As the Utah Jazz wear the gold statement jerseys tomorrow night, let’s reflect back on the golden moments of their franchise history.
If you’re a Utah Jazz fan, you probably either love or hate the gold statement jerseys.
They were released back in the 2017-18 season as an alternate jersey to go with their blue “icon” and white “association” edition uniforms. The team released a hype video pumping up fans about the new emphasis on the golden color.
Ever since they changed their logo and colors back to the musical J-note in 2010, gold has been a part of the color scheme; it was never really emphasized except as part of the basketball in the logo and as a complementary color next to the Jazz blue (and sometimes green) on apparel and the hardwood.
Personally, I don’t like the statement jerseys. The Los Angeles Lakers and Indiana Pacers always had the corner on the market for the yellow/gold color, and the Jazz have always been white and blue.
Perhaps we should have seen this coming when the team provided yellow t-shirts for all the fans in attendance in the 2017 NBA playoffs. A further reason for my disliking of these gold jerseys is how the team performs in them. If you feel like the Jazz tend to lose when they wear the yellow threads, you’re not crazy.
Last season they went 4-9 in the statement edition jerseys, and as of today, they are a measly 1-6 in the yellow abominations. Tomorrow night against the Dallas Mavericks, the Utah Jazz will pull these threads out of the closet for the first time since December.
Now, putting my little rant aside, I thought today would be a good opportunity to remember the finest moments in Utah Jazz history. I’m talking about the moments that make your heart swell with pride to be a Jazz fan, the memories that make you feel golden on the inside, the ones that truly make a statement in all of franchise history.
10. Old school Jazz make the playoffs
Back in the day, things weren’t so pretty for the Utah Jazz.
After moving from New Orleans to Utah in 1979, the Utah Jazz endured two straight seasons of losing under head coach Tom Nissalke. 20 games into Nissalke’s third season, Frank Layden took over the head coaching duties.
The team still sputtered to just 30 wins in Frank’s first full season as head coach, but the very next season Frank would guide the team to their first playoff berth, winning both the Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year awards.
The Utah Jazz won 45 games and were on top of the mid-west division in 1983-84, which guaranteed them a high seed in the playoffs. They beat the Denver Nuggets in the first round three games to two but fell to the Phoenix Suns in the conference semi-finals two games to four.
Thanks to Adrian Dantley and his unstoppable 36 points per game (with very few 3-pointers, mind you), Frank Layden was able to lift this team into relevance after years of being the laughingstock in a small market. It’s even more impressive when you consider that only two players on this young roster were in their thirties.
Mark Eaton was in his second year as a pro, after being discovered as a raw talent crouched under the hood of a car. “You can’t teach height” were the famous words Layden used as reasoning for picking up the big man in the fourth round of the 1982 NBA draft.
Darrell Griffith, or “Dr. Dunkenstein” as I like to call him, was in the fourth year of his promising NBA career. Another key component of that team was point guard Rickey Green, who would help mentor a young John Stockton and hand the reins of the team over to the young point guard out of Gonzaga.
Were it not for this 1984 team making a run in the playoffs, I’m not sure the Jazz would even be in Utah right now.
9. Gordon Hayward’s career high in playoffs
When the Utah Jazz made it to the playoffs in 2017, it was a big deal. It was their first time back in the playoffs since Dennis Lindsey had started “not skipping steps”, and this playoff run was different from the wanna-be one led by Al Jefferson and Devin Harris in 2011.
The Jazz were a legit 50-win team, and if not for injuries decimating Derrick Favors and George Hill, an advanced metric called “man-games lost” estimates they could have been a 60-win team at full strength.
Gordon Hayward had blossomed into an All-Star, Rudy Gobert was right there behind him, and Quin Snyder had proven to be one of the most valuable head coaches in the association. The Utah Jazz were only getting started as Hayward was only 27 years old, and they anticipated growth from Dante Exum, Rodney Hood, and Trey Lyles in the future.
It was tempting to put Joe Johnson‘s game-winning shot from this series as the golden moment in this slideshow, but game three was too good to leave out.
In Game Three against the Los Angeles Clippers, homegrown star Gordon Hayward erupted for a career-high 40 points. Although it came in a loss, it was a reminder that even here in Utah we can grow and develop our own stars to compete with the rest of the NBA.
The Los Angeles Clippers thought they had us beat on star-power alone, being led by Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. It was a valiant effort of Hayward to keep the Jazz close in that game, as they had to play Boris Diaw for extended minutes in the place of the injured Rudy Gobert.
