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Clearly the Jazz tough-minded franchise point guard perhaps pushed Jerry Sloan over his own edge Wednesday night...several years of disconnect smoothed over by a shared tenacity for competing and winning finally boiled over as DWill's will drove him to ignore Jerry past the point of tolerance.
Same old stuff, different day, apparently. DERON'S been unsettled and extra crabby most of this season as the half-dozen new players integrated at different rates and levels of competence. His public complaints about teammates not knowing plays, not running plays and even direct shots at the coaching staff not doing enough to bring everybody up to speed through more state of the age techniques was a blatant appeal for some kind of change. He even ended one sentence with ..."but I'm not the coach."
AND...and the undoubted undercurrent was DWill's looming free agency in 2 years. He appears to have the keys to this franchise going forward, the Jazz do not want to lose him and therefore, understandably, are more tolerant of his moods and opinions.look around the league, it's happening everywhere.
Stir in Deron's uber competitive nature ( a big part of the reason Jazz fans love and cherish him night in and night out) and Wednesday night/ Thursday turned into the perfect storm. Jerry admitted he had lost the fire, the energy to battle to keep it "his way or the highway". Do we really think the challenges Deron presented are any more troubling than what Malone, or in a totally different way Ostertag brought? NO.
The irony of the announced contract extension for Sloan for next season is, that it maybe became a loud and unmutable wake-up call for Jerry. Clearly seeing the landscape of the near future and Deron's role in it, Coach Sloan just read the situation for what it is and decided to stand true to his rock solid beliefs.
His way meant the highway!
So...don't blame Deron. 10 or 15 years ago Sloan would've gotten seriously "sideways" with anybody creating this challenge to the way Jazz run their business, and we all "would've gone on about our business"
Wow...what a week!
We wish Jerry was still on board but we wish him well and thank both Coach Sloan and Coach Johnson for their incredible contributions to the Jazz and the sports community here in Utah.
Please feedback and react: Tom.Kirkland@ksl.com and follow me on Twitter @tksportsbeat
