The Dream Shake - a Houston Rockets blog: Rudy T is infinitely better at everything than Jerry Sloan

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Rudy T is infinitely better at everything than Jerry Sloan

I have to say, for a fan of/writer for the Utah Jazz, I typically like Ross Siller. He is a solid writer that doesn't seem to be swayed from his opinion easily. With the niceties out of the way, Mr. Siller, you could not be more wrong.

He writes:

I won't rehash the whole thing for you, but the bottom line is Sloan was the lead assistant for the 1996 Olympic team. Everyone figured he would get the top job in 2000, given USA Basketball protocol going back to the Dream Team days. But Sloan was bypassed in favor of Tomjanovich for the head coaching job in Sydney.

The snub was a result of politics, personalities and backroom maneuvering and left the veteran Jazz coach as upset and disillusioned as I have ever seen him, mostly because he did not know what he did wrong.

The fact is, Sloan did nothing wrong.
The only part of those words that seems correct to me is that Sloan was indeed bypassed in favor of Tomjanovich. But let's get one thing straight; At no point in time, in either of their careers, was Sloan a better player OR coach than Rudy Tomjanovich. Not for one single second. Sloan would be, and was at that time, a terrible choice to coach Team USA. He simply is not fit for that job. It's the same reason he couldn't ever win a championship with two top 50 all time players for their entire carrers; he just doesn't have what it takes to win a championship of any kind. While he had Malone and Stockton's loyalty, I just never saw that from his other players that weren't stars. Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer (though I'm less sure of him) seem to be in the same boat. I'm not stating this with any kind of inside knowledge. It is in every way my own opinion, but Sloan just seems like an asshole. That alone is enough to not reach most of today's players. Coaches like him are over, they aren't what wins championships in the NBA or International play. Coaches like Rudy T were the new breed, they relate to players and still get their message across.

And I know Tomjanovich isn't an NBA coach still, though let it be very clear that this had NOTHING to do with lack of ability. He was a fantastic NBA coach from the day he took the job till the day he quit for medical reasons. Let's not forget, Rudy probably should have died after that Kermit Washington punch. His medical reasons for stopping were multiple. His coaching reasons for stopping were nil.

Ross, I know your point was to say that Sloan should have coached the team, but leave Rudy out of it.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, I'd love to see how Kobe, LeBron, Wade and Dwight Howard react when Sloan calls them a bunch of "faggots"... a word I despise, but from all accounts a word Jerry Sloan tends to use as a crutch.

the dude made AK47 cry during a playoff game. Dwight Howard might have a nervous breakdown if anyone ever yelled at him like that.

Robbie said...

smartest jazz fan ever

Basketball John said...

I'm way late with this, but this was written By Steve Luhm (Luhmmy as we call him). Most of his stuff I can't stand. Especially his "Ask the Expert" columns. Don't read them. Anyway, it wasn't Siler.

Second, Luhmmy never claimed that Sloan was a better coach. He wasn't bagging on Rudy. He was saying that following previous protocol, Sloan was the next pick. He was forced out because of other things than his ability to coach.

And finally, Sloan is a HOF coach, period. He had a better winning percentage than Rudy, .603-.559. He's had exactly one losing season in 20 years with the Jazz. And as far as players not having loyalty, he's got to be doing something right. He might be the meanest SOB, but he gets the players to give their all out on the court. And the year after Stockton retired and Malone went to LA, the team was expected to challenge for the worst record of all time. But they went out and won 42 games, missing the playoffs by one game. Have you looked at the 2003-04 Jazz? Tell me how they win that many games with any other coach.

And while Deron Williams hated his first year in the league, he would defend Sloan to the grave.