Utah Jazz: Future of the franchise

He is not their first caretaker. But the Jazz clearly are Larry H. Miller's baby, and he treats them as such. Always has; always, he vows, will — even knowing all that entails.

It is for that reason Miller accepts the realization that, like any child, the chief priority in raising them is rather rudimentary.

"With a kid," Miller said, "the No. 1 thing you want to do is keep them alive."

Anything more is icing.

So when Miller ponders the future of a franchise he has owned outright for a decade and a half now, and takes time to address what direction the team is headed — and his doubts about whether it can really win it all — it is appropriate that the child-rearing analogy be applied to the Jazz. Because as tempting as continuing to chase Utah's first NBA title may be, something more simplistic takes priority.

"My goal, even greater than winning a championship," Miller said during a lengthy interview, "is to retain the economic viability of the franchise."

That has been Miller's aim since the mid-1980s, when he bought first 50 percent, and later all, of the Jazz.

It is what he had in mind when asked then if he really intended to hold on to the team and keep it in Utah, and it is what he has in mind now while facing tough questions prompted by the eventual, inevitable retirements of future Hall-of-Famers John Stockton and Karl Malone.

"I always said yes (to the issue of making a long-term, full-fledged financial commitment to the Jazz) — provided they don't endanger the rest of our businesses," said Miller, whose various holdings include one of the nation's largest automotive sales groups, and ventures in the office tower, movie theater and restaurant fronts. "I have a responsibility to 5,000 other people and their families, and I take it extremely seriously."

That as a backdrop, what does it all mean to the Jazz?

Conflicting times, it seems.

On one hand, Miller says the money he has spent subsidizing his, Stockton's and Malone's championship pursuits has the Jazz in a spending pattern that approaches "dangerous territory, financially, if it were to continue." It simply can't go on, and — Miller promises — it will not.