I did not know that the Iraqi Information Minister had left Al Jazeera to work for the Cleveland "Cavaliers."

Today, as a well-respected ESPN reporter wrote on what he had seen in the relationship between LeBron James and coach David Blatt in the NBA Finals,--James had "emasculated" the Blatter--Blatt and team general manager David Griffin held a surreal end-of-Finals news conference where they pronounced their happiness with the state of the Mistake by the Lake. It was not very convincing.

David Blatt was not a good coach in the traditional meaning of the term this year. He sucked in the contemporary meaning of that word and he was criticized and disrespected by any definition by James and other players all year. 

It is said Blatt had an unenviable task, he knowingly bought a piece of fool's gold only to have an alchemist change it into 24 karat. That is said to be rough and, in a sense, one can see how it was. James came back to Cleveland with some super-human secret motivation and he was not going to let the head coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv mellow his harsh. He would win with David Blatt, without David Blatt, by respecting David Blatt or by disrespecting David Blatt. He won a lot but couldn't win it all without Kyrie Irving, Anderson Varejao and Kevin Love.

David Blatt won just as much and lost just that little, in the traditional meaning of "win," meaning scoring more points than the other team. Blatt does not get much credit for all that winning, nor should he. However it remains an inconvenient truth that the team nominally coached by David Blatt did all that winning and all that little losing and did it without those three great or very good injured players. If he is willing to win that war while losing the battle for his manhood, well, as a Jewish male, he may be used to being "emasculated."

Sometimes that power is greatest which is not exercised and David Blatt swallowed his pride and deferred to LeBron James. Hard thing for the person nominally the boss to do but it was a smart, a very smart, thing for Blatt to do. The bottom line is winning, is it not? They won. Blatt was "in charge" of that. The fact of the matter is that LeBron James is the most intelligent basketball player in the history of the sport. He simply sees things others do not, especially David Blatt. Were Blatt to have insisted that the coach is right because he's the coach, David Blatt would have lost that fight with LeBron James first of all, so it was good for Blatt's survival that he did not go there, but it was also smart of Blatt to realize that he had Albert Einstein correcting Blatt's equations and substituting his own. Smart coaching.

We all play roles in life. Our Chinese friends walked to their struggle sessions, Bian Zhongyun walked to her death. All in the name of a Greater China. We have a saying in America, "Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug." Another ESPN LeBron-ologist wrote that he thinks James wants Blatt to return as coach, to have someone who James "can kick around." Comrade Blatt, your turn for a struggle session.

There is precedent for the kind of emasculated, backseat role Blatt acclimated himself to this season and not just in the player's league of the NBA. The NBA had the original zen master Phil Jackson be wildly successful. Michael Jordan got Doug Collins replaced as coach of the "Bulls." Magic Johnson did the same to Paul Westhead on the "Lakers." Westhead's replacement was Pat Riley. How'd that turn out?

But Blatt bird pumped a lot this year and he brings to my mind not an NBA coach but a Major League Baseball manager, Jack McKeon. Some years ago the Florida "Marlins" were floundering, appropriate verb for fish, and in mid-season they replaced whoever-it-was with McKeon. McKeon was seventy-two years old. In his dotage. He couldn't remember players' names, mispronounced them. He was over this hill and every hill in the range. McKeon could not have imposed his will, if he still had a baseball will, if he had wanted to. So he just stumbled and malapropismed and that got the manager out of the way of the players. Damn if those 2003 "Marlins" didn't go on to win the World Series. Baseball people winced when McKeon was named Manager of the Year. You could sympathize with the wincing! But the bottom line was that--somehow--with Jack McKeon "in charge" the "Marlins" won the World Serious. Refusing (or unable) to exercise authority that is your contractual right, sometimes that is the best use of authority. 

What David Blatt has to do in his second year is read LeBron James better and stay out of his way. With Kyrie Irving, Anderson Varajao and Kevin Love healthy and back next season Cleveland has already been named favorite by Las Vegas to win the championship in 2016. Las Vegas knows from bottom lines.