Jazz have loosely enforced midnight curfew

PORTLAND, Ore. — Last time the Jazz visited Portland, for an October exhibition, trouble was the name of the game.

Four Utah players paid a late-hours visit to a strip club, an exotic dancerwound up in of their rooms and before the trip was done local police were investigating whether or not a sexual assault had occurred.

Ultimately, authorities decided not to file any charges.

But there were consequences.

Jazz players now have a loosely enforced midnight curfew when on the road, an order that caused ripples around the NBA — and briefly became a topic of national sports talk — when word of it spread.

"That's just the woes of having a young team, I guess," the Detroit News quoted the Pistons' Rasheed Wallace as saying. "I guess he (Jazz coach Jerry Sloan) is trying to get control of his squad."

"You know, if guys want to go out, they are going to go out," Pistons coach Flip Saunders told the Detroit newspaper. "If you are going to check rooms at midnight, you will also have to check them at 12:30, 1, 1:30 and 2."

Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown weighed in with the Akron Beacon Journal.

"I've never thought of doing something like that," he said. "These guys are grown men and it is all up to the individual."

Sloan doesn't understand all the hullabaloo and recently set the record straight as to just who imposed the Jazz's team curfew.

"It wasn't me specifically," the Jazz coach said. "It kind of came out as 'I.' It was our organization.

"I don't know why that would be a problem or something to discuss," added Sloan, whose club faces the Trail Blazers tonight in its first game after the NBA All-Star Game break. "I guess basketball is boring, and you've got to have something else to talk about. We always talk about things other than the game itself anyway."

TRADE TALK: Even with Thursday's NBA trade deadline right around the corner, it appears the Jazz have no deals currently in the works.

"I don't have anything I've been working on for a while," said Jazz basketball operations senior vice president Kevin O'Connor, who added that even after spending last weekend in Las Vegas with other general managers from throughout the league things are "very quiet."