go back home because he doesn't want to coach anymore. One never knows what will happen after the season, but that's no reason to vote for Sloan now, because no one may ever have the chance again.

Look at that Jazz team. Did anyone expect it to still be in solid playoff contention in the West? What with all the young studs and big bangers out there? Utah is still the top shooting team in the league. Why? Because Stockton and Malone are such great shooters. Hardly. Cheaney, who couldn't get on the floor for Denver and shot 44 percent for Boston and 41 percent his last year in Washington, is back shooting about 50 percent. Harpring, a career 45-percent shooter, is shooting just over 50 percent and scoring seven points above his career average. Ask any coach who runs their "stuff," as they say, the best. No one executes like the Jazz. Still. Forty- and 41-year-old guys who couldn't get drafted today based on their athletic ability are cutting up opponents, with the same plays they've used for 15 years. And it's not just with Stockton and Malone but with new guys -- guys who've failed in other places. Sloan just takes them in, shows them what to do and expects them to do it. Until they finally do it.

Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of good coaches in the NBA, and several who've done wonderful work this year. You have to applaud Maurice Cheeks, who has managed and controlled a difficult Portland team. There's Musselman and Carlisle again. Don Nelson in Dallas remains sharp as ever. Gregg Popovich is another underestimated coach, like Sloan. Likewise with Flip Saunders in Minnesota and Phil Jackson, who amazingly has been voted Coach of the Year just once. Hubie Brown has given credibility to a dead franchise in Memphis. Larry Brown continues to amaze in Philadelphia. Doug Collins has handled with grace one of the toughest challenges with Michael Jordan's final season.

But the vote has to be for Sloan. It's really not that close, and long, long overdue. There's no great motivational ploy stories or coaching quirks or psychoses. Sloan just coaches the game. His teams are always prepared. They are always hard working and effective. They always succeed. He's fair, honest and straightforward. He doesn't change. He's a coach. Jerry Sloan could be coach of any year. He should be this season's Coach of the Year.

Sam Smith, who covers the NBA for the Chicago Tribune, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.