Sloan, Arroyo couldn't see eye to eye

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Email

From his first successful NBA season, a big four-year, $16 million contract and an impressive turn directing traffic for Puerto Rico in the Olympics, Arroyo felt he was on top of the world.

He was a hero in his home country, a marketing superstar who was treated the way Yao Ming is in China or Dirk Nowitzki in Germany. His team, the Jazz, had made significant upgrades in the summer that had the team poised to be a serious playoff contender.

By the time training camp hit, Arroyo felt that after three years of struggling to get anyone to remember his name, he had finally arrived.

But at some point this season, the relationship between Arroyo and coach Jerry Sloan became strained. Arroyo went from future franchise point guard to disenfranchised at the end of the Jazz bench.

On Friday, he went from Sloan's doghouse to the Pistons in a trade that sent Elden Campbell and a lottery-protected 2006 first-round draft pick to the Jazz.

Arroyo, in an interview with Insider on Friday afternoon, maintains he still does not know what went wrong. The Jazz dispute that.

To continue reading this article you must be an Insider

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Email
• Subscribe

Chad Ford | email

Senior Writer, NBA Insider

• Follow
• Archive

• Senior NBA Writer for ESPN.com
• ESPN Insider NBA Draft Analyst since 2002
• Writes ESPN's NBA Draft Top 100 and Lottery Mock Draft