In 1993, choosing which city would host the NBA All-Star Game was a streamlined process. Team owners submitted their bids. League officials looked at the pros and cons.
But really, one man made the decision.
“Back in the day,” former commissioner David Stern told The Tribune, “the commissioner could put his finger on the scale.”
Why Salt Lake City? There were bigger towns with more hotels and entertainment options. There were places where it would’ve been easier to host an All-Star Weekend — or places where everyone could’ve played more golf than Utah in February. But Utah getting the game was very much a function of the friendship between Stern and then-owner Larry Miller, an ambitious man who had staked an NBA franchise where others said it couldn’t be done.
Once the Jazz got the game, however, it was up to them to show that it wasn’t a mistake.
“To say we were surprised? Yeah, I’d say we were surprised,” said Grant Harrison, who was vice president of promotions and game operations at the time. “Larry didn’t give us an ultimatum, saying like, ‘You need to get your crap together.’ But he inferred, ‘We got it. Now let’s do what we always do.’”
As the Jazz prepare to submit another bid to host again in 2022 or 2023, here’s a look back on how the team landed the 1993 All-Star Game, how it became a success, and how key figures look back on it today:
Getting the game
In the 1980s, the Jazz were a struggling franchise and Larry Miller risked everything to keep the team in Utah. Rather than sell the team and make millions, the Utah native planned to build a new arena to ensure the Jazz would be able to stay.
David Stern, former NBA commissioner: “Well let’s put it this way, there may have been people who were skeptical, but I was never skeptical. … I always think of the Jazz as the little engine that could. We were proud of our Utah team.”
Jay Francis, former VP of marketing: “Some people say, why do you do it? I don’t know what the Jazz got out of it. Maybe it was the recognition that we’re a first-class NBA city. It really put the city and the state on the map. A lot of people visited that wouldn’t have visited otherwise. It was probably in the Larry Miller spirit: Why did he buy the team when he couldn’t afford it? He did it for Utah.”
Steve Luhm, former Tribune reporter: “I don’t remember specifically the announcement, but there was a sense of the NBA rewarding Larry Miller for hanging in there and getting the Jazz through those rough couple of years. It was really a testament to David Stern’s respect and friendship with Larry Miller. It turned out it was great for everybody.”
The logistics
There were several challenges for Salt Lake City to host an All-Star Weekend, namely hotel rooms. The Jazz had to spread out thousands of rooms across seven or eight hotels. That was the start of some of the issues the Jazz needed to address:
Francis: “Really Larry had all the relationships with the governor, with the mayor, and he put it on them to bring things together. Can we get this many room nights? Are we willing to pony this kind of money? It was like a major convention. We really flipped all that paperwork to them.”
Dave Allred, former VP of communications: “So Utah is not known for Hollywood-style celebrities, and we’re looking for someone to host our Kids Fest, which was this event on All-Star Saturday to tell kids to stay in school. I get a call from this guy, an agent saying, ‘I’d like to offer my client: His name is Dennis Haskins, he’s Mr. Belding from Saved By The Bell.’ I was like, ‘Who?’ But then I said, ‘OK, what is it going to cost us.’ He said if we flew Dennis out and put him up, he would do it. And honestly, he was just incredible: He came on stage singing the Saved By The Bell song. He kind of set the standard for the event.”
Francis: “Probably a month or so before the game, we had to fly to New York and take bags we could carry on. We went to the NBA office where they had the tickets for the game, and since we didn’t have computers, we had to count tickets against the manifest — it was probably 20,000 tickets. Then we had to sign for them as if we were signing for gold, and we had to keep them on us at all times. The NBA didn’t trust shipping companies enough to send them that way.”
The weekend itself
When the big weekend arrived, the Jazz were ready to go. The Tribune reported at the time that the All-Star Game poured $10 million into the local economy. But it wasn’t completely without issues: A snowstorm blew in on Saturday.
