Jazz camp: Hook 'em, Sloan!
Two of the 10 non-Jazz employees allowed to watch the first practice of training camp, closed to the media and public, were recognizable figures to hoops junkies that know anything about programs in UT and at UT.
Utah coach Jim Boylen and Texas coach Rick Barnes watched the morning practice, sitting side-by-side on the small set of bleachers at Zions Bank Basketball Center.
Barnes’ appearance made for some fun interactions with two guys from Texas he recruited once upon a time – former Dallas prep players Deron Williams, who ended up at Illinois, and C.J. Miles, who skipped college to go pro after signing with the Longhorns.
That reunion was fun, but it wasn’t why Barnes came to Utah. Though he’s got nearly 500 college wins to his credit, Barnes wants to soak from knowledge in from the Jazz’s resident Hall of Fame coach, Jerry Sloan.
The UT coach came for a morning in the summer and returned this fall for a two-day stay.
“I’ve always been fascinated with what they do here. … I like what they do,” Barnes said. “I just wanted to see how they actually just taught it to these guys.”
Barnes admires Jazz teams’ consistency of high-quality play, adding that he’s not the only one. He’s hoping to help his teams emulate methods that help Utah shoot high field-goal percentage, share the ball effectively and get to the free-throw line. He lauds Sloan and his staff for having teams do all of that “year in, year out maybe better than anybody.”
“You ask anybody that’s involved in the NBA about teams and what they do here always comes up … they say it works,” Barnes said. “One thing for certain, it has stood the test of time.”
A few other Day 2 camp observations:
- All 17 Jazz players were at practice, including Andrei Kirilenko. Mixed reports later in Tuesday claimed that the four-way trade involving AK-47 were both dead and still alive. General manager Kevin O’Connor could not be reached for a “no comment” Tuesday night.
- Gordon Hayward stayed after the morning session to work one-on-one with special assistant coach Jeff Hornacek. As I noted on my Twitter account (DJJazzyJody – go follow!), that was “a lot of midwest talent there.” To that comment, Twitter user @slcdunk joked, “Did you need to wear shades?”
For the record, no sunglasses were needed. It’s certainly possible, though, that one of them got sunburned by the ZBBC lights.
- Tuesday was way to early for Sloan to make player evaluations. “We run quite a few plays and it takes guys a while to understand where they are. Not everybody jumps out there and grabs it and runs with it right off the bat. It takes time to work with it.”