Jerry Sloan shows interest in the vacant Orlando Magic head coaching position – NBA Update
NBA great Jerry Sloan has shown his desire to return back to the league again as the head coach of the Orlando Magic franchise.
Speaking to FOX Sports Florida, Sloan clearly made his intentions known that he would like to take up the position with the Magic and considered himself to be an intriguing choice for the team management.
“Yes, I think so,’’ Sloan said “It would be very intriguing. But they would have to be interested in me.’’
Sloan’s last coaching stint was with Utah Jazz. He however left the Salt Lake City based franchise midway through last season after his famous dispute with the All-star guard Deron Williams and differences with the team management.
Three days later Williams was also traded to the New Jersey Nets.
The Magic coaching slot opened up yesterday after the franchise decided to fire its out spoken coach Stan Van Gundy, who had openly talked of his differences with ace player Dwight Howard. His firing and that of general manager
Otis Smith are apparently part of the rumoured offer Magic made to the Superman, just to convince him to stay at Orlando.
In his previous experience while coaching in the NBA, Sloan has had an illustrious tenure with the Utah Jazz. He stayed with team for 23 years and finished his time with a win-loss record of 1,221–803. Sloan is also only the fifth
coach in NBA history to achieve 1000 wins with a single team.
In his tenure, Sloan mentored the likes of Karl Malone, and is famous for his ‘Flex Offense’. The only drawback in Sloan’s style of coaching is that he is not a player’s coach, but opposite of that. That may not go down well with
Howard, who in the past has been very critical about Van Gundy’s harsh and at times moral sapping behaviour.
As the current situation stands, Orlando is in dire need of a person who would have the experience and ingenuity to make them title contenders rather than an average playoff team. The problem for the Magic is that whoever they
hire as a coach needs a nod of approval from Howard, who has been inclined towards Mike Malone and Indiana Pacers assistant coach Brian Shaw.
This puts the team in a tricky situation because although Sloan can make things work, but he is not in Howard’s priority list.
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