Utah would eventually get Gobert back in the action and take the series in seven games. The Clippers would go on to lose Chris Paul that the following summer.
8. Jazz knock out the Thunder
Ironically, this moment happened in the gold statement jerseys that I so dislike
As a continuation of the story from the previous slide, the Jazz were partially responsible for the demolition of the “Lob City” era in Clippers history. Chris Paul was moved in a sign and trade to the Houston Rockets the following summer, and Blake Griffin was traded to the Detroit Pistons the following winter.
But the Jazz would not escape the summer of 2017 unscathed either. They had the pressure of retaining their one and only All-Star.
Gordon Hayward would make stops in Miami and Boston to hear the pitches from Pat Riley and Danny Ainge on why he should join their respective teams. His final stop was a meeting at his home in Los Angeles, with Dennis Lindsey, Gail Miller, and a couple of Jazz players themselves.
On the morning of July 4th, news broke from Chris Haynes that Hayward was signing with the Celtics, but Hayward and his camp denied they had made a final decision yet. Later that day, Hayward announced it himself on The Players’ Tribune after getting some Jazz fans’ hopes up that he wasn’t leaving.
This is the backstory that makes this slide all that more memorable.
In their first year without Gordon Hayward, the Utah Jazz made it back to the playoffs as the fifth seed, led by a rookie sensation Donovan Mitchell.
Mitchell and the Jazz were able to knock off the Oklahoma City Thunder in six games, despite the Thunder having two proven stars in Russell Westbrook and Paul George.
Donovan Mitchell scored 38 points in the series-clinching win, capping off a spectacular playoff debut that series in which he averaged 28.5 points, 7.2 boards, and shot 46 percent from the field as a rookie.
Technically speaking, this Jazz team did better in the playoffs than Gordon Hayward’s team. They were able to polish off the first round in six instead of seven games, and rather than getting swept in the conference semi-finals, Donovan Mitchell’s team was able to steal a game from the top-seeded Houston Rockets.
They did it all after some critics suggested the Jazz tank the season, making a mockery of their team hashtag changing it from Take Note to tank note.
7. Deron Williams out-duels Chris Paul
Back in the 2005 NBA draft, Kevin O’Connor and the Utah Jazz were looking for a point guard.
They were just two seasons removed from John Stockton’s final dance and were rebuilding around Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer, and Mehmet Okur. Jerry Sloan had done a heck of a coaching job with Carlos Arroyo and Raul Lopez among others as the point guard rotation, but it was time for an upgrade.
The Jazz packaged three picks on draft day to move up and to the third overall draft spot, where they had a choice of Deron Williams and Chris Paul for a franchise point guard.
They ended up going with D-Will, and CP3 was picked up by New Orleans with the fourth pick, starting a fun rivalry between the two point guards. Their most fun battles in my opinion happened in the 2007-08 season when Paul led his Hornets to 56 wins and the second seed in the Western Conference.
That season Paul had the better stats and win-loss record than Williams, and it became the consensus among NBA fans that CP3 was the better player of the two and the best point guard in the league. That season Paul was voted an All-Star reserve by the Western Conference coaches while Deron Williams was snubbed.
However, when they went head-to-head against each other it was almost always Williams that got the last laugh. In their first 16 games that they played each other before both point guards were traded to bigger markets, Williams and the Jazz went 12-4 against Paul and the Hornets.
In the 2007-08 season, in particular, the Jazz won three of the four games against the Hornets. Take a look at the basic box score stats for Williams vs Paul in those four games:
- Williams: 12 points, 7 assists; Paul: 15 points 6 assists; Jazz won by 28
- Williams: 29 points, 11 assists; Paul: 6 points, 6 assists; Jazz won by 22
- Williams: 22 points, 10 assists; Paul: 24 points, 16 assists; Hornets won by 12
- Williams: 4 points, 16 assists; Paul: 4 points, 9 assists; Jazz won by 11
To make this rivalry even sweeter, both Williams and Paul participated in the Playstation Skills Challenge during All-Star weekend. It was a good opportunity for D-Will to prove he belonged in the All-Star game, and maybe that’s what motivated his win at the skill challenge going head-to-head with CP3.
Williams not only won the challenge his first time trying it but beat Steve Nash‘s record for the fastest time completing the course. When he was presented with the award, there was an audible lack of applause from the New Orleans crowd after he’d stolen the show from their own Chris Paul.
