FanHouse Jerrysloan

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The problem with hard-nosed, legendary coaches is that they drive such a hard line, demand so much, that you often feel like it will never be enough for them. Players will work hard, impress fans, show themselves to be "one of his kind of guys" when it comes to the coach's demanded work ethic and selflessness, and yet, they'll never reach it. The coaches keep them just on the outside, hoping to continuously drive them to further and further heights, 'til they're the absolute best they could possibly be.

One such coach is Jerry Sloan.

One such player is Ronnie Brewer.

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

Carlos Boozer is still with the Jazz.

Well, at least he was 10 minutes ago.

Heading into the season, Boozer's status is the biggest issue surrounding the team. He said during radio interviews during the summer that he wouldn't mind ending up in Chicago or Miami, and that Jazz officials told him they were looking to trade him.

The forward, though, didn't get moved. And now he's saying that, if the Jazz keep him throughout the season, impressive things can happen in Utah.

"If they keep us together, we can be very good,'' he said.

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Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Monday, there are 22 days remaining.

No league's unofficial averaging coaching tenure is as short as that of the NBA. While NFL and MLB coaches last roughly three years on average, the approximate NBA tenure is at two seasons. The longest-tenured coach in the Eastern Conference, Lawrence Frank of New Jersey, has only been around five years. Only two NBA coaches have been with their current teams the entire decade; one of those particularly stands out as a symbol of stability amid chaos.

That'd be Jerry Sloan, the wondrous Jazz staple who, despite now entering his 22nd year at the helm of Utah, despite going to the NBA FInals twice, despite making the playoffs in all but three seasons of his tenure, despite being the only coach to register 1,000 wins with one team, despite being named to the Basketball Hall of Fame on the strength of his coaching, Sloan has never won a Coach of the Year award.

You figure that's just fine by him, though.

Who doesn't like a list, especially on a Monday morning when that's about all you can handle?

Here is each Hall of Fame Inductees' best line from Friday night's ceremony in Springfield, Mass.:

Jerry Sloan: "Tom Boerwinkle ... 6-foot-11, built my backyard. When he bought the house behind me, I said: 'Tom, we were roommates one day and next day you're in my backyard looking out the window. He said 'I've got that figured out; I'll build a fence 6-feet-10, I can see over it and you can't.'

Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.

Carmelo Anthony has often been criticized for his failure to the lead the Nuggets past the first round of the playoffs in five tries, but that's simply unfair. Truth be told, Denver's history of early exits began long before Anthony even entered high school, let alone became the Nuggets' whipping boy.

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The Lakers came into Sunday's game with the Jazz as the prohibitive favorites, expected not only to win the game but to dominate the entire series. For the first 24 minutes on Sunday, that's exactly what happened: the Lakers held a 62-40 advantage heading into the half, with the Jazz looking like they were making a case for the league to adopt a mercy rule.

The Lakers eased up in the second half, allowing the Jazz to almost -- almost -- make a game of it, making up nine points in the third before playing to a draw in the fourth. The end result was still a lopsided 113-100 win that had the Staples Center crowd more concerned about free tacos (they didn't get any) than the final score, but still, the visitors proved (at least to themselves) that they can hang with the league's golden team for stretches at a time.

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NBA Essentials provides the must-see links, quotes and videos of the day.

-- "Shaquille O'Neal didn't just stay an extra day in Dallas because, as he claims, he wanted to visit the Grassy Knoll. We're told the Suns legendary center also stayed behind because he thinks all the grass in Dallas might be greener – and that he is angling with Mavs owner Mark Cuban for an offseason trade to Big D." -- Mike Fisher, DallasBasketball.com

Denver's George Karl had an interesting claim in a Chris Tomasson Pro Basketball News piece on his theory as to why the Jazz dominate in Utah and stink the road: home cooking. The idea would be that the raucous Energy Solutions Arena mixed with Jerry Sloan's intimidating bark might serve to push refs toward calling a Utah-style game in S.L.C., while different circumstances lend to different results elsewhere.

Does the whistle explain Utah's home court advantage?

So, it looks as if Michael Jordan, John Stockton, David Robinson, Jerry Sloan and Vivien Stringer are going to make it into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Congratulations to 'em.

But every time I hear of a Basketball Hall of Fame vote, I actually get annoyed. I don't want to get annoyed, but I get annoyed.

I'd like nothing more than to stroll down memory lane, reliving some of the good times of the past. Maybe even have an argument or two over who deserved to get in and who didn't.

Utah forward Carlos Boozer has been back a month now, but apparently Jerry Sloan still isn't comfortable depending on the burly bruiser as he has in past years. The Salt Lake Tribune notes that despite Boozer's 14 points and 10 rebounds, Sloan relied on Paul Millsap for the entirety of Saturday's overtime period against Phoenix.

Boozer has been completely supportive of Millsap on the court and in the media. But in this latest stretch -- and especially after Saturday's game -- Boozer wants to make sure we all know he'd prefer to be on the court in the most important minutes.