Utah Jazz Memorabilia

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If you think it's odd to name a Salt Lake City basketball team after the genre of music known as jazz, you're right. But the Utah Jazz came by its name honestly, courtesy of its first franchise city, New Orleans, where the team's musical branding...
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If you think it's odd to name a Salt Lake City basketball team after the genre of music known as jazz, you're right. But the Utah Jazz came by its name honestly, courtesy of its first franchise city, New Orleans, where the team's musical branding made a lot of sense. New Orleans, after all, is the home of such trumpet players as Louis Armstrong and Wynton Marsalis, as well as pianists from Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller to Professor Longhair and Dr. John. When the Jazz were founded in 1974, their on-court virtuoso was a 6-foot, 5-inch guard named Pete Maravich, or Pistol Pete as he was known in the NBA. Maravich had played four seasons with the Atlanta Hawks, for whom he scored an average of 24 points a game. He would shoot almost 26 points per game in his five seasons in New Orleans (his average dropped a bit during his single year in Utah), but those stats were nothing compared to his average of just over 44 points a game as a member of the Louisiana State University Tigers. Maravich's New Orleans teammates included great players like Nate Williams, Truck Robinson, and, for one season, Spencer Haywood. But in New Orleans, the Jazz never won as many games in a season as they lost, even with Hall of Fame forward Elgin Baylor as the team's head coach. The team's fortunes did not immediately reverse upon arrival in Salt Lake City. Despite such players as the high-scoring forward Adrian Dantley and the speedy steal demon Rickey Green, the Jazz struggled from 1979 to 1983. Then, during the 1983-84 season, the team recorded its first winning season in franchise history, making it past the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs before losing to the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference semifinals. For 20 years in a row, the Jazz would make the playoffs, including appearances in the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998, although the Jazz lost both years to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, who were on their way to their second three-peat of the...
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