Basketball: Utah Jazz

They might be stinking up the joint this season (we can blame injuries, but that's passing the buck...), but they won last night, placing Coach Sloan in 6th place on the all-time career victory list.

Raja Bell scored a season-high 23 points and the Utah Jazz beat the Milwaukee Bucks 94-89 on Saturday night to push coach Jerry Sloan past Red Auerbach for sixth place on the career victory list with 939.

ESPN

[Edited on 11/5/2005 by Gibbs Baby!!!]

Originally posted by Gibbs Baby!!!
They might be stinking up the joint this season (we can blame injuries, but that's passing the buck...),

Well if you're not going to blame injuries, then how Jerry Sloan? Any chance that he's not the right guy to coach this group of players?

Going a little far by blaming the coach. I hate hopw people blame the coach. The coach is not playing. He directs what should happen, plays that are easy to maneuver. If Utah had there full roster, they would have not made the playoffs anyways in my opinion!

I fanally got to see a little bit of them paying last night. It was dreadful. 8 points in the first quarter. I won't blame Sloan, he is a great, great coach. But, I don't see him coming back next season, I don't know if he has the patience for this. I just hope that I am wrong.

Boozer out at least another month

Utah forward Carlos Boozer will miss at least another month because of a hamstring injury that has kept him from playing this season.

The Jazz said Thursday that Boozer, idle since February because of injuries, felt a pop in his left hamstring in a drill Monday. An MRI showed that the strain in his muscle appeared to be worse.

"Once the swelling and inflammation subside, we will then turn back the clocks and begin rehab anew," team orthopedist Dr. Lyle Mason said in a statement.

At least they are remaining a .500 team without him in the lineup. He should give them the added boost to make the playoffs whenever he returns.

Source

Hi Ya'll
As a diehard Jazz fan during the golden ages (stockton and malone (also I lived in Utah for several years growing up), I have to say that this year's team makes me sick. Sure they got some decent talent and a great coach, but they're never going to achieve what they had. Utah is a weird state, and I'm not saying they want to only have white players or anything, but they're current roster is lacking in stars (Kirilenko seems to be perpectually injured). Not be a pessimist, but we won't ever see a combo of Stockton and Malone (with a great supprting case of hornacek, jeff malone, and mark eaton (asewome tall gut I met once. Also Mike Brow and Thrul Bailey were kind enough to visit schools and clinics, whic means a lot to little kids. I don't count Bryon Rusell because he was pushed out by Jordan and lost the finals, which turned me off from the NBA for too long.

That said I'm now a Celtics fan and our team hasn't done that great either (although we'd be undefeated if the games weren't all fixed )
It seems there aren't many NBA fans out there anymore, which I could only speculate as to why, and the reason is way beyond my comprehension.

Thank You

Mark Eaton was obviously a one-dimensional player, and they paid an enormous offensive price for having him on the court. But with that said....

In the half-court game, Mark Eaton is the greatest defensive player I ever saw. He absolutely dominated the game, forcing the other team to shoot one pull-up jumper after another.

The best regular-season game I ever saw was a double-OT game at Utah, with the Jordan/Pippin/Cartwright Bulls. Jordan got called for an offensive foul in double OT with less than one second left, and got two T's and got thrown out of the game, but until that whistle blew, the game was in doubt. It was an incredible game, and even Jordan could not score off Eaton when Eaton had time to set up.

Neither could Magic and the rest of his "Showtime" cast in the greatest best-of-7 series I ever saw--one which the Lakers took in Game 7 at home, but only after getting slaughtered in a couple of games and having enormous trouble (pun intended) scoring from close range. I specifically remember than when Eaton got in foul trouble, Layden would keep him out there and pray, because he knew they had no chance against the Lakers without Mount Eaton clogging up the lane.

They paid an immense price to have that guy out there, but WOW, what a force he was on defense.

B.H.N.

AS far as Eaton goes, he was a part of the team when I started following them (back in the late '80's) I remember a cover story from SI with the quote "Look who's looking up!" and a picture of Eaton and Kareem standing side by side. Kareem looked like a 12 year old standing next to him!




They tried to fit Ostertag in to his role, but Greg never lived up to his standards. Of course, while Greg was there, they did make it to the finals, something that Mark never did, but I attribute that to the rest of the role players on the team, rather than the centers.

Hi all,
Sorry to de-rail this thread with talk of the legendary Mark Eaton. Sure he was a tall white guy who couldn't score but he is my all time favorite non-scoring shot blocker. The point I thought I was trying to make at the time is that Utah has a major rebuilding process ahead of them. Granted I can't see the games here on the East Coast, but from what I have seen they need massive reconstructing (although I don't think Sload should go yet).

No real point here, I just miss the glory days of Stockton and Malone (as well as the great supporting cast). Honestly I use to practice for hours a day so I could shoot like Jeff Malone, the greatest pure shooter I've seen since Stojakvek (sp?). Than again, I'm wicked bias towards childhood heroes.

Any ideas who Utah needs to pick (lottery or otherwise) to make them a dominant force in the league again? I'm totally against firing Sloan, one of the last coaches left from an era where coaches stayed with teams for multiple years.

Thank you.

[Edited on 4/9/06 by Kwyjibo]

Well, threads are allowed to be derailed here, and they get FAR more derailed than that. Mark Eaton was part of your thread, and appropriately so. And since I have such fond memories of him, I thought I'd write about him--as did uber-poster Gibbs. If you think that was a desultory turn of the chat, so to speak, wait until you see some others that happen here.

B.H.N.

I agree with you about Sloan. I think he created a great system there, and it--along with two great players and a good supporting cast--got them very close to winning rings. And as Gibbs suggests, he did it with a far inferior center.

I've never thought the guy gets nearly the credit he deserves. He even got fine results out of the team when Stockton was running on fumes.

BHN

kwyjibo,

no apologies needed for the conversation's turn. I had started this thread to tlak about anything Utah Jazz, and Mt. Eaton (love that, BHN) certainly is Utah Jazz.

As for the current state of the Jazz? They are about the biggest dissappointment I have had in sports in recent memory, with the possible exception of the Phillies, but fans here have come to expect the Phils to finish second.

I was hopeing that this team would gel this season, but doesn't seem to have happened. My current living situation doesn't give me the opportunity to catch many games, so I can't say for sure what's been happening. I try to keep up with the standings, but it's such a let-down to always see them just out of the playoffs. And the problem certainly isn't Sloan, unless maybe he's not adapting his system enough to his personnel (which just may be the case, but I'm not following close enough to pass judgement there)

I can't get into the NBA too much with them sucking like this every year. This will be what, 3 years since they mad ethe playoffs? And no other team has piqued my interest, I was thinking maybe the T-Wolves, but then Sprewell let his true self show. Then I was hoping for Dallas, and they just may get my vote for this post-season, but I bet they will leave me disappointed, too.

I didn't mean to come off as an apologetic wuss, I just thought Eaton was too obscure a reference for people to get. Nice picture by the way. I met him when I was about 10 and was in complete awe of him.

I always liked Harpring and Kirilenko, but they suffer from the injury bug to often. Harpring throws himself after every ball, which is good hustle but seems to be taking its toll. Also Okur is having a pretty good year and Carlos Boozer has the best last name ever. Hopefully they get a good lottery pick and add some key players. I'm also sick of them missing the playoffs.

I'm rooting for Dallas at this point (unless the Celtics make it) but Nowitzki usually collapses at key moments during the playoffs.

[Edited on 4/9/06 by Kwyjibo]

Hey, they're only 2.5 games out of the playoffs! How the heck did that happen?!?!?