Sloan did most with the least

I know, I know, it's the year of Hubie in the NBA. The Memphis Grizzlies, a franchise that has never won even 30 games, were working on their 50th win of the season Monday night against the Utah Jazz. They're not only playoff bound, but threatening the top four in the Western Conference. Quick: Who had that in their preseason picks?

By now, Brown, the octogenarian coach -- or certainly in that neighborhood -- was supposed to be watching "Murder She Wrote" reruns and napping. Instead, he's gotten through to Jason Williams, the Eminen of the NBA, and turned James Posey into James Worthy. And Brown has done it the way you're not supposed to be able to in this NBA by playing an expanded roster, in effect, with two teams. If you don't work hard and defend, you don't play. That's supposed to bring calls to agents and threats from the posse. Instead, it's brought passion to Memphis not seen since Elvis.

This is supposed to be the star-driven NBA where players are angry if they're not assigned a role and angry if they are assigned a role. Instead, with Hubie, the Grizzlies have rolled with the punches and become a feared, late-April opponent for someone not giving two strokes a side.

That said, the Coach of the Year voting is no contest. The winner has to be Jerry Sloan.

Of course, I say this with some trepidation since complimenting Jerry Sloan can get me a snarl and angry stare. A Coach of the Year trophy? Heck, Sloan would much rather have another old tractor. Even another weathered John Deere baseball cap. You can keep the trophy, although Sloan deserves to have it.

I don't know if the Jazz will make the playoffs this season. I do know that, no matter whether they make them or not, Jerry Sloan has done one of the best coaching jobs in the history of the NBA.

You watch the Utah Jazz and you want to quote that line from the old "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" movie: Who are those guys?

Sloan has performed a coaching clinic this season. Because whether the Jazz makes the playoffs or barely miss them, they've been in contention all season in the more rugged Western Conference with a team some doubted could win 10 games. Many laughed when that was suggested, but hardly anyone expected the Jazz to win 20 games.

It's not just that they lost Karl Malone and John Stockton, two sure Hall of Famers and the guts of their team the last 15 years, at the same time. That's usually enough to send any team to lottery oblivion. But their next best scorer, Matt Harpring, was injured and had to miss the rest of the season after 31 games. That left just one of their top six scorers from last season returning, Andrei Kirilenko.

There's no denying Kirilenko is an excellent player. He was chosen by the coaches for this year's All-Star team. But he wasn't selected for his scoring but for his all-around play. And it's not like the Jazz came up with one of those big offseason free-agent coups.

Not that they didn't try. They were the first to contact Elton Brand. They made an offer to Andre Miller, who attended the University of Utah. They wanted Corey Maggette and Jason Terry. But nobody came. There's this little open secret about the Jazz, sort of like the elephant standing in the middle of the room. Everyone can see it, but no one wants to say anything.

Black players are uncomfortable going to Salt Lake City. It's not that they've been victims of discrimination. I personally find Salt Lake City to be one of the friendlist and certainly the most beautiful city in the NBA. It's not even concern about being arrested by Olden Polynice. It's just a majority white city where a lot of NBA players have not felt comfortable. So it's hard for the Jazz to recruit top free agents. Several players in the past have refused trades, which didn't hurt so much when Malone and Stockton were there.

But the NBA demands 12 players on the roster. So the Jazz picked up some guys from Florida International, some second-round picks, undrafted guys and the usual second-tier Europeans in a hodgepodge of overlooked talent.

Put it this way: Just one player on the Jazz roster -- Kirilenko -- could make the 10-man rotation the Grizzlies use. Would Bonzi Wells start for the Jazz? Stromile Swift? Shane Battier? Bo Outlaw? They're just some of the vital pieces on the Grizzlies.

Among Utah's points guards, one was undrafted and playing in Puerto Rico and another was coming off knee surgery in Europe. Two of their top players, Raja Bell and Carlos Arroyo, are from that basketball factory, Florida International. They have the other Collins twin, Jarron, and a limping Tom Gugliotta. They often finish games these days with Mikki Moore, who's been waived by a half dozen teams, or Michael Ruffin, who's known mostly for trying to get rare reptiles on the team plane. No, this is no snake-in-the-grass team. It's the kind of team you put together when you lose your best players and can't find others.

This is not to diminish what Brown and the Grizzlies have achieved since it is one of the great stories in the NBA this season, but they've been accumulating high lottery draft picks for nine years. Shouldn't they be winning games some years. The only lottery pick on the Jazz roster is Gugliotta, who was dumped by the Suns to save money.

Jerry West has done a brilliant job assembling the talent in Memphis to match Brown's coaching. That's what great management is about. But he also had assets and an owner willing to spend himself into the luxury tax. The Grizzlies should have been much better, and you could see by the way they had a winning record against the Eastern Conference last season that they were starting to come around.

All the Jazz figured was to be going around. Except for Sloan.

"I always had expectations," Sloan said. "It's why I still get upset. I realize you have to have the talent, but there are times you are going to catch teams unprepared to play you because of who you are. When you work hard, you can get those wins."

Jerry Sloan was the most ferocious player I've ever seen, and I watched Michael Jordan his entire career. Sloan didn't have anywhere near the talent, but his desire was every bit as great. Sloan never thought he couldn't win the game.

And so he took that attitude to the Jazz again. He believed you can win by just doing what is simple every game on every possession. It's what his teams have done for almost two decades and no one has stopped it. They run pretty much the same few plays over and over with screens, cuts, action off the ball and pick-and-roll. Everyone thought it was Stockton and Malone. But anyone can run a pick-and-roll. Now it's Arroyo and Moore.