Darrell Griffith remembers the smell from the hockey locker room next door at the Salt Palace. Mark Eaton remembers the rusty lockers when his team practiced at Westminster College.
So as the two Utah Jazz legends sat inside the remodeled locker room at Vivint Smart Home Arena this week, there was a little bit of envy.
“We only went to a couple of Finals,” Bryon Russell said and laughed. “Why didn’t we get this?”
Six former Jazz players — Griffith, Eaton, Russell, Corey Crowder, Thurl Bailey, and Mehmet Okur — got together this week to swap stories from their playing days and to talk about the future of the Jazz.
Eaton, who still has a home in Utah, has developed a relationship with the team’s star big man, Rudy Gobert. Griffith, meanwhile, is close with fellow Louisville-turned-Jazz star Donovan Mitchell.
And the retired players appreciate their connections with the current team.
“What I like about this team is they acknowledge this,” Bailey said, looking at his fellow alums. “They acknowledge us. Rudy knows how good Mark was. Donovan knows how good Darrell was. They know that we played and they respect that.”
That doesn’t mean, though, that these Jazz alums aren’t a little bit jealous.
“I would have done some damage out there in this age,” said Okur, the sharpshooting 7-footer.
“Man, you’d be averaging what?” Bailey asked.
“$30 million a year,” Okur said with a laugh.