Can we please hand over the Coach of the Year award to Jerry Sloan already? I know its probable that his Utah Jazz will eventually slowdown from its franchise best 11-1 start and finish as the 5-6th seed in the West and/or one of his three key bigs will go down with a serious injury (well, one of them is already down, but it’s not that serious. Not yet anyway.)
Did anyone even see this coming? Well, obviously not the people over at EA Sports, who have the Jazz rated at 75 on NBA Live 07. The Knicks on the other hand are rated 91, the Lakers 93, the Bulls 91 and the Heat 94. Of the four, only the Lakers have a respectable record.
Going back to Sloan, the guy should get some long overdue credit for continually maximizing his not-so-popular teams and turning them into a competitive bunch. Remember, this guy almost made the playoffs last year with Memo “The Turkish Bath” Okur as his franchise guy and a three-headed point guard combo of Keith McLeod, Milt Palacio and rook Deron Williams (more on him in a bit). How has Jerry Sloan not won a COY award? Wait, Doc Rivers has one? That guy who’s running the Boston Celtics into a downward spiral of mediocrity? He was Coach of the Year? Wow.
Jerry Sloan is making Carlos Boozer (22 and 12) and Deron Williams (19 and 9) look like a young Malone and Stockton. Yeah, Carlos Boozer the hairy second round pick and Williams that fat kid Sloan kept yelling at last year are playing like sure-fire All-Stars. The two are running a very efficient offense that’s second in the league in scoring (so much for the notion small-ball = higher scoring). Throw in the fact the Kirilenko has given them shit so far and they have a big hole at shooting guard (Sorry, Gordan Giricek, Ronnie Brewer and C.J. Miles), this team is theoretically far from 100%. Point is, Sloan, once again, has gotten the most of his seemingly ordinary club to lead them on top of a very tough Western Conference. And it’s not like they’ve been playing hacks. They’ve played the Suns twice, the Clippers, the Kings, the Warriors and the Rockets.
For the love of God, just give him the award now and give him his place in history, because sooner or later Boozer or Kirilenko will go down, or Deron Williams will start playing like a preoccupied fat kid again, or the curse of Karl Malone will haunt them into crapping their pants in crunch time. And when that happens, some goof like Doc Rivers will end up with the award again.
Did anyone even see this coming? Well, obviously not the people over at EA Sports, who have the Jazz rated at 75 on NBA Live 07. The Knicks on the other hand are rated 91, the Lakers 93, the Bulls 91 and the Heat 94. Of the four, only the Lakers have a respectable record.
Going back to Sloan, the guy should get some long overdue credit for continually maximizing his not-so-popular teams and turning them into a competitive bunch. Remember, this guy almost made the playoffs last year with Memo “The Turkish Bath” Okur as his franchise guy and a three-headed point guard combo of Keith McLeod, Milt Palacio and rook Deron Williams (more on him in a bit). How has Jerry Sloan not won a COY award? Wait, Doc Rivers has one? That guy who’s running the Boston Celtics into a downward spiral of mediocrity? He was Coach of the Year? Wow.
Jerry Sloan is making Carlos Boozer (22 and 12) and Deron Williams (19 and 9) look like a young Malone and Stockton. Yeah, Carlos Boozer the hairy second round pick and Williams that fat kid Sloan kept yelling at last year are playing like sure-fire All-Stars. The two are running a very efficient offense that’s second in the league in scoring (so much for the notion small-ball = higher scoring). Throw in the fact the Kirilenko has given them shit so far and they have a big hole at shooting guard (Sorry, Gordan Giricek, Ronnie Brewer and C.J. Miles), this team is theoretically far from 100%. Point is, Sloan, once again, has gotten the most of his seemingly ordinary club to lead them on top of a very tough Western Conference. And it’s not like they’ve been playing hacks. They’ve played the Suns twice, the Clippers, the Kings, the Warriors and the Rockets.
For the love of God, just give him the award now and give him his place in history, because sooner or later Boozer or Kirilenko will go down, or Deron Williams will start playing like a preoccupied fat kid again, or the curse of Karl Malone will haunt them into crapping their pants in crunch time. And when that happens, some goof like Doc Rivers will end up with the award again.
2 comments:
the Jazz have always been good. they just havent been healthy. A healthy Jazz squad would easily make the playoffs.
nobody expected deron and boozer to play at such a high level.
im not saying Jerry sloan doesnt deserve the award. heck I think he was screwed out of it a couple of times already.
dont worry as long as the jazz are gonna make the playoffs he's bound to be coach of the year.
hopefully, for the sake of Sloan.
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