Stockton to Malone by Roland Lazenby

Author:Roland Lazenby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
Published: 1998-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sloan talks to a writer during the 1997 playoffs.

“There was a real sense of excitement with his hiring,” recalled Tim Hallam, the Bulls’ longtime PR man. “The owners thought Jerry Sloan would be the one guy who could rectify this stuff. But they just kept bringing in young guys and draft picks, and none of them worked out.”

“I wasn’t ready to be a coach, obviously,” Sloan says. “But since I’d played here I figured if I had the right people around me to help me out, I had a better feeling for all the things that were going on here and some of the problems you were gonna have to deal with.”

“Jerry was a wild man,” recalled former Bulls trainer Mark Pfeil. “His idea was, things don’t have to be complicated if you lay your heart on the line every night. And that’s the way he coached.”

“Some guys did not like Jerry,” said former Bull Ronnie Lester, now a scout for the Lakers. “Not that he was a tough guy to play for. But he demanded things of his players. He would get in players’ faces and challenge them personally, and a lot of players did not like that and did not take well to it.”

“You have to have intensity to a certain point,” Sloan says of coaching, “but it can be very damaging to you. The intensity I had as a player, it was hard to put aside as a coach. Early in my career, any question from other people seemed to be more of a challenge than anything else. I probably took it that way. That was very difficult for me. I wanted everything to be perfect. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t going to be.”

Sloan’s first Chicago team finished 30-52, and for his second year, the team brought in free agent forward Larry Kenon, who had averaged about 20 points and 10 rebounds for San Antonio. Almost immediately, the two began feuding.

“Jerry was such a straight-forward, stand-up guy,” Hallam said. “This was in the days before coaches began using the phoniness and coddling and bull that it took to keep players happy. Jerry wasn’t coddled as a person, didn’t expect it, and wasn’t going to give it. I think he got along with his kind of players. He didn’t get along with Larry Kenon. When I met Larry Kenon, I said, ‘Hello, Larry.’ He said, ‘Larry is my slave name. People call me K. or Dr. K.’

“Sloan threw a chair and had to get his attention,” Hallam said. “I think Kenon pissed Jerry off quite a bit and was really frustrating for Jerry. But Kenon wasn’t about to change.”

Sloan benched Kenon, then proceeded to coach the Bulls into the 1981 playoffs, where they upset the New York Knicks in the first round and lost to the Boston Celtics in the conference semifinals. But the next season, when the team started 19-32, general manager Rod Thorn fired Mr. Chicago Bull.

“Firing Jerry was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done because I have a lot of respect for him,” Thorn says now.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.