The J-Notes
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Utah Jazz: An All-Star Game return to Salt Lake City is long overdue

By Ryan Aston

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - FEBRUARY 21: John Stockton #12 and Karl Malone #32 of the Western Conference All-Stars celebrates being named Co-MVP against the Eastern Conference All-Stars during the 1993 All-Star Game on February 21, 1993 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The West defeated the Eats 135-132 in OT. Copyright 1993 NBAE (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - FEBRUARY 21: John Stockton #12 and Karl Malone #32 of the Western Conference All-Stars celebrates being named Co-MVP against the Eastern Conference All-Stars during the 1993 All-Star Game on February 21, 1993 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. The West defeated the Eats 135-132 in OT. Copyright 1993 NBAE (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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The Utah Jazz will reportedly put in a bid to host the NBA All-Star Game in 2022 or ’23. The event’s Salt Lake City return is long overdue.

In just over two weeks time, the NBA All-Star Game will emanate from Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. A few days later — on February 21 to be exact — it will be the 25th anniversary of when the same event was hosted by the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City, bringing the entire basketball world to the Rocky Mountains for the first time.

The 1993 NBA All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake was obviously a landmark moment. Not just for the Jazz organization, but for the state of Utah as a whole. Having said that, the event’s return to the Wasatch Front is long overdue, something Jazz president Steve Starks is reportedly looking to rectify.

News broke this week that Starks and the Jazz plan to submit a bid to host the mid-season classic in either 2022 or 2023. Said the Jazz prez: “There’s a story to tell about Salt Lake and the Jazz and what we have to offer that we think will be unique.”

The ’93 All-Star Weekend felt like a moment of arrival for the Jazz franchise. After suffering through losing seasons and low attendance in the early ’80s, narrowly avoiding catastrophe in the process, the team become one of the league’s best over the next decade on the backs of All-Stars Karl Malone and John Stockton, head coaches Frank Layden and Jerry Sloan and owner Larry H. Miller.

The year before the big event, the Jazz advanced to the Western Conference Finals and Stockton and Malone won Olympic gold with the Dream Team. All the while, the Jazz were selling out their arena and SLC had become an NBA hot spot — market size be damned.

But if the team and the city officially arrived in ’93, they’ve gone supernova since that time.

In the ensuing 25 years, the Jazz have played in two NBA Finals and countless playoff games, added Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer, Mehmet Okur, Deron Williams and Gordon Hayward to their list of All-Stars and celebrated Hall of Fame inductions for Malone, Stockton, Adrian Dantley, Jerry Sloan, as well as a Curt Gowdy Award for broadcaster Hot Rod Hundley.

The franchise also just completed a massive, $125 million renovation to Vivint Smart Home Arena. As a result, the building stands shoulder to shoulder with the top facilities in the Association.

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Meanwhile, the city of Salt Lake has exploded in terms of population growth, infrastructure and business profile. Last year, it came in at No. 2 on CNBC’s rankings of the top cities to start a business in and topped Forbes’ list of U.S. cities poised to become tomorrow’s tech meccas.

Salt Lake City also played host to the 2002 Winter Olympics and has been the site of countless business and cultural conventions, including a

Comic-Con

comic convention that draws crowds in excess of 100,000 annually.

Starks said that the team and the city have a story to tell. It’s clearly high time they received an opportunity to do so.

Better late than never, right?

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