Just win, baby.
Over the years, the signature phrase of Al Davis, the late owner of the Oakland Raiders, has become part our sporting vocabulary.
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It’s true, too.
Professional teams care — first and foremost — about winning.
If they didn’t, a gentleman athlete like Memo Okur would be preparing for another season in Utah, not moving across the country to join Deron Williams in New Jersey.
The Jazz traded Okur on Thursday — sent him along because they had too many players at his position, including baby-faced youngsters Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter, who need minutes for the franchise to grow … and win.
So Okur’s gone.
It’s happened many times, of course.
In their relatively short history, the Jazz have made scores of trades. Some involved star players everybody knows: Bernard King, Adrian Dantley, Dominique Wilkins and Williams. Others involved lower-profile players who, every night, toiled out of the spotlight.
Jeff Judkins attended the University of Utah a few years before Fred Roberts played at BYU. But both remain members of the same professional fraternity — good guys who were traded by the Jazz.
Same with Thurl Bailey, Dell Curry, Mike Brown, Rich Kelley, Bobby Hansen, Raul Lopez, Adam Keefe, Ronnie Brewer, current head coach Tyrone Corbin and Greg Foster — his infamous throat-slash gesture in front of the Lakers’ bench notwithstanding.
On July 9, 1996, the Jazz traded a guy anyone would want as their next-door neighbor: Felton Spencer.
His smile rarely left his face.
Anyone who said hello got his trademark greeting in return: "Hey, baby."
Midway through the 1994-95 season, with Spencer playing the best basketball of his career, he ruptured his Achilles tendon in Boston.
Spencer’s personality never changed during his rehab. But he never completely recovered either and, 18 months later, he was traded.
Howard Eisley spent his first four seasons in Utah as the primary backup to future Hall of Famer John Stockton.
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