I've seen a lotin the 25 years the Jazz have been in Utah.
I saw two of the greatest players in history, for 18 seasons, mastering the pick-and-roll. I saw the NBA Finals here twice.
I saw the great opponents as they stormed through on their road trips: Magic, Bird, Hakeem, the Admiral, Kobe, Shaq. I saw MJ the night he scored 38 in a Finals game, fighting a 102-degree fever.
I saw Isiah Thomas writhing on the court after being struck in the eye by Karl Malone.
I saw a rainbow-shooting Darrell Griffith, a self-absorbed Adrian Dantley, a begoggled Thurl Bailey, a towering Mark Eaton, a dead-eyed Jeff Hornacek. I saw Jerry Sloan angrily banishing Greg Ostertag and Chris Morris to the locker room. I saw Bobbye Sloan, strong and unbowed in the closing weeks of her life.
I saw the somber crowd the night it was announced Magic Johnson was HIV-positive. I was there the night John Stockton returned from knee surgery to an ovation that lasted for minutes.
I saw the move from the dimly lit Salt Palace to the high-gloss Delta Center.
I saw an All-Star game to remember — an overtime, in which the hometown heroes were named co-MVP's.
I saw Karl Malone weep as he and thousands of fans said farewell to Stockton.
But the thing I didn't see was Pistol Pete Maravich.
Long before he died of a heart ailment in a pickup game in 1988, he was gone from Utah. I'd like to believe his ghost haunts the Utah court where he once played, throwing behind-the-back passes in the moonlight. But that would be untrue. The Salt Palace arena is gone. Beyond that, Maravich only played in 17 games in that first Jazz season in Salt Lake, before being waived.
He never truly was a member of Utah's Jazz.
"He was only a shadow here," says Tom Nissalke, the first Jazz coach in Utah.
His number hangs in the Delta Center rafters, but that's only because he was a star with the franchise, not a star in Salt Lake. By the time the team moved from New Orleans, fast living and a rebellious knee had taken their fee.
Pete never smiled much. Nissalke — who knew him from the time he was a college freshman — can't remember him smiling at all. Perhaps it was too many demons: a war with alcohol, a mother who committed suicide, a demanding, discipline-first father, who was also his college coach.
A life made tolerable by hours on the court.
"He was a tormented guy," says Nissalke.
Maravich got his life working at the end. He became a family man who converted to Christianity. But he was dead at 40.
So I missed seeing the Pete who averaged 44 points in college, and the grown-up Pete who found his peace. Most of all, I missed the show — the floppy socks and hair to match, the no-look passes and 35-foot hooks.
Had he come along today, maybe there would be no place for him.
The game's groping defenses and ball control offenses might have suffocated him. But Nissalke doesn't believe it. He contends that in his prime, Maravich could make plays and score points in incomparable ways. Nissalke recalls a night during the New Orleans years, in which Houston's Ed Ratleff begged to guard Maravich, promising to shut him down.
The Pistol answered with 28 points — in the first quarter.
"I think there would be a huge place for him in the game today," says Nissalke.
Sadly, there was no place for him yesterday. The moment Maravich arrived in Utah, Nissalke knew it was over. "He was a tortured young man," says Nissalke.
His color was bad, the knee gone and he was out of shape. But it was more than that. He didn't want to be here. In New Orleans, he was lionized. By the time he got to Utah, he was a curiosity piece, relegated to coming off the bench.
Nissalke says he would have played Maravich more, but it was obvious his game was history. "If he could have still played (as before), he would have humiliated everyone in practice," says Nissalke.
Maravich finished the 1979-80 season in Boston. There, too, he was only a shadow.
I can't say I feel cheated by not seeing the Jazz win a championship; seeing the Finals here was fine. I saw most or all of the great players of the era come through. I saw Malone and Stockton at their finest.
I just never got to see Pistol Pete.
In that, I too am tormented.
E-mail: rock@desnews.com