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Posted: 1:28 PM- How young are these Jazz? They don't even know how to be superstitious yet.
Despite a 7-1 start, Utah players have voted - unanimously, though somewhat grudgingly in some cases - to make a uniform change Friday night in Seattle. From now on, the Jazz will wear black shoes and black socks with their dark road uniforms.
"We were talking about it before the 7-1 start, so it's not" going to change the team's luck, insisted Jazz point guard Deron Williams, the ringleader in the switch away from white shoes. "Shoes don't matter. It's just a different color."
For a team with a conservative, by-the-book reputation, it's a significant change, however. But the old-school coach is on board with the black shoes, which the team broke out for the first time at its Wednesday morning practice.
"I don't care if they wear overshoes," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan - while wearing white sneakers. "As long as they're the same color."
That's been an issue since Williams arrived in Utah last season and began pushing for the switch.
"The young guys wanted them, but other guys were still going to wear white," Sloan said. "I said, 'it doesn't work that way.' It's part of being a team. You've got to be a major campaigner and get everybody to wear them. Otherwise, one or two guys? [That's when] I'll get involved in it."
Williams has been working on his teammates, but the big breakthrough came when one 7-foot-2 roadblock to his plans decided to retire last spring.
"I wanted to wear them, but we couldn't get everybody to wear them with Tag being here," Williams said of his stubborn ex-teammate, Greg Ostertag. "He didn't want to wear them. Matt [Harpring] didn't really want to. Memo [Okur] didn't. But 'now" we just said, 'We don't care.' "
The change, a first in the franchise's 32-year history, was delayed until Utah's fifth road game because equipment manager Brian Zettler didn't have black versions of the specific models of shoes each player wears. (All Jazz players wear Nike, except New Balance endorser Rafael Araujo.) The Jazz will still wear white at home.
Sloan said he doesn't mind the shoes, and he's even OK with tempting fate by changing after such a strong start. "I have my own superstitions," he said. But he does have one concern, a more practical one, about the switch.
"My college coach always said, 'Don't wear black shoes because you'll get traveling called on you a lot more,' " Sloan explained. "That's important. That's a possession."