Jerry Sloan, the former coach of the Utah Jazz that led them to the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998, has died at the age of 78 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, the Jazz announced on Friday.
Sloan revolutionized the NBA by bringing the pick-and-roll into the mainstream with his legendary duo of Karl Malone and John Stockton. The three of them spent a total of 18 seasons together, 15 with Sloan in the top job in Utah. The Jazz have not been back to the NBA Finals since they left.
Before he was a coach for the Jazz, he was a player. Drafted No. 4 overall out of the small University of Evansville by the Washington Bullets in 1965, Sloan was traded to the expansion Chicago Bulls only a year into his career. As their point guard, Sloan made the All-Star Game twice and earned four All-Defensive Team honors. His No. 4 jersey is retired by the Bulls.
The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league’s Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded on January 16, 1966, and played its first game during the 1966–67 NBA season.
The National Basketball Association is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams and is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. It is the premier men’s professional basketball league in the world.
The territory of modern Utah has been inhabited by various indigenous groups for thousands of years, including the ancient Puebloans, the Navajo, and the Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region’s difficult geography and climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico.
Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah’s admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted as the 45th, in 1896.
A little more than half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City. Utah is the only state where most of the population belongs to a single church. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.
The state has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, and mining and a major tourist destination for outdoor recreation.
A 2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the “best state to live in the future” based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, and health-related outlook metrics.
The Utah Jazz are an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the league’s Western Conference, Northwest Division. Since 1991, the team has played its home games at Vivint Arena.