"A couple of weeks before the first anniversary of the Night That Rocked the Jazz, the messy night that Deron Williams, first, pushed back too hard on Jerry Sloan during a game against Chicago and Sloan, second, felt undercut by his best player and, in one quick moment, undersupported by Jazz management and, third, quit, Karl Malone wanted to talk.

What happened to Sloan had festered inside Malone for long enough. In the immediate aftermath, he came to Utah to express concern, buying his own ticket to the next game at EnergySolutions Arena via a scalper because the Jazz had told him there were no tickets available for him, and spoke to reporters. Now, 12 months later, he wanted to make things clearer."