Former Jazz coach and Bulls star Jerry Sloan dies

Jerry Sloan, who spent 23 years as coach of the Utah Jazz and took the team to the NBA Finals in 1997 and 1998, died Friday at 78. The team said that for four years he had Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia.

Sloan presided over the glory days of the John Stockton and Karl Malone pick-and-roll-to-perfection era in Salt Lake City. He is fourth on the NBA's victory list.

Sloan was a two-time All-Star as a player with the Chicago Bulls, led his alma mater, Evansville, to a pair of NCAA college division national championships and was an assistant coach on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team that won gold at the Atlanta Games. He fell in love with the game as a student in a one-room Illinois schoolhouse, never forgetting his roots.

Sloan often said numbers meant nothing to him. That's a shame, because he has so many to marvel.

Sloan had 1,221 NBA coaching victories, behind only Lenny Wilkens, Don Nelson and Gregg Popovich. And Sloan's 23 seasons with the Jazz are the second-longest string with one team in NBA history; Popovich is in his 24th season with the San Antonio Spurs.

Out of Sloan's 23 seasons with the Jazz, the team finished below the .500 mark only once. He's one of five coaches to roam the sidelines for at least 2,000 games, and the only one of those five with a winning percentage better than .600.

And he was revered as a player with the Bulls, and his No. 4 jersey was the first retired by the franchise.

Patrick Ewing has coronavirus. The former New York Knicks great, who has been coach of the Georgetown men's basketball team since 2017, announced his diagnosis Friday.

"Now more than ever, I want to thank health care workers and everyone on the front lines. I'll be fine, and we will all get through this."

Ewing is isolated at a Washington, D.C.-area hospital.

• The Arizona Diamondbacks have started individual workouts as baseball begins a measured return to play from the coronavirus pandemic.

A small number of players worked out at Chase Field in downtown Phoenix and Salt River Fields, their spring training facility about 20 miles away in Scottsdale. The players were separated as much as possible to follow league-mandated guidelines, and the workouts were cleared by MLB.

NFL: Quarterback Joe Flacco, the 2013 Super Bowl MVP with the Ravens, agreed to terms on a one-year deal worth $1.5 million that could reach $4.5 million with incentives with the Jets.

Tennis: Ashley Cooper, a former No. 1 player who won four Grand Slam singles titles including the Australian, Wimbledon and U.S. championships in 1958, has died after a long illness. He was 83.