There was a basketball game at the Delta Center Thursday night, so it wasn't unusual to see Larry Miller there in his court-side seat.
But it isn't the Larry Miller most basketball fans know because it isn't the game he's watched over as the Jazz owner for the past 15 years. This was women's basketball, and — like most Utahns — he is still learning what the game is all about and how different it is from the men's game.
"It took a while for me to get used to it," he said. "I expected them to play like the men."
During the first game he attended four years ago, he noticed the opposition's defense sagged into the key on every possession.
"I kept screaming at the refs 'Illegal Defense! Illegal Defense!,' " he said with a slight smile. "I assumed the defense (rule that teams had to play man-to-man) was the same as the NBA. At halftime, one of them came over and said, 'Hey, you can play zone defense in this league.' "
Sometimes, he said, "how they cluster in the paint drives me crazy."
Miller gladly took on the responsibility to oversee the Starzz when the WNBA offered Salt Lake City one of the league's first franchises. But he said he really didn't know anything about the game. When he announced this fall that Utah would be allowed to keep the Starzz another three years, he said he'd learned a lot about how differently it had to be run and promoted.
He believes this year will be different because the team is different.
"We made a couple of changes last year (coaching, players and those who run the Starzz day to day operations) that I think really made a difference," he said. "We really do have a more competitive team."
The team helps support that claim by beating Minnesota 83-74 on opening night.
He called the team "an exciting product that deserves to be watched . . . We have a higher level of focus on game promotions, but we also have a quality product on the floor to sustain and warrant that.
"A lot of it depends on how we earn the right to be supported. The product has to warrant that."
This year he even got those same feelings of anticipation he gets at the beginning of a Jazz season. Miller went to about half the games last year, but he said he went through his summer calendar and tried to plan around the games more than in the past.
"The more I come, the more I understand the game," he said. "I get drawn into it emotionally, and it's really fun to watch . . . If I'm going to hope for support from the community, I've got to be willing to support them myself."
Miller wants that same familial relationship he has with Jazz players.
"It's part of what we want to try and build here," he said.
Miller is well-known for his relationship with Jazz players and coaches. He goes to practices, comes early to games, sometimes shoots around with the team and even has a locker in the team's dressing room.
And while this year he said he "feels more connected to the team" than he has in the past, he doesn't know many of the players beyond names. The gender difference has made bonding with the team a new experience.
"I'm nervous about where to be, and not to be," he said of the locker room. "I don't want to wander in at the wrong time."
He has gone to a few practices this year, but he said he felt like he made the players nervous, so he watched from the shadows of the Delta Center. He's gotten to know Natalie Williams and Margo Dydek but said he has no relationships that parallel those he has with "Karl, John and Jeff."
"The season is shorter and many players are gone (in the off-season) playing on international leagues," he said.
Miller said the thing he likes most about the WNBA is it reminds him of how the NBA used to be.
"Part of what's refreshing to me," he said after barking at a referee for giving Natalie Williams her fifth foul. "Is that in the men's game, so many younger athletes think they're bigger than the game, or they are the game, or they have a disdain for the game . . . So many of them disrespect the game. But these women are just happy to be here and to be playing. They're still very willing to interact with the fans. It was very refreshing to see that."
Miller hopes the WNBA becomes to little girls what he says the NBA is to so many young men.
"What you can become if you work really hard . . . It's what professional sports should be."
E-MAIL: adonald@desnews.com