Hotel ordeal disappoints Jazz owner

Jazz owner Larry H. Miller on Thursday expressed disappointment in, and added several details to, an incident in Portland, Ore., last weekend that resulted in multiple team members being interviewed by police there regarding concerns about a possible sexual assault.

"It's very troublesome," Miller said, "even if nothing wrong happened, to put themselves in a position where it could have looked like something wrong — if they were in the wrong place they shouldn't have been, or whatever.

"That's not what we're about."

Miller suggested an evening of trouble began before "at least two" and perhaps "up to four" players returned to the team's RiverPlace hotel in downtown Portland following an apparent late night/early morning on the town.

Authorities were called to the hotel after an employee phoned regarding a woman who was said to be hysteric.

"Kevin (O'Connor, the Jazz's senior vice president of basketball operations) called me," Miller said, "and said, 'You just need to be aware the police are here asking questions. They've been doing interviews, and interviewed some other people that were witnesses, and everything supports what the Jazz players were saying, and it looks like they're fine.'"

According to Miller, witnesses confirmed what the unidentified Jazz players told police — that they did not want the woman to join them in one of their rooms.

Said Miller: "A cab driver said, 'They told her not to come with them.' The night clerk at the hotel heard them say, 'Don't come up to the room.'"

The case remains under investigation by Portland police, but the woman involved in the incident apparently is not cooperating.

"I don't know what that means — unless she was trying to set somebody up," Miller said. "But that's only a guess on my part."

Jazz players did answer police questions, though.

"All I know about the response," Miller said, "was the police said they were totally cooperative — that they were asked for their version of it, and would they give DNA samples? It turns out they didn't need to.

"So, I was satisfied with that part of it once it happened. I wasn't ... pleased at all with what happened in the first place."

Miller did not say specifically where Jazz players were before they returned to the hotel, but he did reference the case of Indiana player Stephen Jackson, who was struck by a car and allegedly fired gunshots during a recent incident at an Indianapolis strip club.