Jeff Hornacek: Gone, but never forgotten

In the first round of this year's playoffs, Hornacek was spinning through the air, back to the basket, when he flipped a no-look shot over his shoulder that banked off the glass and into the net. Earlier this season, he made a similar shot while darting through the lane. The curious part of it is this: It wasn't a fluke. Anyone who has observed Hornacek knows it.

Nothing Hornacek did was unpracticed or uncalculated. He practiced those shots, or something close to them, and if he hadn't then, that computer in his brain did the rest. He studied and honed his shot, as well. Hornacek kept a notebook in which he recorded details and observations about his shooting technique and then referred to them when he hit the rare slump.

Unorthodox success

When he first came into the league, Hornacek was reluctant to attempt his unorthodox shots, such as his signature running jumper, because he was uncertain how coaches would respond. According to all standards of technique, a shooter should check his body's drift and take a balanced shot. Hornacek thought otherwise, and eventually coaches not only accepted it, they asked him how he did it and began teaching it to others.

"We call it the Hornacek Drill," says Chiesa. "We're teaching other guys to shoot off balance but under control. We've taught it to Howard Eisley and Jacque Vaughn and Quincy Lewis and Scott Padgett. Jeff taught me that. I looked at it, studied him every day and then asked him how he did it."

No one was ever quite certain how Hornacek did much of what he did. Part of the Hornacek mystique was that he looked like such a regular guy, on and off the court. Minutes after a game, dressed in a polo shirt and Dockers, with children following in his wake — as they did on weekend nights walking through the Delta Center to the parking lot and the Suburban — he could have been any Jazz fan headed for home. If you lined him up with nine other guys down at the YMCA to choose sides for a pickup game, he might be the last guy picked. Look at him: No muscles, medium build, a middle-aged white man, and that knee!

Bum luck