I feel for the guy. There, I said it.
LBJ, I mean.
The overnight post mortems are pretty balanced in assigning blame between James and David Blatt. Chris Haynes' column made me angry last night, it was so hard on Blatt, so unfair. Haynes is a suck-up sycophant, a suck-up's sycophant, a guy who wouldn't have the job he has if he wasn't such a shill for James. At the other end there's Adrian Wojnarowski, there's always Adrian Wojnarowski, Adrian Wojnarowski lying in the weeds for LeBron James, ready to jump out and knife him.
I don't know if I've ever revealed this. I didn't know who the fuck Adrian Wojnarowski was until sometime after July 9, 2010. The traffic on "The Devil and LeBron James" was enormous, unprecedented; it remains by far the most read post in the history of Public Occurrences, and it just kept on keeping on. For weeks, months maybe, I don't remember now. In all of that traffic there was one repeat-reader who appeared again and again and again. I had to google it, it was something like "wojo@yahoosports." I didn't know if he was a sports writer or a staffer or what he was. He was a sports writer and I read a little then of what he had written. It wasn't until much later that I did a Full Wojo and got the full depth of his animosity toward James. "Adrian Wojnarowski really, really doesn't like LeBron James ..." http://www.waitingfornextyear.com/2014/12/adrian-wojnarowski-doesnt-like-lebron-james/. Last year Wojnarowski interviewed Dan Gilbert. "That wasn't me," Gilbert said to the willing plant, "That's not who I am." Gilbert's comic sans raging rant at LeBron James for leaving Cleveland in 2010. Why then did the letter remain on the "Cavaliers" website until days before James announced "I'm coming home?" Question never asked.
So there's him, "How David Blatt never stood a chance with LeBron James and his camp," and there's Haynes.
There's Brian Windhorst. He's pretty balanced.
"Coach killer" has been thrown around quite a bit. LeBron James has had three coaches fired in his thirteen years in the NBA. That's one less than the championships James has won, one writer noted. He owes...somebody a championship. Dirk Nowitzki has had three fired in seventeen years. See? Yeah, Magic Johnson got Paul Westhead fired, yeah, yeah, Michael Jordan got three guys fired.
We're an empathetic people, we Americans. A guy just got fired, so of course we are going to feel for him. I feel for him. A bit. And it is quintessentially American to assign fault, to blame. We are the most religious people on earth. Our God judges, there's a Judgment Day and everything. Our God fires people, literally. Consigns them to the flames on Judgment Day. So we judge, in His name.
Unlike Magic Johnson, unlike Michael Jordan, LeBron James did not conduct a Judgment Day hearing on David Blatt, there was no meeting at which James demanded Blatt be consigned to the flames; James was not told of The Decision beforehand.
After James re-signed, Blatt had already been hired, James never attempted to meet with his new coach. Never reached out to him. Never called to introduce himself, "Hey Coach, LeBron James here, lookin' forward to working with you." Nothing. That was wrong. I don't know if any of the other players did. I don't know if Blatt ever reached out to James. Or to any of the other players. But that wasn't good--Putting myself in LBJ's sneakers, I would...Ah, maybe I wouldn't have, I don't know now. If I, LBJ, of all players, took the first step maybe that would be taken as me sending a signal to Blatt that I was in charge; better leave it to Coach to make the first move. That was in the summer of 2014, however it was.
But come November and Coach Blatt's first NBA win and the players, and LeBron James, gave Blatt the game ball and a champagne bath in celebration. Congratulations, Coach!
It pissed Blatt off.
"We don't know each other, I have been coaching for 22 years, I have won over 700 games."
Oh.
It
pissed
Blatt
off.
Demerit, Blatt.
They did not get off to a good start, Blatt and the players, including James, did not get off to a good start.
Mark Stein: "James' handling of Blatt unbecoming" because James nixed a play Blatt had drawn up on his chalkboard. Unless it was a bonehead play, yeah, unbecoming of James.
