For openers, the Jazz are lousy. For seven seasons, going all the way back to Mark Eaton's rookie year, they've lost on Opening Night. Told about the streak, Eaton said, smiling, "It must be my fault."
The Jazz will try again tonight in the Salt Palace against Denver, and they're not exactly troubled by their history of bad starts. In fact, an informal poll of Jazz veterans showed that only about half were aware of their record in openers.After working four openers as an assistant coach, Jerry Sloan will begin his first full season as the Jazz's head coach. Naturally, Sloan has his own strategy in hopes of reversing the trend: "We're going to try to win," he said wryly.
While most of the games from past years are a blur to the players, the Jazz have had had some memorable openers. No. 1 on the list is the Halloween Nightmare in Dallas in 1986, when they scored only 31 points in the first half on the way to a 103-77 loss, avoiding team records for single-game futility only because of early failures in the New Orleans days.
The next season, the Mavericks purposely asked the NBA to have the Jazz visit again on Opening Night - not just because of recent history, but because Mavs officials wanted Frank Layden to speak at a tipoff luncheon. In that game, Karl Malone was ejected in the third quarter but Darrell Griffith put the Jazz ahead with a baseline shot, only to have Dallas' Derek Harper rescue a 95-93 win with a last-second 3-pointer.
Last November, Malone celebrated the signing of his 10-year, $18 million contract a few hours earlier by scoring 36 points against Seattle. But with defensive ace Bobby Hansen sidelined by a broken hand, Dale Ellis scored 46 against Darrell Griffith in the SuperSonics' 104-97 win.
The Jazz still went on to a 51-31 record, the best in franchise history. While Opening Night creates a little more excitement than usual in the Salt Palace, the game is, of course, only 1/82nd of an NBA schedule.
"It really isn't that important," says veteran forward Thurl Bailey. "If we win it, great. If we lose it, there are 81 more."
Denver arrives for what would have been a homecoming game for ex-Jazz general manager David Checketts. Scheduled to take over as the Nuggets' president, Checketts pulled out last month when the sale of the team to Bertram Lee and Peter Bynoe apparently collapsed. The new owners later salvaged the deal with outside financial help, and Thursday they named Jon Spoelstra as president.
Denver will bring back former Jazzman Eddie Hughes, who made the team as a backup point guard when Denver waived veteran Allen Leavell and second-year player Corey Gaines this week. Hughes finished the 1987-88 season with the Jazz and appeared in 26 games in two stretches with the Nuggets last year.
The Nuggets open the season following a preseason schedule that sent them to Newfoundland and to Rome for the McDonald's Classic, which they won by defeating teams from Spain and Yugoslavia.
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Losing Streak
The Jazz's last seven regular-season openers:
Year Score Site Leading scorers
'82 San Antonio 120, Jazz 114 SLC Dantley 35, Gervin 28
'83 Denver 139, Jazz 125 Denver Dantley 40, Vandeweghe 37
'84 Seattle 102, Jazz 94 Seattle Griffith 21, Vranes 24
'85 Houston 112, Jazz 108 SLC Dantley 32, Olajuwon 27
'86 Dallas 103, Jazz 77 Dallas Malone 12, Aguirre 18
'87 Dallas 95, Jazz 93 Dallas Malone 25, Aguirre 31
'88 Seattle 104, Jazz 97 SLC Malone 36, Ellis 46