Larry Miller used to play a little halfcourt basketball with his players, back when he first bought the team in 1985. "He could really play then," coach Jerry Sloan recalled. "Now he can't play. He just dresses up."
Yes he does, to the shock of a near-sellout crowd in the Delta Center. The Jazz's owner came out for introductions with his team, dressed in the same circa-1979 warmups they wore, and stripped them off just before tipoff to reveal that he was wearing a uniform from that era, too.
One big difference: "I've still got the old short shorts," Miller said. "We've got all these kids on the team now, they've never played in them."
Miller dug his old uniform out of storage for the team's first Retro Night, and startled his team in the locker room before the game. "I was worried about messing with Jerry and Phil [Johnson], upsetting them," Miller said. "Before the game, here's Phil telling them about Miami, that they're really talented, that we've got to take them seriously. I walked in [wearing the uniform] and said, 'Put me in, Coach.' . . . The players got a kick out of it."
Sure did. "He is hilarious," Andrei Kirilenko said of the owner. "He should be man of the year. . . . I don't think everybody can do that. Only Larry, and Mark Cuban."
The fans seemed to agree, giving Miller a big ovation as he walked across the court in the old uniform and sat down at his usual seat. He went back to the locker room at the end of the first quarter, however, and switched back to his street clothes. "It was a little uncomfortable," he said. "I figured one quarter was enough."
Miller had tried to convince Greg Ostertag to wear the short shorts, as the Jazz center had at that morning's shootaround. "But Greg wouldn't wear them in a game," Miller said. "So I just thought somebody should."