The Utah Jazz set honor NBA and Jazz legendary coach Jerry Sloan with a special commemorative tribute patch, to be worn on team jerseys and warm-ups when the remainder of the 2019-20 season resumes on July 30th in Orlando.
The tribute patch will be worn by Jazz player for the first time on July 23 as part of the NBA restart. And the patch will feature the number 1,223 in recognition of the total number of wins during Sloan’s 23 seasons as head coach of the Jazz.
The Tribute will continue into the 2020-21 season, Jazz jerseys will display a commemorative black strip with the same “1223” design. Sloan passed away in May 2020 due to complications from Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia at the age of 78.
Sloan was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in the year 2009 and he spent 23 seasons as the head coach of the Jazz from 1988 to 2011.
The Hall of Famer finishing his career with the fourth-most wins in NBA history (1,221-803) below Don Nelson ,Lenny Wilkins and GREGG POPOVICH. He has sixth-best winning percentage (.603) all-time (min. 500 wins), his Jazz team made it two NBA Finals (1997 and 1998) and won seven division titles.
Sloan guided the Jazz to 16 consecutive winning seasons and thirteen 50-win seasons,his teams made 20 trips to the NBA Playoffs -19 with Utah(1989-2003 & ’07-10) and he has a sixth most payoff wins in NBA history with 98 wins.
Sloan Jazz career
Sloan started as a scout (1983-84), became an assistant coach to Frank Layden on Nov. 19, 1984, and was named the sixth head coach in franchise history on December 9, 1988, when Layden resigned.He worked for the Jazz organization for 34 years as either head coach, assistant, scout or senior basketball adviser.
After Twenty-three seasons and 1,809 games, Sloan finished his career as the Jazz’s winning-est coach based on both wins and winning percentage (1,127-682, .623) on February 10, 2011. Sloan was The longest-tenured coach with one franchise in all of major professional sports at the time of his retirement, there were 245 NBA head coaching changes across the league during his Jazz coaching career. Sloan coached 133 different players during his tenure as head coach of the Jazz.
