The NBA lost an all-time great on Friday, as the legendary Jerry Sloan passed away at the age of 78.
Sloan was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a coach in 2009, coaching 26 seasons in total in the league. Twenty-three of those came with the Utah Jazz, where Sloan carved out an incredible run. He also spent three seasons as head coach of the Chicago Bulls.
Of course, Sloan was also a heck of a player in his day, playing 11 seasons in the NBA from 1965 through 1976. Ten of those campaigns came with the Bulls.
Without further ado, here are the best moments of Sloan's career:
5. Jerry Sloan in 1966-67
Sloan entered the NBA with the Baltimore Bullets in 1965 but spent just one season there before heading to the Bulls the following year.
His first season in Chicago was terrific, as he averaged 17.4 points and 9.1 rebounds over 36.8 minutes per game en route to an All-Star appearance.
Let's keep this in mind: Sloan was a 6-foot-5, 190-pound shooting guard, and he was averaging almost 10 boards. That is insane.
As a matter of fact, Sloan logged over eight rebounds per game three times in his NBA career and posted a lifetime average of 7.4 boards, which is incredible for a man of his stature.
Anyway, that 1966-67 campaign was his best as a player, and he helped put the Bulls on the map as an NBA franchise, hence his nickname “The Original Bull.”
That is also pretty ironic considering all of the pain and grief the Bulls would later cause him as a coach.
4. Fifteen straight playoff appearances as a coach
Jerry Sloan took over as head coach of the Jazz in 1988 and proceeded to lead the franchise to 15 straight playoff appearances from then until 2003.
Yes, he had a couple of Hall-of-Famers in Karl Malone and John Stockton along the way, but making the postseason 15 years in a row as a coach is a heck of an accomplishment regardless of who is in your roster.
Sloan was a mastermind of getting the most out of his players and surrounding his stars with the appropriate talent. Many casual NBA fans would probably not even be able to name more than two players outside of Malone and Stockton on those Utah teams, and somehow, Sloan made it work.
Throughout that decade-and-a-half-long run, the Jazz won over 50 games 10 times and reached the 60-win plateau three times. They also made a pair of finals appearances, which we will get to in a little bit.
3. Re-igniting the Jazz in 2006-07
After making 15 straight trips to the postseason, the Jazz went three years without a playoff appearance between 2004 and 2006.
However, thanks to some terrific drafting (Deron Williams) and free-agent signings (Carlos Boozer), the Jazz re-assumed their place in the West during the 2006-07 campaign, winning 51 games and making it all the way to the Western Conference Finals.
The following year, Utah would win 54 games, and after tallying 48 victories in 2008-09, the Jazz would rattle off another 53 wins in Sloan's final full season at the helm in 2009-10.
He stepped down midway through the 2010-11 campaign when the Jazz were 31-23.
The fact that Jerry Sloan was able to get Utah back to prominence without Malone and Stockton proved just how phenomenal of a coach and talent evaluator he really was.
2. Jerry Sloan getting jersey retired by the Bulls
While Michael Jordan gets all of the headlines in Chicago (and for good reason), it was actually Sloan who was the first player to get his number retired by the Bulls.
Sloan's No. 4 hangs in the rafters of the United Center thanks to his contributions to the franchise in its early stages.
Chicago broke into the NBA as a team in 1966, which also happened to be Sloan's first season with the club. I already mentioned his All-Star season that year, but Sloan made another trip to the All-Star Game a couple of years later when he registered 16.8 points, 7.9 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game.
Jerry Sloan also propelled the Bulls to nine playoff appearances throughout his 10 years with the team, guiding them all the way to the Western Conference Finals (yes, the Bulls played in the West at that time) during his final season in the Windy City in 1975.
1. Back-to-back finals appearances in 1997 and 1998
Had it not been for Michael Jordan, Jerry Sloan probably would have at least one ring.
Utah made consecutive trips to the finals in 1997 and 1998, falling to Jordan's Bulls in six games in both appearances. The Jazz won 64 and 62 games in '97 and '98, respectively, and fought through a very tough Western Conference that included the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and Seattle Supersonics to get to the finals.
This was one heck of a notch in Sloan's belt and solidified him as one of the greatest NBA coaches in history.
No, he was never able to win a title, but that applied to a whole lot of other players and coaches and executives (you name it) who were present in Jordan's era.
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