To everyone freaking out about the greatest athlete on the planet overriding a play call from a first-year NBA head coach, aka all of national media and seemingly 90% of the city of Cleveland:
I’m absolutely flabbergasted by what I’ve been reading and hearing on the radio in the aftermath of a Cleveland sports team winning Game 4 of a best-of-7 playoff series yesterday. I get that over-analyzing is a thing we do around here. Look at the game tape, talk about things that didn’t necessarily go our way and contemplate strategies going forward. That’s all well and good. But there seems to be an alarming number of people out there that have gotten a running start, taken a jump off the pessimist high dive and ripped off a wicked can-opener into the deep end of negativity. And most of these people are aiming their splashes at Coach Blatt.
Before I go any further, let me say this: I completely understand the Blatt criticism…to an extent. He had an abomination of a game yesterday. No doubt about it. His Chris Webber impression very well could have lost the game for us, possibly even the series, if the refs would have caught it. The handful of inbound “plays” that led to the ceremonial burning of our timeouts and ultimately ended with LeBron surrounded by the sideline, halfcourt line, Mike Dunleavy (RIP) and Derrick Rose were questionable at best. Did an injured Kyrie hurt us more than he helped? Hard to say.
So question those decisions. Question the timeout mistake. That’s fair. Even when it comes to the title of this blog, go right ahead and criticize him for drawing up a play in the first place that had the best player in the world inbounding the ball. Like I said, coach had a rough game. But believe it or not, a player changing a play a coach had called or just challenging his tactics period HAS happened before in the history of the world. Probably more often than you’d think. I’d be willing to bet this wasn’t even the first time in the past month LeBron changed a Blatt play call. This shouldn’t be NEARLY the story that it is, but it’s Cleveland, so mentally prep yourself to hear about it until the day you die probably.
To prove I’m not lying, here’s a few other examples of egregious insubordination by athletes toward coaches:
Michael Jordan, 1989, Chicago Bulls vs. Cleveland Cavaliers
So this little diddy…
…never happens if the greatest basketball player of all time doesn’t step WAY out of line and politely suggest that coach Doug Collins give him the ball during the previous timeout. From Sam Smith’s 1992 book The Jordan Rules:
“Collins called time-out, gathered everyone in a tight circle, and began to draw a play for Dave Corzine. “Everyone started to look around,” recalled back-up forward Jack Haley, who would call the moment the most thrilling of his life. “Doug could see everyone sort of frowning, and he started to explain that they wouldn’t be expecting Corzine to get the ball. Michael just slammed his fist down on the clipboard and said, ‘Give me the fuckin’ ball.’ Doug looked at him, drew up the play Jordan wanted…””
Yeah ok Doug Collins may or may not have been fired like a month later but they were completely different circumstances than Blatt is in this year. It was Collins’ third year as a coach and like 6th playoff series. He also went on to have a pretty successful career, making the playoffs in seven of the eleven seasons he coached.
Juan Marichal, 1963, San Francisco Giants vs. Milwaukee Braves
Fun story for baseball fans who grew up in the age of pitch counts and, well, general regard for the human body. On July 2nd, 1963, the Giants and Braves played a 16-inning ballgame. A total of two pitchers were used. Juan Marichal threw 16 innings, allowing 8 hits, 0 runs, 4 walks and recording ten strikeouts. The Braves’ Warren Spahn went 15 and a third, giving up 9 hits, 1 run, 1 walk and two strikeouts. Spahn was 42 years old at the time. They’re both in the Hall of Fame now. Some guy named Willie Mays hit the homer that won it. I think he’s in there, too.
Giants manager Alvin Dark allegedly tried to take Marichal out after the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th innings. Then after the 14th he flat-out told him, “You’re done.” Marichal pointed to Spahn on the mound and said, “Do you see that man on the mound? That man is 42 and I’m 25. I’m not ready for you to take me out.” He stayed in the game and got the win two innings later.
Dark would go on and win nearly 1,000 games as a big league manager, and is one of three managers in Major League history to win both an American League and National League pennant. David Blatt’s career NBA record is 53-29.
Luke Cafferty and Vince Howard, Friday Night Lights season 4 episode 5, East Dillion Lions vs. South Pines Tigers
If there’s one thing all sports fans can agree on, it’s that Coach Eric Taylor is the greatest football coach in the history of planet Earth. That’s just a fact. And even the greatest coach his sport has ever seen has been second-guessed by his players before. In their third game of Season 4, the Lions are struggling to get anything going on offense, particularly due to the fact that Taylor refuses to call anything but inside runs. Eventually, Luke and Vince get fed up and change the play call in the huddle to an option out of the Wildcat formation.
They run the play, Luke pitches the ball to Vince and boom touchdown. Weird.
Long story short, let’s not make a bigger deal out of this Blatt-LeBron thing than it should be. Criticism is warranted, certainly. But not because of what happened in that last huddle. We WON, guys. Can’t we just enjoy it like Austin and Fred?
https://twitter.com/ABennett_10/status/597766931735715840
(h/t @ABennett_10)
Bottlegate 