OT: Spoelstra deserves better than this

Woj brought the hammer down on 'Bron today too. If even half of these things are true, wow. What a douche.

King James wants Spoelstra to bow to him
Adrian Wojnarowski

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports 11 hours, 47 minutes ago

Erik Spoelstra reached out to Mike Brown over the summer and searched for insight into both basketball’s blessing and curse: Coaching the two-time MVP LeBron James(notes).

Over and over, Brown uprooted his offensive system to appease James only to have it never work. Brown praised James’ character publicly when he would’ve preferred to have been truthful about James’ narcissism. James defied Brown in public and private, disregarded his play calls to freelance his offense, and belittled him without consequence within the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Meticulous in his preparation, Spoelstra spoke with several past coaches, and league sources said a clear and unequivocal picture appeared on how to proceed: End the cycle of enabling with James and hold him accountable.

And surprise, surprise: LeBron James has responded with a test of his own organizational strength, pushing to see how far the Heat will bend to his will. This season, James is hearing a word seldom uttered to him in Cleveland: “No.” And it keeps coming out of the coach’s mouth, keeps getting between the King and what he wants.

Can I stay overnight to party in New Orleans after a preseason game?

Can I play the clown in practice?

Can I get out of playing point guard?

No. No. No.

Wait, what?

No, LeBron.

No.

Even within a month of the season’s sideways 9-8 start, the NBA witnessed a predictable play out of the James-Maverick Carter playbook on Monday morning. They planted a story and exposed themselves again as jokers of the highest order. They care so little about anyone but themselves. Still, no one’s surprised that they’d stoop so low, so fast into this supposed historic 73-victory season and NBA Finals sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers. They want Spoelstra – and Pat Riley – to bend to them, to bow to the King the way everyone has before them.

Nevertheless, here’s what was surprising – even troubling – when the Heat talked on Monday before a victory over the Washington Wizards: In the blink of an eye, Dwyane Wade(notes) signed up with Team LeBron to scapegoat and sell out Spoelstra.

“I’m not going to say he’s ‘my guy,’ but he’s my coach,” Wade said.

Wade’s always been loyal, and that’s why it was so surprising to witness him bail this fast on Spoelstra, whom Wade knows too well. Spoelstra is a good NBA coach. Everyone knows that Wade isn’t a star who plays hard all the time, knows that he takes plays off on defense. They know that Spoelstra did a terrific job coaching 90 victories out of that flawed Miami roster the previous two seasons.

As much as ever, the Heat need Wade to influence James. Only now, it’s clear James is influencing Wade. With Udonis Haslem(notes) out for the regular season, the locker room misses one of its vital voices. Now, Wade is struggling on the floor and James is the devil on his shoulder, whispering that he doesn’t need to be accountable, that there’s an easy fall guy for everyone: Spoelstra.

Those who know Wade well, who care about him, were disappointed Monday. When Spoelstra needed Wade to stand up for him, Wade never shrunk so small. Spoelstra was Wade’s guy, but Wade’s finding it much easier to align himself with James’ coward act than do the right thing. This was something that you’d expect out of Chris Bosh(notes), who’s never been a leader, never a winner, but Wade?

“He knows better than this,” one of Wade’s former assistant coaches said. “I’m not saying he hasn’t changed some, but he knows right from wrong. And this is wrong.”

The fundamental problem for Spoelstra isn’t that James doesn’t respect coaches – he doesn’t respect people. Give LeBron this, though: He’s learned to live one way with the television light on, and another with it off. He treats everyone like a servant, because that’s what the system taught him as a teenage prodigy. To James, the coach isn’t there to mold him into the team dynamic. He’s there to serve him.

Wade was one of the Team USA players who’d watch incredulously as James would throw a bowl of fries back at a renowned chef and bark, “They’re cold!” Or throw his sweaty practice jersey across the court and command a team administrator to go pick it up. Everyone wants James to grow out of it, but he’s never showed much of an inclination for self-examination and improvement. And he’s never surrounded himself with people who’d push him to do so.

What’s more, the timing of this leak was no accident, because James and his business manager had to like the idea of someone else going on trial this week. When the public wanted to talk about James’ return to Cleveland, about the callous way with which he left, about the disjointed start in Miami, they thrust everything onto Spoelstra.

Part of them believed they could deflect Hell Week at home in Ohio, and part of them probably believed they could indeed align the public with them against Spoelstra.

After all, the coach had it coming to him. Of this, LeBron James was sure. Spoelstra had the audacity to do something that Mike Brown never had ownership’s backing to do in Cleveland: To push James, call him out, coach him.

