It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan named NBA coach of the year by the Sporting News.

Sloan received 12.5 of 24 votes cast by his fellow NBA coaches, finishing ahead of Memphis' Hubie Brown, who received 9.5 votes. Jeff Bzdelik, Denver Nuggets and Stan Van Gundy, Miami Heat tied for third with one vote apiece.

Other than the fact that he was insufferably annoying as a color commentator on TNT, I have nothing against Hubie Brown who has done an incredible job with the previously hapless Vancouver/Memphis franchise. But Sloan was stuck with a team whose entire combined salary was less than the average individual salary of an NBA player, a team that everyone expected to have to fight to get to double digits in wins. And he took that team to the brink of the playoffs in the tough Western Conference (if memory serves, the Jazz would have been seeded fourth or fifth if it were an Eastern Conference team). So, kudos to grumpy Jerry.


A rare smile for Jerry Sloan