Greg Miller, former Jazz CEO: “I remember we were at the Old Salt Palace. A number of us that were waiting to get on the bus, wind started blowing in sideways. Clyde Drexler was standing right next to me and got hit in the face by a blizzard.”
Allred: “Saturday before the events, it started to snow like crazy. We thought that was cool too, like, ‘This is great: this is Utah, we’re showing off the snow.’ It was a little bit of a nightmare with the buses, though.”
Harrison: “There were a lot of Jazz season ticket holders at all the events. Maybe it was the only All-Star game they got a chance to see. It was a real ego trip for Utahns. That was a good time to puff out your chest and say ‘We’re going to get this game and we’re going to make it good.’”
Francis: “I slept at the arena for three days and two nights. We just lived there. The Jazz organization was a lot smaller than it is today. But we were really excited to show off our new arena. We wanted everyone to walk away feeling like they had a great time.”
Stern: “Salt Lake City made the grade. I remember Larry was beaming. He was showing off the arena to other NBA owners, going on as many tours as they wanted and maybe more than they wanted. He was one heck of a hands-on owner. I remember one time I had to call him and tell him, ‘If you get up one more time to visit the visiting bench, I’m going to move your seats.’ He was listening carefully to see if he could pick up any intelligence. Larry was the consummate fan.”
The game
Both Karl Malone and John Stockton were voted starters on the Western Conference team. The Jazz had been to the conference finals the year before, and Malone and Stockton had been on the Dream Team for the 1992 Olympics. They got to host the NBA’s premier event for the first time in their careers together, and they ended up being co-MVPs of a competitive game that went to overtime.
Gordon Chiesa, former assistant coach: “At that time, the Jazz got no respect. We were hardly on national television. It’s weird to be saying this, but it was almost Karl and John’s coming-out party nationally, as great as they were.”
Miller: “I remember Stockton would pass the ball to other forwards. They weren’t used to getting the ball to places where John could get them. There were a few turnovers like that.”
Luhm: “It was such a close game they really didn’t know who to vote for. I think we were able to an MVP for the East and the West. I think I voted for Malone through regulation. Stockton was so good [in] overtime. I don’t think John wouldn’t have been the MVP if it hadn’t gone to overtime. There probably wasn’t a more fitting ending.”
Harrison: “When the vote came out dead even, we heard the NBA said, ‘No, count ’em again. No, that can’t be.” But it came out even again. They didn’t bring two trophies. Somebody asked Malone if he wanted it, and he said, ‘I already got a trophy, we can give this one to John.’”
The effect
League officials told media at the time that the game was the success, and it had a ripple effect for years afterward.
Luhm: “Covering the NBA in the early 90s was, I believe, the pinnacle. You can’t say it was bigger than it is today, but it was that era of explosion, and everybody knowing the players. The money was starting to go up, and owners built arenas to keep and lure teams. TV contracts were starting to go up, and the players were starting to make a lot of money. It was like a perfect storm in the 90s. And that game made Utah, Stockton, Malone, Larry Miller a lot more than they already were — a part of the explosion.”
Stern: “Every year can be a golden era, but I remember it fondly because it was my first decade. Salt Lake City represented a tremendous success story. Here was Larry, was the head of the parts department at a car dealership. He put together a world-class organization. I had very much had them in mind when I told Larry some years later, we would always have a revenue sharing. It was a great event.”
Harrison: “We knew we could do it, but it was kind of a feather in the cap of the Utah Jazz if we could pull it off. Everybody says now that was when Salt Lake City knew we could pull off the Olympics.”
Allred: “That was a time that I really cherish. You hope that for the current Jazz organization. In some ways, they’re doing what we were doing. They’re trying to get to multiple years in the playoffs. They’re trying to get to the Finals one day. When I heard that they were bidding again, I thought, ‘that makes total sense.’ This is what that group did. I think it makes sense that you go back. Utah is legitimate. We should host an All-Star game again.”
