Culture is Key to the Jazz’s Success

The Jazz’s culture, writes Kincade Upstill, is a big part of the franchise’s success. (Nick Bolerjack/utahjazz.com)

What can the Buffalo Bills learn from the Utah Jazz? And why am I writing about the Bills on a Jazz blog?

First, both teams are my first loves. Second, and most important, the Jazz have a strong culture that has led to success, and the Bills need to create a similar culture.

The Bills have had a long and rough history. To start, they had four straight historic Super Bowl appearances (which is how Bills fans prefer to remember it). After that, not much good happened. They missed the post season for 17 straight years and their last appearance in 1999 was scarred by the Doug Flutie/Rob Johnson quarterback controversy. The Bills have had numerous general managers and coaches that failed to fix a flawed culture. The final straw came when Bills fans had to put up with the Rex Ryan show. The team appeared to be at an all-time low, not in terms of talent but because a new culture was needed.

Three years ago, the Bills hired Sean McDermott to be their head coach. In his first season, he coached his team to the playoffs and ended the drought. Beside getting some help from Andy Dalton and the Bengals, McDermott began changing the culture in Buffalo, leading to the playoff streak being broken. McDermott and GM Brandon Beane have worked diligently to build a positive culture, paralleling what the Jazz have done for years.

The word culture is thrown around everywhere in sports, but it matters. Sports psychologist Dr. Jim Taylor wrote, “A culture is the expression of a team’s values, attitudes, and beliefs about sports and competition. It determines whether, for example, the team’s focus is on fun, mastery, or winning or whether it promotes individual accomplishment or team success.”

The Jazz have had a culture since the mid-80s that has led to plenty of winning. The NBA’s model franchise, the San Antonio Spurs, reporetely took much of their blueprint from the Jazz. “Popovich has openly admitted throughout the years that he modeled his coaching and team philosophy after that of Sloan and the Jazz organization from as far back as the mid-1990s when Utah was a contender,” wrote former Jazz beat writer Jody Genessy. “He wanted to emulate the stability, which included strong ownership and cornerstone players (John Stockton and Karl Malone for Utah; Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker for San Antonio); and consistent coaching.”

We know that the Jazz culture is special, so let’s break down the recipe that Popovich used and McDermott is trying to instill.

The most important part is a good owner. Ownership sets the culture for the organization and everything else is built upon that. The Jazz’s success really started when Larry Miller bought the team in 1985. Since then the Miller family has guided the franchise to a whole lot of wins.

Once good ownership is in place, the first key aspect is stability. The Jazz may not be a free agent destination for players, but it is for front office and coach personnel. The reason it’s such a sought after place is the stability that the Millers provide. Since 1985 they have had only four coaches and five general managers. They have also done the necessary work to ensure they hire the right people.

The Bills on the other hand haven’t had stability for years. They had hall of fame owner Ralph Wilson who founded and owned the team for 54 years. The team had success for a long time under him until 2000. This is when the revolving door of staff began. Since then they’ve had ten coaches and seven general managers. There were a lot of reasons the Bills missed the playoffs for years, but this is the main one. In 2014, after Wilson’s death, the Bills were sold to Terry Pegula. His ownership didn’t start out strong with the hiring of Ryan as coach. Pegula wised up after two years of the circus show that Ryan brought and hired McDermott.

Patience is needed in building stability, but the trend nowadays is that coaches don’t last more than three years, especially if they have talented players and experienced disappointing playoff losses. One of the best decisions Miller made was to believe in Sloan even after some heartbreaking early exits from the playoffs. Miller’s loyalty was rewarded with many wins and two Finals appearances (and a push-off away from winning one of them). Under the Millers, all parts of the organization work hand-in-hand. Many teams have issues arise between the coach and general manager, but the Jazz never have. Sloan once told Miller, “I am only going to ask you for one thing — if I get fired, let me get fired for my own decisions.” When the owner, front office and coaching staff trust each other, good things usually happen.

The Bills have had their share of issues with their front office, but with the hire of McDermott, they also brought in his buddy Brandon Beane to be the general manager. Before Buffalo, these two worked together with the Carolina Panthers and helped build the team that went to Super Bowl L. So far this partnership seems to work very well together.

The next ingredient is the talent. Good coaching can only take you so far. The 2003-04 Carlos Arroyo-led Jazz are a great example of this. A team that was predicted to win around 20 games¹ won 42, and if Matt Harpring hadn’t gotten injured midway through, this bunch of misfit players would have made the playoffs.

Since Lindsey was hired, player development has been his number one priority. Mim Haigh, a sports writer for the Athlete Assessments, wrote, “Teams which have this cultural alignment generally are more successful, experience less conflict, less turnover and have higher levels of athlete engagement (athletes’ commitment to the team goals and morale within the team). It’s easier to retain more engaged people.” If an athlete believes he can become a better player by going to a specific team, which will lead to greater earning potential, there is a good chance of him doing just that.

This past offseason when Emmanuel Mudiay was looking for a new home, he decided to come to Utah because he believed they had the coaching that would help him improve. If Mudiay does this, next offseason he will be able to cash in, which in turn boosts the Jazz’s reputation around the league. This will only help the team continue to get better and better free agents.

The Bills are still in their rebuild, but this past offseason began the process of upgrading their talent. The offense was in desperate need of an overhaul, and Beane signed players like wide receivers John Brown and Cole Beasley and a whole new offensive line starting with center Mitch Morse. They’ve helped the Bills start their season strong.

Another necessary ingredient is appreciating and supporting players. The Millers recently paid for major upgrades to the Zions Bank Basketball Campus, turning into one of the premier centers for the health and improvement of its players. From this, the players can recognize how important their careers are to the organization.

The Bills recently built a brand new 41,000 square foot Sports Performance Center. This center, much like the Jazz’s, focuses on strength and conditioning, sports science and sports medicine. Many of the key free agents the Bills signed this offseason point to this new building as a big reason why they chose Buffalo over other teams. On Twitter, Beasley praised the Bills’ new center and took a slight jab at his old team (Dallas Cowboys). “Actually if we wonna [sic] compare from a players perspective Buffalo’s s#@@ on Dallas. Facilities for recovery and training are top notch.”

Another example is Gail Miller’s response to the racist remarks made toward Russell Westbrook during a Jazz vs. Thunder game two seasons ago. Miller banned the fan who used the racist remarks and publicly read a statement outlining how sorry she was and how she was never going to let this happen again. The Jazz staff understand that in order to treat players well, they also have to support families. When Lindsey pulled the trigger on the Alec Burks for Kyle Korver trade, they helped their new acquisition by searching out housing options and schooling options for the family, as The Salt Lake Tribune’s Andy Larsen detailed here.

Lastly, a team needs people with high character. The Jazz have had a long history of drafting and signing “good guys” and staying away from those with red flags. This past season, they traded for Mike Conley Jr., who was named 2019 Teammate of the Year as well as won the 2019 Sportsmanship Award. Who Conley is as a person on and off the court, as Tony Jones reported, “it’s the reason the Utah Jazz pursued him [Conley] for years.”

The Bills have also been working hard on getting the right kind of players for their culture and locker room. Since McDermott’s time, the roster has completely turned over. Only a handful of players who he inherited from the previous regime are still on the team. After a win early this season, Lee Smith was asked about his team. He praised the positive culture in this interview. 

The Jazz culture is special and their fans are lucky to have a great organization to cheer for. Not all fan bases have that. Seeing the parallels between these two teams brings hope for Bills supporters like me knowing their team is finally on the right path.