ESPN has released its annual awards predictions to coincide with the beginning of the new season. Interestingly, the favorite to win the Coach of the Year award this year is Jerry Sloan. He tied for the most amount of votes (5) with Miami Heat Coach, Erik Spolestra.
Now, Jazz fans are very used to hearing Jerry Sloan's name thrown into the discussion for a COY award, but of course this has yet to happen. This is due to the fact that Sloan can take virtually any group of guys and turn them into a 50 win team in the league, he has shown that he can do this with remarkable consistency. However, he has failed to get his Jazz teams over this hump and to help them reach elite status, (pardon my use of the word "elite", I know that ever since the happenings with EA's NBA Elite 11,that word has a negative vibe) and since the COY isn't a lifetime achievement award, it's hard to find a single year in which he flat out deserved to win it.
If Sloan can get the Jazz to a 2nd seed in the West, and help them finish around 55 wins or more, I could see him winning the award. The acquisition of Al Jefferson could help them get to that point, but only time will tell, and in the end, I don't think that Sloan cares about the award that much. This is, after all, the man that spends his hours on his John Deere tractor when he isn't filling his role as coach. But he does care about winning , and if he can get this Jazz team to buy into that, he could take them to next level.
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I think they have to win 57+ and get the 2 seed in the West if Jerry is going to get his Coach of the Year. They should do what LOTR 3 did for the Academy Awards when it took all the movies as one and gave awarded the Best Picture to Return of the King. Jerry's career should be ranked against how well this team does. If they make it over the hump, he should get the prize.
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