Blatt trying to call a timeout he didn't have, a bonehead move that could have cost Cleveland the (playoff, as I recall) game, saved by Tyronn Lue grabbing Blatt off the court before the officials noticed. James said the incident proved that Cleveland was a team, that they had each other's backs. Becoming of James. Blatt explained to us something none of us knew before, that being a professional basketball coach was like being a fighter pilot in terms of the number of critical decisions that each is called upon to make...
Blatt calling for James to inbound the ball for the last shot, I think this was a different play from the above, a bonehead call, James saying, "No, I'm not going to inbound the ball, I'm going to take the last shot." Unbecoming, yeah, but it was a bonehead call by Blatt and James made the game-winning basket and isn't that what this about, winning games?! If your fighter pilot has a brain freeze flying his mission shouldn't his co-pilot, or someone on the ground, somebody, anybody, redirect him before Abort Mission?
I don't know what David Griffin meant last night when he said the "Cavaliers" struggle with "prosperity." That was a deep insight but I can't see down that far. Neither did one reporter who asked Griffin for a for instance. Griffin couldn't provide one. So I don't know what that was about, maybe it sounded deep and insightful and wasn't. Griffin was called on it and didn't provide one. Weird. The team handled prosperity just fine at almost exactly this time last year. After starting 19-18 or 18-19 they went on a 40-something to whatever run to finish the season. Neither 19 and 18 nor 18 and 19 add up to the 40-something games they won over the remainder of the season. Good, nice, lengthy run of prosperity there that they seemed to handle fine, I don't know. Blew through the playoffs, took casualties, "Next man up!", and had the "Warriors" down two games to one, and Steph Curry stressed to the point of a migraine attack. And then that overtime playoff game, Kyrie Irving playing too, too many minutes on his banged up knees, David Blatt not managing his minutes well at all, and he fractures his knee. A casualty too many, no next man to step up. That was it.
"LeBron James doesn't run this organization," David Griffin said last night. That is putting form over substance. "It's James' team now," more than one writer has written. I liked that. I liked that mostly because I wrote that before yesterday. The personnel moves are all James', it really is his team now, he has a good relationship with Tyronn Lue, and if David Griffin was right that the "Cavaliers" struggle with prosperity but play their best under adversity then this is their time.
LBJ, I mean.
The overnight post mortems are pretty balanced in assigning blame between James and David Blatt. Chris Haynes' column made me angry last night, it was so hard on Blatt, so unfair. Haynes is a suck-up sycophant, a suck-up's sycophant, a guy who wouldn't have the job he has if he wasn't such a shill for James. At the other end there's Adrian Wojnarowski, there's always Adrian Wojnarowski, Adrian Wojnarowski lying in the weeds for LeBron James, ready to jump out and knife him.
I don't know if I've ever revealed this. I didn't know who the fuck Adrian Wojnarowski was until sometime after July 9, 2010. The traffic on "The Devil and LeBron James" was enormous, unprecedented; it remains by far the most read post in the history of Public Occurrences, and it just kept on keeping on. For weeks, months maybe, I don't remember now. In all of that traffic there was one repeat-reader who appeared again and again and again. I had to google it, it was something like "wojo@yahoosports." I didn't know if he was a sports writer or a staffer or what he was. He was a sports writer and I read a little then of what he had written. It wasn't until much later that I did a Full Wojo and got the full depth of his animosity toward James. "Adrian Wojnarowski really, really doesn't like LeBron James ..." http://www.waitingfornextyear.com/2014/12/adrian-wojnarowski-doesnt-like-lebron-james/. Last year Wojnarowski interviewed Dan Gilbert. "That wasn't me," Gilbert said to the willing plant, "That's not who I am." Gilbert's comic sans raging rant at LeBron James for leaving Cleveland in 2010. Why then did the letter remain on the "Cavaliers" website until days before James announced "I'm coming home?" Question never asked.
So there's him, "How David Blatt never stood a chance with LeBron James and his camp," and there's Haynes.
There's Brian Windhorst. He's pretty balanced.
"Coach killer" has been thrown around quite a bit. LeBron James has had three coaches fired in his thirteen years in the NBA. That's one less than the championships James has won, one writer noted. He owes...somebody a championship. Dirk Nowitzki has had three fired in seventeen years. See? Yeah, Magic Johnson got Paul Westhead fired, yeah, yeah, Michael Jordan got three guys fired.
