Jerry Sloan was either the best coach in the NBA this year, or the second best - depending on who you believe, fellow coaches or the media.
Sloan was voted as the runner-up to Indiana's Larry Bird in the NBA's official Coach of the Year voting of 116 media members. It will be announced today in an afternoon press conference in Indianapolis. Bird, the Pacers' rookie coach, garnered 50 votes to Sloan's 29. The long-time Utah Jazz mentor had nearly twice as many votes as third-place finisher Mike Fratello of Cleveland, who had 15.But Sloan will be named the NBA's Coach of the Year on Wednesday by The Sporting News, the Deseret News has learned. The Sporting News, the national weekly magazine and online sports information provider, polled NBA coaches to pick their top coach.
But Sloan, in characteristic fashion, doesn't care much about either honor.
"Awards, for the most part, are popularity contests," he said. "I can't concern myself with those things."
When told he had been voted the TSN's NBA Coach of the Year by his peers, Sloan reacted in a way consistent with his self-deprecating manner.
"I'm not so sure they didn't make a mistake," he said. "I can think of some other guys they probably should have gone with . . . . What it really means is that the coaches I work with have done a great job and, of course, the players did a great job. A coach can only be as good as his players."
The TSN award is the first national honor for a Jazz coach since Frank Layden was the league's official Coach of the Year for the 1983-84 season.
In this, his 10th year as the head man in Utah - the longest current tenure with the same team in the league - Sloan led the Jazz to the best record in the NBA at 62-20. He did it despite several team trials, including injuries to John Stockton and centers Greg Ostertag and Antoine Carr.
One of the distractions Sloan had to deal with this season concerned talk about his own future with the team. Sloan, who is under contract with the Jazz through next season, did not have his deal extended an additional year during the campaign - as had been protocol over the past several years. He didn't like to talk about his contract negotiations, but on several occasions his star forward Karl Malone went on record saying he wouldn't play in Utah for anyone else.
Jazz owner Larry Miller has insisted all along that Sloan will be the Jazz coach for as long as he wants to be and the fact that an extension wasn't signed did not mean team management was looking elsewhere.
Despite leading the Jazz to the best record in the league and helping them to homecourt advantage through the playoffs, Sloan feels he's done a better job in the past.
"This isn't the best job of coaching I've done," Sloan insists. "There were some other years when I didn't have the same kind of talent to work with that I feel pretty good about."
Others think it's about time Sloan received such acclaim.
"Jerry is certainly not going to toot his own horn and it's not our style to do it for him either," said Stockton. "He's a wonderful coach. He's done a great job through some adversity . . . For us to be able to win through all that is a great credit to him. Being able to win for so many years continuously with him is remarkable."
Sloan's best previous finish in Coach of the Year voting was last season when he received 13 votes to place third.
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Additional Information
Coach balloting
Voting totals for the 1997-98 NBA Coach of the Year:
- Larry Bird, Indiana 50
- Jerry Sloan, Utah 29
- Mike Fratello, Cleveland 15
- Pat Riley, Miami 5
- Danny Ainge, Phoenix 4
- George Karl, Seattle 4
- Phil Jackson, Chicago 3
- Rick Pitino, Boston 3
- Chuck Daly, Orlando 1
- John Calipari, New Jersey 1
- Jeff Van Gundy, New York 1