Utah Jazz: Sloan will take wins over award, thank you

The pitch for NBA Coach of the Year honors was delivered via UPS ground, packed in a square box emblazoned with the logo of the New Orleans Hornets.

There, resting like a solitary egg in an Easter basket, was a simple notecard.

On one side, it read, in capital letters, "BYRON SCOTT IS COACH OF THE YEAR."

On the other, beneath a straight-forward rundown of five factoids as to how Scott has "exceeded all expectations by leading the Hornets to their best season in franchise history," is the message, "NO NONSENSE. NO GIMMICKS. STRAIGHT TO THE POINT. JUST LIKE COACH SCOTT."

Scott, whose Chris Paul-led Hornets on Friday night became the first NBA Western Conference team to clinch a playoff berth this season, has never won official NBA Coach of the Year honors as voted on by primarily NBA print and broadcast media members from throughout North America.

Neither has Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, whose only pitch for winning the award amounts to a brushback at any and all suggestions that he should even be considered.

In fact, Sloan — who with five games remaining in the regular season is eight victories shy of No. 1,000 with the Jazz — gets downright grouchy whenever the subject is broached.

So he regularly deflects attention onto a staff of assistants — longtime right-hand man (and 1975 NBA Coach of the Year) Phil Johnson, former Jazz and New York Knicks general manager Scott Layden and ex-Jazz forward Tyrone Corbin — that he considers not only quite able but also terrifically essential.

"Everyone knows how much the people who work with me do," Sloan said last week.

"I've always (delegated responsibility)," he said. "When I worked with Frank, (Layden, the ex-Jazz coach — and 1984 NBA Coach of the Year — who also is Scott Layden's father) I always did those things. And the people that work with me, they do the things that I was involved in when I was assistant. It's made it a lot easier on everybody."

Sloan — whose 51-26 Jazz can clinch a playoff berth with either a Golden State loss at New Orleans, or a victory of their own Tuesday night at New Orleans — considers the approach a group-think effort.

"Everybody gets to be a part of it," he said, and I think that's what basketball is supposed to be — not an individual thing."

But the coaching honor, like it or not, does go to an individual, and Sloan has a small — albeit vocal — camp of supporters.