6. Rudy Gobert emerges
Previous to the 2014-15 season, Rudy Gobert had already shown signs he would take over the center spot owned by Enes Kanter. His impressive summer league performance was a good start, and his FIBA World Cup performance only helped his case for more playing time outside of the D-League.
He played really well in his role off the bench to start the season, and with Enes Kanter’s awkward fit with Derrick Favors in the frontcourt, it became clear pretty soon that the Jazz needed to move on from Kanter.
Gobert slowly but surely took his teammate’s minutes, and his coming-out party was in January of 2015 against the Chicago Bulls.
That night Gobert played a career-high 36 minutes as Enes Kanter was not available. The result? The Jazz stomped the Bulls in a blowout victory, holding them to less than 20 points in three of the four quarters.
That’s some serious defensive play in the modern NBA. Gobert finished with 11 points, 14 rebounds, five blocked shots, and tied for the team-high plus/minus at +19. He outplayed Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah and was the answer to the Jazz’s question of how to win games as they sat at a 12-23 record before the bout in Chicago.
Once Kanter was all the way back from his injury, he started his final 15 games as a member of the Utah Jazz. The Jazz won six and lost nine of those games, and the contrast of what was coming soon after was night and day difference.
The Jazz went on to a 19-10 finish with the best defense in the league, and Gobert has gone on to become a two-time Defensive Player of the Year.
As time goes by, if Gobert is able to lead the Jazz to heights only reached by John Stockton and Karl Malone in the 1990s – namely an NBA Finals appearance at the least – then this moment could easily climb into the top five in a few years.
He may even find himself on the Jazz’s Mount Rushmore.
5. John and Karl win co-MVP of the All-Star game
The Utah Jazz and their fans had a blast at the 1993 All-Star weekend. For the first time ever, the Jazz hosted the midseason festivities in the relatively new Delta Center.
At the time they had two Hall of Fame players in their prime, as John Stockton and Karl Malone had been stacking up the All-Star and All-NBA appearances for years at that point.
For Stock, it was his fifth straight All-Star selection, and he was the five-time defending champion in leading the NBA in assists. For Karl, this game was his sixth consecutive All-Star appearance and he had won the All-Star game MVP back in 1989.
The game was tightly contested through all four quarters and ended up going into overtime. The West ended up winning by three points, led by Karl Malone’s 28 points and John Stockton’s 15 assists.
Both were voted Co-MVPs of the game, which went perfectly in sync with their game and legacies.
Stockton was the ultimate set-up man that created offense for Karl Malone to be an All-Time great and second in All-Time points scored. Or was it Malone that was so reliable to get Stockton so many assists?
This is sports at its finest right here, and Salt Lake City was fortunate to enjoy 18 years of this dynamic duo. The Utah Jazz and even the NBA will never see anything like this ever again. Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan were great, as were Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
But no duo worked together on the court like Stockton and Malone. To this day they are the only teammates in NBA history to win Co-MVP of the All-Star game.
Utah hasn’t hosted the mid-season classic since but is scheduled to do so in 2023. What a story it would be if Mitchell and Rudy can do their best impersonation of this memory on the 30 year anniversary.
4. Jerry Sloan wins a thousand for the Utah Jazz
It was the beginning of the 2008-09 season, and the Utah Jazz were looking to get back to the Western Conference Finals after falling short by one round the previous spring. They were off to a perfect 4-0 start to the season despite not having Deron Williams available.
The newly dubbed Oklahoma City Thunder came to play in Energy Solutions Arena, led by young sophomores Kevin Durant and Jeff Green.
The Thunder jumped out to an early eight-point lead, but the Jazz stormed back winning the first and second quarters quite handily. Then the Jazz slowly let the Thunder chip away at a 29 point lead, cutting it down to 10 points several times.
In the final minute, the Jazz allowed Kevin Durant and Earl Watson to make shots that put the Thunder within seven points, but it was too little too late. The Jazz were able to hold on for their fifth straight win.
Not only was it their fifth win of a perfect season, but it was the thousandth win Jerry Sloan had coached as a member of the Utah Jazz.
Sloan had gotten to a thousand career wins the year earlier, but reaching that mark with one team has only been matched by Gregg Popovich.
That Jazz team of 2008-09 exemplified the Sloan style of toughness and grit. Sloan’s stable of workhorses included Paul Millsap, Ronnie Brewer, and Matt Harpring who truly brought hustle and tenacity to the floor every second they played.
