How Jeff Hornacek became one of the most reliable players in Utah Jazz franchise history during the late 1990s.
Before he was patrolling the sidelines in Phoenix and New York, Jeff Hornacek was making the game look easy for himself with the Utah Jazz.
Hornacek's basketball résumé didn't start in Utah. He came out of Iowa State in the 1986 draft, where he was taken 46th overall by the Phoenix Suns. He spent six seasons building himself into his All-Star form.
By the 1991-92 season, he was averaging a career-high 20.1 points a game, earning his lone All-Star nod, and helping the Suns build a core around Kevin Johnson and Tom Chambers.
They made it to the playoffs four straight years, including two trips to the Western Conference Finals.
In the summer of 1992, Hornacek got shipped off to Philadelphia as part of a trade that brought Charles Barkley out west to Phoenix.
Hornacek spent a few years with the 76ers before Utah came calling in 1994.
Paired with John Stockton in the backcourt, Hornacek settled back into his natural shooting guard spot and became the backbone for a Jazz team already anchored by Stockton and Karl Malone.
Over seven seasons with Utah, Hornacek averaged 14.4 points per game and became the ultimate sidekick in Stockton-Malone's dominance — spacing the floor, nailing open looks and rarely missing from the charity stripe. He's still the franchise leader in career free-throw and three-point percentage.
His 40-point night against Seattle on Nov. 24, 1994, remains a career high and a reminder that Hornacek could produce on any given night.
Utah's payoff of acquiring Hornacek came in back-to-back NBA Finals trips in 1997 and 1998. Utah didn't get a ring either time, but Hornacek's fit alongside Stockton and Malone made those teams so dangerous.
Hornacek also won the NBA Three-Point Contest in 1998 and 2000, ending his Jazz tenure with a skill that got him there in the first place.
Hornacek played his final regular-season game on April 19, 2000, scoring 18 points in a win over the Sacramento Kings before hanging it up after 14 seasons.
Utah retired his No. 14, and he didn't stay away for long — he returned in 2007 as a shooting coach, then moved into a full assistant role in 2011.
From there, Phoenix hired him as a head coach in 2013 and delivered a 23-win improvement in year one. He later took over the Knicks before returning to college and the NBA ecosystem in various roles, including back with the Jazz as a coaching consultant.
Jeff Hornacek never put up elite numbers in his playing days, and has never been the headline of a "greatest Jazz players" list. But two Finals runs, a retired number and a reputation as one of the most reliable shooters of his generation are worth revisiting.
