Monson: Sloan not telling the Whole Truth

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Jerry Sloan is a lousy liar.
And a bad actor.
Maybe it's because, for the most part, the Jazz coach is a natural, perennial truth-teller, a down-to-earth tractor collector who believes in an honest day's work and saying and doing things straightforward and all.
But occasionally, he tells real whoppers.
He once said, for instance, that DeShawn Stevenson had a bright future in the NBA. He buried the truth because, at the time, he wanted to build up the struggling, wildly inconsistent guard in hopes that a little praise would make a difference.
DeNiro couldn't have pulled that one off.
And, of course, nobody bought it.
Just like no one believed Sloan on Wednesday night when he seriously downplayed Deron Williams' performance in the rookie's debut. As the obvious and inevitable question - How did he play? - was asked in regard to the No. 3 overall draft pick's opening-game prowess, after the Jazz motored to a 93-82 win over the Mavericks with Williams driving the boat, it clanked off the stubborn man's ears.
Sloan looked almost disgusted.
"He played OK," was his response. "Sometimes, he got a little confused, but we expected that."
He played OK?
No, no. Matt Harpring played OK. Keith McLeod played OK. Gordan Giricek played OK.
Sir Lawrence Olivier, Sloan is not.
Laughter erupted when he attempted to sell his phony goods. Try the veal, I'm here all week.

Sloan might as well have been Pinocchio, his nose jutting across the hallway. Not only did the coach's dark eyes betray him, reality did, too. He was lying again, and everybody knew it.

Without Williams, the Jazz would have lost that game, just the way they dropped so many games in clutch situations last season with no steady point guard on the floor. In this new season, Williams scored 18 points, hit some big shots, played the entire fourth quarter, deftly ran the pick-and-roll with Memo Okur, and also played defense. The Jazz outscored the Mavs over that last stretch, 28-15. Moreover, he had only one turnover.

It was just one game, so Sloan's madness behind his less-than-veracious methodology was understandable, if laughable. He simply does not want the rookie to get too full of himself.

That's the same reason the coach refused to start Williams in his first NBA game. Not long before the opening tip, Sloan told a confidante, who subsequently told me, that the reason he wasn't starting the rook was not because Williams wasn't good enough.</div>

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