We're an empathetic people, we Americans. A guy just got fired, so of course we are going to feel for him. I feel for him. A bit. And it is quintessentially American to assign fault, to blame. We are the most religious people on earth. Our God judges, there's a Judgment Day and everything. Our God fires people, literally. Consigns them to the flames on Judgment Day. So we judge, in His name.
Unlike Magic Johnson, unlike Michael Jordan, LeBron James did not conduct a Judgment Day hearing on David Blatt, there was no meeting at which James demanded Blatt be consigned to the flames; James was not told of The Decision beforehand.
After James re-signed, Blatt had already been hired, James never attempted to meet with his new coach. Never reached out to him. Never called to introduce himself, "Hey Coach, LeBron James here, lookin' forward to working with you." Nothing. That was wrong. I don't know if any of the other players did. I don't know if Blatt ever reached out to James. Or to any of the other players. But that wasn't good--Putting myself in LBJ's sneakers, I would...Ah, maybe I wouldn't have, I don't know now. If I, LBJ, of all players, took the first step maybe that would be taken as me sending a signal to Blatt that I was in charge; better leave it to Coach to make the first move. That was in the summer of 2014, however it was.
But come November and Coach Blatt's first NBA win and the players, and LeBron James, gave Blatt the game ball and a champagne bath in celebration. Congratulations, Coach!
It pissed Blatt off.
"We don't know each other, I have been coaching for 22 years, I have won over 700 games."
Oh.
It
pissed
Blatt
off.
Demerit, Blatt.
They did not get off to a good start, Blatt and the players, including James, did not get off to a good start.
Mark Stein: "James' handling of Blatt unbecoming" because James nixed a play Blatt had drawn up on his chalkboard. Unless it was a bonehead play, yeah, unbecoming of James.
Blatt trying to call a timeout he didn't have, a bonehead move that could have cost Cleveland the (playoff, as I recall) game, saved by Tyronn Lue grabbing Blatt off the court before the officials noticed. James said the incident proved that Cleveland was a team, that they had each other's backs. Becoming of James. Blatt explained to us something none of us knew before, that being a professional basketball coach was like being a fighter pilot in terms of the number of critical decisions that each is called upon to make...
Blatt calling for James to inbound the ball for the last shot, I think this was a different play from the above, a bonehead call, James saying, "No, I'm not going to inbound the ball, I'm going to take the last shot." Unbecoming, yeah, but it was a bonehead call by Blatt and James made the game-winning basket and isn't that what this about, winning games?! If your fighter pilot has a brain freeze flying his mission shouldn't his co-pilot, or someone on the ground, somebody, anybody, redirect him before Abort Mission?
I don't know what David Griffin meant last night when he said the "Cavaliers" struggle with "prosperity." That was a deep insight but I can't see down that far. Neither did one reporter who asked Griffin for a for instance. Griffin couldn't provide one. So I don't know what that was about, maybe it sounded deep and insightful and wasn't. Griffin was called on it and didn't provide one. Weird. The team handled prosperity just fine at almost exactly this time last year. After starting 19-18 or 18-19 they went on a 40-something to whatever run to finish the season. Neither 19 and 18 nor 18 and 19 add up to the 40-something games they won over the remainder of the season. Good, nice, lengthy run of prosperity there that they seemed to handle fine, I don't know. Blew through the playoffs, took casualties, "Next man up!", and had the "Warriors" down two games to one, and Steph Curry stressed to the point of a migraine attack. And then that overtime playoff game, Kyrie Irving playing too, too many minutes on his banged up knees, David Blatt not managing his minutes well at all, and he fractures his knee. A casualty too many, no next man to step up. That was it.
"LeBron James doesn't run this organization," David Griffin said last night. That is putting form over substance. "It's James' team now," more than one writer has written. I liked that. I liked that mostly because I wrote that before yesterday. The personnel moves are all James', it really is his team now, he has a good relationship with Tyronn Lue, and if David Griffin was right that the "Cavaliers" struggle with prosperity but play their best under adversity then this is their time.
