Deseret Morning News <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> BOISE ? He was effusive in his praise of the young rookie, talking up the kid as if the 18-year-old were a savvy 28. Was this really the head coach of the Jazz? Was this really Jerry Sloan? Or was it, perhaps ? an impostor? If the John Deere tractor cap aboard his head did not give him away, one might have had to wonder. Yet it was Sloan, and his words near the tail end of the first week of training camp for the Jazz really were in response to a question about second-round draft choice C.J. Miles. "I think he's got a pretty good feel for what he wants to do," Sloan said of Miles, a southpaw shooting guard mere months removed from Dallas' Skyline High School. "He's just kind of ? involved ? is the only way I can try to explain it. "I've been impressed with the fact he's a young man and doesn't have any basketball experience at all at this level except a little bit in the summer league, and then you see him play and he has confidence, but it's not an overbearing confidence. It's been fun to watch him." The "level" to which Sloan refers, of course, is the NBA. It is not a pre-draft workout, not the Rocky Mountain Revue, but the real deal ? an NBA training camp, one with Andrei Kirilenko here, Carlos Boozer there and way more experience than Miles could ever imagine every which way but loose. Yet it is a level, the Jazz coach suggested, that does leave this particular 18-year-old awestruck. "I don't think he is," Sloan said. "He knows these guys can play, but you don't see that in his emotions. He just steps out there and plays basketball. It's really kind of interesting, because he makes it fairly simple: Just do the right thing, then you're OK." Age, or that lack thereof, has not been an issue.</div> <div align="center">Source</div>
