‘Larry: Still Making His Mark’

Larry Miller’s recent health problems elicit reactions of concern on multiple fronts. First and foremost, Miller is a husband and father. Thoughts and prayers certainly go out to Miller and those closest to him. Larry Miller is also a public figure, and his illness reverberates far beyond the lives of those who know and love him personally. The Utah Jazz owe their tremendous, sustained success to the man who owns and operates the franchise.

Since Miller bought the team in the spring of 1985, the Jazz have finished below .500 exactly once. John Stockton and Karl Malone deserve most of the praise for producing results on the court, while Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer can claim more recent credit. But taking a step back to examine the organization from the top down, any reasonable Jazz fan must recognize Miller’s success as a businessman. For over twenty years, the one constant for the Utah Jazz has been Larry Miller. Nearly two and a half decades have seen numerous NBA teams rise, fall, and rise again. Somehow the Jazz have managed to stay competitive throughout. While various tacticians and strategists have helped make personnel decisions under Miller, the buck ultimately stops on the desk of the man in charge.

Not every move made under Miller’s watch has elicited a euphoric reaction. The decision to give Andrei Kirilenko a maximum deal, the signing of John Amaechi, the trade for Rafael Araujo, and the move to acquire Jay Humphries and Larry Krystkowiak come to mind as less than brilliant maneuvers. Utah has also had its share of draft blunders. Yet, generally speaking, the Jazz have operated smartly and skillfully. The Jazz don’t make a lot of moves, but the ones they do pull off tend to be beneficial (Jeff Malone, Jeff Hornacek, Tyrone Corbin, Donyell Marshall, Kyle Korver, etc). Furthermore, consider the coaching carousel that we witness at the conclusion of each NBA season. Other owners might have fired Jerry Sloan after the playoff disappointments of 1989 or 1995, the let down season in 1993, or the disastrous 2005 campaign. Miller, however, has remained loyal to Sloan, and that loyalty has paid off. The Jazz have remained competitive for well over 20 years while other teams have fallen by the wayside.

Looking at the facts, one cannot doubt Miller’s savvy and skill as a businessman. But he is more than that, and the Jazz are more than just a business. Utahns love the Jazz because we see them as the embodiment of our underdog spirit. Forsaken and forgotten in our desert compound, we circle the wagons against the big market teams with the household names. We put our hope in the Jazz every fall, huddle around our television sets through the frigid, lonely winter, await the playoffs with a shared but hushed sentiment that this might finally be the year, and we walk away every spring empty-handed and broken-hearted. Then we do it again the next year, trying to hope just a little harder, to believe just a little more.

In a love affair that has moved well beyond the twenty year mark, Larry Miller undoubtedly sees the Jazz as more than just a business. A. Bartlett Giamatti, former Commissioner of Major League Baseball, once described the game as “an enduring public trust.” That’s what Larry Miller and the Jazz have built in Salt Lake—an enduring public trust. An entire community, then, will continue to hold Miller in its collective thoughts and prayers. Miller is more than just a husband, father, and businessman in a place where the Jazz are much more than just a basketball team.