Jerry Sloan resigns?!

[salsadancer7]

WOW....this caught me completely by surprise!

Updated: February 10, 2011, 5:21 PM ET

Jerry Sloan resigns

ESPN.com news services

Jerry Sloan resigned as coach of the Utah Jazz on Thursday at a news conference.

Sloan had signed a one-year contract extension on Monday.

Assistant coach Tyrone Corbin will be taking over the team, the Tribune reported.

Sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that Jazz officials spent Thursday morning trying to convince Sloan to change his mind and stay on as coach, but there was no budging from the famously hard-nosed coach after Wednesday night's events.

The 68-year-old Sloan is the longest-tenured head coach in any of the four major sports. Although he signed an extension for next season, he said that he would not make a decision about returning to the team until after the 2010-11 season was complete.

Television station KSL first reported on its website that Sloan and assistant coach Phil Johnson planned to announce their resignations.

On Wednesday night, Sloan kept reporters waiting more than half an hour after Utah's loss to the Chicago Bulls as he met with his assistants and general manager Kevin O'Connor. And the Jazz announced that Thursday's practice had been abruptly canceled.

Two sources close to the situation told ESPN.com that Sloan reacted angrily during Wednesday night's home loss when guard Deron Williams called his own play on the floor different from the play Sloan called from the sideline.

That led to an emotional dispute at halftime, sources said, which was followed by Sloan's closed-door meeting with O'Connor after the game.

But one source stressed that the play-calling flap was just one incident among a number of flare-ups in recent weeks, indicating Sloan's relationship with Williams has been deteriorating.

Jerry Sloan resigns as coach of Utah Jazz after 23 seasons - ESPN

 

[Ramy]

After 23 years. That is a long time to coach anywhere. I don't understand why now, after just signing an extension last week.

 

[AntAltMike]

Maybe he signed the extension knowing he was about to call it quits, just to make it clear to the world that they still wanted him as coach.

Some college coaches who were known as screamers couldn't cut it in the NBA. Calipari and Carlissimo come to mind. But Sloan was old world enough that I think he could yell at young prople just because most of them understood that he was part of the generation that acted that way. In the mid-1990s, I worked for a cranky old Jew who used to scream at us. We all went along with it because that's the way cranky old Jews are expected to act, but when he hired a 30 year old kid to be his intermediary and he started emulating the old guy, we all just told him to go F___himself.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I doubt that he quit because of a PG calling a different play. This kind of stuff has been happening as long as there has been PG's and head coaches. I'm sure this wasn't the first time this happened to Sloan. Something else going on here.