The last time someone other than Jerry Sloan was the head coach of the Utah Jazz, Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States. For the past 23 seasons, Sloan has been on the bench for Utah, taking the Jazz to the playoffs 19 times and having them in position to make the postseason again this year. Despite never leading the Jazz to a championship, he took them to back to back finals in the late 90s and steps down with 3rd most wins in NBA history (1221).
Reports are saying that the 68 year old Sloan stepped down because of "creative differences" with the team's starting point guard, Deron Williams, which is truly unfortunate. The Jazz are 31-23 and just 3 1/2 games behind Oklahoma City in the Northwest Division. They're currently in line to make the postseason which considering they lost Kyle Korver, Carlos Boozer and Wesley Matthews to free agency during the offseason, and Mehmet Okur has only been able to play in 13 games this year due to injuries, is quite an accomplishment. I know there's times as a player when you're going to question your coach, but when the coach you're questioning has 1221 career wins and only missed the playoffs in the three seasons immediately following the departure of franchise icons Karl Malone and John Stockton. And even out of those 3 years, the Jazz only had a losing record one time. It just stinks. It should not have ended this way for Jerry Sloan. Jazz assistant Tyrone Corbin takes over as the new head coach.
In the past six months we've now seen the departure of Bobby Cox, who retired after 21 seasons with the Braves, Jeff Fisher, who had a mutual divorce with the Titans after 17 seasons and now Sloan resigning after 23 seasons. Times they are a-changing.
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