One Sloan-Williams rumor put to rest

I don’t believe the saying that all rumors have a shred of truth.

Some don’t have any truth whatsoever.

That’s not to say there aren’t great stories out there, waiting to be revealed. But take the Deron Williams case. One of the big rumors was that he demanded, two weeks ago, that either he or Jerry Sloan leave the team and that team management backed Williams.

If that were the case, how come the Jazz traded Williams on Wednesday? Would the Jazz force out Sloan to appease Williams, then trade him?

(By the way, asked on Wednesday if there were a chance for Sloan to return, now that Williams was gone, G.M. Kevin O’Connor and CEO Greg Miller said absolutely not. )

I’m also surprised by Deseret News and KSL polls that show most fans believe Williams was the reason for Sloan’s retirement. I only believe he was a component in the reason, not THE reason.

What most fans don’t consider is that Sloan really did think long and hard about retiring every off-season. He had grown weary of the grind. A week or two before his resignation, he asked me after an interview session whether I was going to the Super Bowl. I said no, that I’d been there before, but I didn’t mind just watching on TV. Sloan said he felt the same way about All-Star games, NBA Finals, etc.

“You get my age, you don’t have the energy to go to all that stuff,” he said.

Clearly, he was thinking about leaving and it wasn’t just an isolated locker room incident that caused it. It was a lot of incidents, over several years, and an accumulation of things. Try traveling around 100 nights a year for your work. Then consider how it would be for 23 years (not counting his playing days or his coaching days in Chicago).

So while Williams was a pain for Sloan, it wouldn’t have been enough to force Sloan out of the business all by itself. And Williams didn’t pose a him-or-me scenario. That’s one rumor that Wednesday’s trade put to rest.