The funniest part had to be how they leaked the idea that Erik Spoelstra was panicking now, behaving like he feared for his job. Truth be told, he’s been behaving in the opposite way. Spoelstra isn’t running from LeBron, but running at him.

Someone’s scared here, but it isn’t the coach.

 

David Stern is going to have to step in. LeBron James is on the verge of becoming Randy Moss--one of the league's most talented players who everyone hates.

As for me, I've never liked LeBron, so these stories merely serve as confirmation to my biases.

 

[video=youtube;uGpSpXJwlJ0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGpSpXJwlJ0[/video]

 

You don't tell LeBron James to stop attacking the rim, which is what he's had no problem with for much of the year.

 

Woj on his little crusade again. Enabling didn't bring down the Cavs, it was their lack of superior second options to rely on against elite defenses.

I'll ask again, how the hell does Woj know Riley isn't a better coach? He's a nut.

 

I actually think Spoelstra is a good coach in a horrible situation. He did good last year with Wade and a bunch of scrubs. I'm sure he wouldn't mind coming here either, I'm sure he has family here and he went to Jesuit so he probably has friends here.

 

Trading coaches would be a good situation for both Miami and Portland: we get the motion offense we want, they get the ISO offense they want. We get a younger coach wiling to work on a team in flux; they get an established coach they have already worked with on Team USA.

 

Maybe Mike Brown was a better coach than people gave him credit for.

 

I think we need fresh ideas. Not sure if Spoelstra's the answer, or not. I'm partial to Budenholzer in SA. He's been Pop's right hand man for years now and he's supposed to be a great X's and O's guy.

 

He'd be great, I'm sure, but is he going to be available, or even want to go to a team in flux? So yeah, SA will be in flux very soon too, but if I were him, I'd have to think that Pop retires when Duncan does, making him the heir apparent in SA. Why leave that (regardless of where else you could go)?

Spoesltra will be available just as soon ad Pat Riley hires himself as head coach, which will be any old time. And if we're not doing much better by then, Nate might be on a seat hot enough to burn him.

 

I don't think Pop is thinking about retiring anytime soon. He's only been coaching for like 13 years and he's 61.

 

My bad; he looks 70.

 

And Mike Brown did good with James and a bunch of scrubs...

It has more to do with the Superstar. He has no special qualities that he has taught this team. Most coaches have no impact on their team.

In this instance I would say, LeBron is being told to distribute too much and it is reflected in his ratio of jumpers this season. A savvy coach would have identified this already. Wade was hurt and he can't control that, but this whole "you distribute and he'll score" is dumb to me. Have both play aggressively, just at a lower usage rate.

 

That could very well be. Maybe the only offense that works with Lebron is the Lebron isolation offense. But the one thing you can say about Brown, is that he always got his teams to play excellent defense. He may have been put in a corner on offense because he had no choice. It's not like Brown ever got to coach anywhere else to see what he would have run without Lebron on the team.

 

Well the Cavs are on pace to win 34 games, and Mike Brown didn't get any role players to defend the Magic or Celtics in the playoffs. He didn't get Mo out of his slump, he didn't get James 38/8/8 against Orlando.

No it is very simple:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=7459

Historically these two types of perimeter players have had trouble meshing. It is this specific situation that has caused the heat to struggle. Not because there's anything wrong with just James, or Wade.

 

James had much, much more talent around him than Wade did. Not even comparable.

 

Except Wade choked against the Atlanta Hawks at home, and Mo Williams disappeared when LeBron was averaging 39 a night in Orlando. So much for that talent aspect. Mo was just fine before when LeBron averaged 40 points a game. Wade got swept by the Chicago Bulls in the first round, and got injured against the Pistons which cost the heat a title, in a 60 win season.

Kobe choked against the Magic too a little, but Pau Gasol defended Dwight Howard well and limited him. Defense matters, Jamison and Williams are terrible defenders. No matter what kind of offense you run that is not acceptable, and goes either on the coach, or he has no affect on his team.


Your argument is sloppy. Either Antawn Jamison and Mo didn't defend well and their coach has no impact, or they received bad coaching. In fact Mike Brown used the wrong lineups for defense, in the post-season.

 

You typed a lot of stuff to totally allude my point.

I don't think its debatable the talent that Lebron had around him in Cleveland was way better than what Wade played with last year in Miami. Wade's 2nd best player was a washed up Jermaine O'Neal. The talent around him was horrible.

 

I agree to a degree. I wouldn't use your hyperbole though.

 

Jamison, Williams, Shaq, Varejao and Hickson.

compared to O'Neal, Haslem, Chalmers and Beasley.