Getting Out Of Utah
When I woke up on Friday morning and read that Jerry Sloan has abruptly quit as head coach of the Utah Jazz, I panicked, as just three days earlier I had joked that I thought he was already dead. (It sounds way worse than it is.) I thought, “Oh great, he has cancer, now. Wait, am I going to be fired for this?”
Thankfully, he wasn’t sick, just sick and tired of dealing with his point guard, Deron Williams, who clearly knows far better what it takes to win in the NBA than a guy who coached two players into the NBA Hall of Fame, and won 1,130 games. Jerry Sloan was a no-nonsense player and an equally uncompromising coach. He was an illegal handcheck away from beating Jordan’s Bulls for an NBA title — twice. And, in five years, when he gets inducted into the Hall of Fame, Greg Ostertag should carry the guy to the podium.
Nevertheless, his abrupt departure does change the dynamic in the league’s Northwest division — where the Thunder begin to pick up the intensity, Denver manages to win while waiting for the other shoe to drop and Minnesota prays for a time machine to turn tomorrow in 2013, when they’ll be really super-competitive. I promise.
Oklahoma City (34–19)
Should’ve won last year and, arm-twisting, are my pick to win this year. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are the league’s most effective traditional big-small combo, and the teams has oodles of hungry young complementary players like Jeff Green, and that guy with the funny beard whose name escapes me. (He looks like the love child of Mateen Cleaves and Abe Lincoln.) Last year they pushed the Lakers to the brink and would’ve won if Nick Collison had only boxed Ron-Ron out on that series’ penultimate play. I remember watching Collison watching Kobe’s errant shot and tweeting, “Nick Collison, welcome to the rest of your life” because the play that will forever define his NBA career found him standing, hands by his side as Artest swooped in for the put-back. This year, the team will suffer from no such inexperience and, possessing a player that can get to the line 20 times in a single playoff game (Durant) may provide a wide-enough bandwagon for both Jeff Van Gundy and Steve Kerr to hop aboard.
Denver (31–24)
For the Nuggets management and players, waiting around to find out if/when Carmelo Anthony is dealt is like a boxer waiting to get his arm amputated. It’s going to happen and it’s going to ruin everything. The team is attempting to play chicken with the Knicks, who are offering a relatively measly package of Wilson Chandler, Anthony Randolph and the cash-stuffed corpse of Eddy Curry. Team management event went so far as to float a story that the Lakers were interested in trading Melo for Andrew Bynum — a notion as preposterous as it sounds. Melo, in a compassionate moment, indicated that he would consider singing an extension with the Nuggets, if they were unable to move him by the deadline. All this succeeds in doing is forcing the Knicks to offer a more generous package. Which is to say, a generous package. But whether or not Melo goes or stays, a team filled with Kenyon Martin, Nene and a fading Chauncey Billups isn’t going to get it done, no matter who the Knicks send west.
Utah (31–24)
As Utah, the state and the team, attempts to move on without Jerry Sloan, the lone bright spot with the whole mishegas is that new head coach Tyrone Corbin, who as a player squeezed every drop from his talent now gets a chance to convince Williams — one of the game’s top three point guards — to stay in the most boring, sterile major city in the United States. (The bet here is that he bolts irrespective of how the team finishes the season. I was there for 36 hours once and bolted.) In the meantime, the core four of Williams, Paul Milsap, Al Jefferson and an oddly underachieving Andrei Kirilenko will be an unpopular first-round opponent due to the fact that they had the benefit of playing for Coach Sloan. Go figure.
Portland (30–24)
Every season it’s the same story: Portland looks strong on paper and people begin to refer to them as a “breakout team”. The Blazers have size, speed, can shoot and possess maybe the most rabid fan base in the NBA. And so far this season, they’ve performed admirably well, although Brandon Roy needs to be healthy for the team to make the second round of the playoffs. Both Andre Miller and Marcus Camby have been revelations — considering they are long past the point where even the most optimistic of us thought they’d be useful — and some day LaMarcus Aldridge will be mentioned among the league’s Top 10 players. Wesley Mathews and Nicolas Batum position the team well for the future. And Rudy Fernandez is only going to get better. Who knows? Maybe Greg Oden will accept the veteran’s minimum next season and try to earn even a fraction of that the team has paid him. That changes the dynamic overnight. But in what is a same–old story they are a good team in a very competitive conference, ergo, no championship banner in Portland for the foreseeable future.
Minnesota (13–41)
Kevin Love, man. It just goes to show you the inexact science of the draft. I can’t think of one self- or otherwise-proclaimed expert who thought he would be a very successful pro, and certainly not a starter. Love was subjected to the same raps that players like him usually face: too slow, no mid-range jump shot, white. But he certainly looks much quicker as a pro than he did at UCLA and is one of the NBA’s great revelations this season. The T-Wolves are a team on the come-up that isn’t exactly coming up yet. Most of their best players (Michael Beasley, Corey Brewer and, probably Martell Webster) are in their 2nd or 3rd years, and remember, Ricky Rubio, the wunderkind point guard who’s been hiding out in Spain, may eventually decide to try his luck. If given the chance to grow together, the coaching staff — featuring head coach Kurt Rambis and assistants Bill Laimbeer, Reggie Theus and Dave Wohl — will be able to put a team on the court that plays with a lot of energy and creative freedom (Theus, Wohl) and elbows (Laimbeer, Rambis). They’re certainly a few years from contending, but they sure are entertaining to watch. If you have League Pass, of course.
Tony Gervino is a New York City-based editor and writer obsessed with honing his bio to make him sound quirky. He can also be found here.
Photo by Carlos Zamarriego, from Flickr.