Good Guys Of The Week

A Great Coach Says Goodbye and a Great Shooter Breaks a Record

Jerry Sloan

I was actually really sad to hear that Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan resigned suddenly late yesterday afternoon. Sloan has been the Utah coach since 1988, the longest tenured coach in all professional sports. Sloan was revered by his peers and the players he coached as well as multiple players around the league. The word that kept coming up from all the former players was sadness and that the NBA was losing an icon. This is the coach that brought us Stockton and Malone and made the Utah Jazz into an institution. There were some reports that current Jazz guard Deron Williams had a disagreement with Sloan and that made him resign abruptly in the middle of the season. Hopefully none of those things are true because Williams is one of the better point guards in the league and that would tarnish his career. But more on Sloan, in his time in Salt Lake there have been more than 150 coaching changes in the NBA. Basically every team in the NBA changed coaches on average about three times and he still was coaching. He ran the same offense UCLA cutting style offense and bruising defense for over 23 years. He coached Utah to back to back NBA Final appearances, unfortunately the Jazz ran into Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Sadly, Sloan never won coach of the year. The Jazz were consistently in the playoffs and perennial contenders for a while but Sloan never got the respect from the writers. Sloan was never the type to blow his own horn but he deserved more. The NBA loss more than a Hall of Famer on Thursday afternoon. They lost an icon the likes that will never be seen again.

Ray Allen

Ray Allen broke the all-time 3-point shots made record that was held by Reggie Miller. Allen has made 2,561 three pointers which broke the record that Miller held for 13 years. That record will never be broken again. The reason why is guys have to have three things: health, longevity, and a beautiful jumper. Ray has been blessed with all three of those things. I mean, this guy had a movie based off of how well he shoots the ball (He Got Game, for those who didn't know). Ray is not the scorer Kobe or Michael or even Larry Bird was but what he has brought to the game is the art of shooting. Watching Ray shoot is a thing of beauty. Ray holds numerous three point records for single season, most in a half, playoff games and etc. Allen has always played the game the right way and with class, which is appreciated in today's society. You will never see another shooter as graceful and as pure as Allen because shooting has become a lost art.