WASHINGTON — When they opened training camp last month without him for the first time in 10 seasons, Jazz players spoke of Bryon Russell with high regard.
"You don't spend nine years with a guy . . . and not have feelings for him off the court," Karl Malone said then.
John Stockton seemed to agree.
"Bryon, for me, will be the harder adjustment (vs. Donyell Marshall, who left Utah as a free agent after spending only two years with the Jazz)," Stockton said, "because it feels like he was here as long as Karl.
"We're friends."
If Russell shares similar sentiments, especially regarding Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, he sure isn't airing them publicly.
Ever since the Jazz decided not to re-sign him last offseason, Utah's longtime swingman has been slinging verbal barbs at management of the NBA organization that originally drafted him as a second-rounder out of Long Beach State in 1993.
Wednesday, on the eve of the Jazz's first game against Russell's new team, the blows kept coming, hard and frequently.
This time, some were directed straight at his former teammates.
"I'm not going to think of any of them as 'my boys' until the game is over with," Russell, who starts now at small forward for the Washington Wizards, told the Washington Post.
"There's only a few of them I got along with anyway," Russell added, "so I'm all about beating them."
But Russell saved the most-stinging shots for Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, who declined comment after hearing what was said.
"Here (in Washington) it's different. The coach (Doug Collins) doesn't try to tear you down all the time. There (Sloan) tears people's confidence down," Russell told the Post. "How can somebody want to play for somebody that tears their confidence down all the time? He does that to a lot of players that are there now."
Yet Russell did want to continue playing for Sloan.
He had hoped to cash in with a big contract over the offseason but became bitter after not even receiving an offer from the Jazz, who decided his game had deteriorated so much so they did not want him back.
Instead, Russell accepted a one-year, $1 million veteran's minimum deal in Washington.
Since joining the Wizards he has mostly struggled, averaging just 5.1 points on 33.3 percent shooting before scoring a season-high 10 points and pulling down a season-high eight rebounds in Washington's 101-95 loss to Seattle on Tuesday.
In Washington, Russell gets to play with Michael Jordan — the same man whose Chicago Bulls beat Utah for both the 1997 and '98 NBA championships.
But re-signing with the Jazz, Russell said, "was my first option.
"They never offered me anything. Nothing," he told the Post, essentially repeating what he and his agent have said several times the past few months. "They could say they did, but they didn't. If they told you they did, they'd be lying."
And for that, Russell remains mad.
"I thought it ended on a sour note," he said. "But I'm blessed to be gone. I'm happy."
His supposed happiness sounds both professional, and personal — even if Russell did supposedly drop in on the Jazz's Pentagon City team hotel to visit a few ex-teammates Wednesday night.
"There ain't no love there; just a few people," he told the Post.
"I'm going out there with the intention of whipping the Jazz's you-know-what," Russell added. "I don't care. Ain't no love. Nothing."
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com