[2] After playing college basketball with the Evansville Purple Aces, Sloan was selected by the Baltimore Bullets with the fourth overall pick of the 1965 NBA draft.

He spent his rookie season with the Bullets before playing the remainder of his career with the Chicago Bulls, retiring due to injuries in 1976.

Sloan then became a coach, and had a career regular-season win–loss record of 1,221–803, placing him third all-time in NBA wins at the time he retired.

[5] Sloan first enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, withdrew, enrolled at Southern Illinois University, and withdrew once more before attending Evansville, where he played college basketball for the Evansville Purple Aces from 1962 to 1965, where he was named the Indiana Collegiate Conference (ICC) Player of the Year in 1963 and 1965 and a three-time first-team All-ICC selection.

[6][7] He was chosen as the 19th overall pick in the 1964 NBA draft by the Baltimore Bullets but he remained in college and led the Purple Aces to their second in two consecutive Division II national titles.

He became known as "the Original Bull", known for his tenacious defense, leading them to the playoffs in their first season, and to their first and only division title before the Michael Jordan era; after a series of knee injuries, he retired in 1976.

After Frank Layden became team president in December 1988, the Jazz chose Sloan as the new head coach.

[15] Sloan enjoyed a successful run of 16 consecutive seasons of taking his team to the playoffs, during which time he coached future Hall of Famers Karl Malone and John Stockton, along with other players including Jeff Hornacek, Antoine Carr, Tom Chambers, Mark Eaton, and Jeff Malone.

By the end of this period, he had joined Pat Riley and Phil Jackson as the only coaches with 10 or more seasons winning 50 or more games.

The Jazz were tied with the Denver Nuggets for the eighth and last spot of the playoffs with three games to go in the regular season.

[20] Sloan collected his 1,000th career win against the Dallas Mavericks on December 11, 2006, in a 101–79 victory, which made him only the fifth coach in NBA history to reach the milestone.

It was the sixth time in franchise history that Utah advanced to the conference finals, all coming under Sloan.

[16] During the 2008–09 season, Sloan reached 1,000 wins as coach of the Jazz on November 7 after beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 104–97 in a Friday night game.

[23] Sloan returned as head coach of the Jazz for the 2009–10 season, leading the team to a 53–29 record and the playoffs.

A decade later, Sloan was served a seven-game suspension in 2003 for pushing referee Courtney Kirkland in Sacramento.

[24] In April 2009, Sloan was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in the same class as his former longtime point guard John Stockton.

Sloan chose the class of 2006 Hall of Famer Charles Barkley to introduce him during his induction ceremony.

KSL-TV later asked Sloan whether reported conflicts with guard Deron Williams forced him to leave.

It's not the biggest draw in the country as far as free agents to go there, and they were able to have a really great home record, played the kind of basketball that was admirable.