Jerry has a well-deserved banner in the rafters of Vivint Smart Home Arena noting his 1223 wins for the Utah Jazz. When a reporter asked which of his 1223 wins was his favorite, he gave us a classic Jerry response, joking, “I thought that number was the number of technical fouls I had.”
3. John Stockton becomes an All-Time leader
When asked about the possibility of catching John Stockton on the all-time assists leader board, Chris Paul said “I don’t like saying never, but ain’t nobody catching that. I don’t know who the statisticians were, who used to do the stats in Utah, but ain’t nobody catching that.”.
On February 1st, 1995, the Utah Jazz hosted the Denver Nuggets in the Delta Center. Stockton was only 10 assists behind Magic Johnson for the record of most assists in NBA history and needed 11 dimes to set the new record.
He was amazingly able to break the record in the first half and finished the game with 16 total dimes. The Jazz would win a blowout game over the Nuggets in front of the full crowd, making for a night nobody there would ever forget.
Just a year later, Stockton would break the NBA’s record for most steals of all-time.
It was only fitting that the 11th assist of that historic night was made on a Karl Malone basket. When asked about it, Stock said, “He’s been responsible for so many (of the assists), it does seem fitting. Like I’ve said all along, this isn’t my record. These guys have had to make the shots, and Karl has made a zillion of them.”
This will permanently put Stockton in the discussion for the greatest point guard ever. Although Magic Johnson bests him with championships, Stock beat him with longevity and durability.
2. Gail Miller keeps the Jazz a part of Utah forever
In order to understand the significance of this, one must know how much of a sacrifice it was on the Millers to purchase the Jazz.
There was a sale going on, and if somebody didn’t buy the team within three days they were going to move to Minnesota. As a young entrepreneur, Larry H. Miller decided to buy the team as it would benefit the Wasatch Front community.
He bought the first half for eight million dollars on April 11, 1985, then finished his purchase in September of 1989. The Jazz, once the laughingstock of the league, were on the rise to become one of the top franchises in the league in terms of win percentage and playoff appearances.
No, the Jazz never won a championship under Larry’s ownership. But that man was able to fill the seats in the arena consistently for the better part of three decades.
Eventually, Gail went on to finish his work ensuring the Jazz would stay in Utah permanently. Instead of having a single owner, the Utah Jazz now belong to a board of directors from the Larry H. Miller group of companies.
Gail is the chairman and the owner of the group of companies, but and she hires out the positions that run the team (CEO, President, General Manager, etc.) without getting in the way as other owners do sometimes.
All of the profit made from the team goes back to the team, and the Millers don’t see a penny of it. The team will stay in Utah and Salt Lake City forever.
Gail continues to uphold the highest of standards as an NBA owner and showing the utmost level of class and respect, which is the main reason why you have to love the Jazz.
1. John Stockton hits “the shot”
Was there any debate for what should be number one? I don’t think so. Best moment in franchise history by far.
The Utah Jazz made it to the Finals after years of waiting and trying to get over the hump. It didn’t end in a championship. Instead, it went on to pave the way to build Michael Jordan’s greatest legacy of all time.
In the midst of his six rings and two three-peats he seamlessly had while casually taking a baseball break in between, this story too often gets overlooked.
The Jazz made it to back-to-back Finals with homegrown talent, including three future Hall of Famers. A lot of basketball writers use the term “Spurs DNA” when giving compliments of good culture around the league. But the fact is they got it from the Jazz of the late 90s.
Keeping a coach around for the long haul, showing loyalty to him is the first step. Drafting well and developing your players in that system is a critical step. Showing the utmost class, honesty, and looking for players with high integrity and good work ethic is the formula. Gregg Popovich told reporters this when asked about how he became so successful with the Spurs.
Via Bleacher Report:
"“[Utah] was then, and still is, a class organization, and we tried to do it similarly to them as far as how we conducted the program, what we expected, how to do it, how to keep it to yourself, and that sort of thing,”"
Neither the Jazz nor Spurs look for clowns, show-offs, or big egos. They look for basketball players with grit, tenacity, and teamwork. The Spurs got five championships out of it from 1999 to 2014, including 22 straight years of making the playoffs under Popovich.
The Jazz have unfinished business in that department, a project picked up and abandoned by Deron Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Gordon Hayward.
Rudy Gobert and Quin Snyder are here to finish the project and will do everything in their power to bring the Larry O’Brien Trophy to the Wasatch Front for the first time ever. Small market teams winning the chip is a big win for professional sports, and hopefully, the Jazz can join that club soon.