This appears in the Monday, April 9, 2012 edition of the Business Mirror.
Hey, Dwight Howard. Be careful for what you wish for.
by rick olivares
Wherever this season for the Orlando
Magic goes, Stan Van Gundy made sure he salvaged a measure of personal pride
when he went public with the news that Dwight Howard asked management to fire
him. Were you surprised that the Magic were blown out that same evening by the
New York Knicks?
Many have said that professional
sports has turned into a player’s league. Free agency assured that. The players
may get the coaches fired but at the end of the day, the players are perceived
to be the petulant ones. And sometimes, life has a funny way of sneaking up on
you.
For sure coach-player relationships
have been contentious for as long as there have been sports. As Van Gundy
succinctly put it, it doesn’t have to be sports. One can feel dislike for a
boss at work but still put in great work.
During Michael Jordan’s younger years,
if he didn’t help run off coaches he would to his teammates. Does anyone
remember Brad Sellers? It’s one thing to destroy foes during a game but your
own teammate?
Jordan’s megalomania was eventually
checked during Game Five of the 1991 NBA Finals when the Lakers came charging
back while His Airness opted to hog all the shots. Phil Jackson called time and
in one of the most memorable sports scenes ever, he asked Jordan several times who
was open. Jordan finally admitted, “Paxson.”
“Then get him the fucking ball,”
growled Jackson. Paxson went to hit five successive jumpers that killed Los
Angeles and Chicago closed out the series in five for the first of their six
titles of the 1990s. Jordan would later swear by Jackson.
In his Third Coming, this time with
Washington, then Wizards coach Doug Collins acquiesced to everything that
Jordan wanted that he lost the entire team save for His Airness. When the
season was done, team owner Abe Pollin fired both Collins and Jordan. None of
Jordan’s teammates saw him off.
Magic Johnson began his career by
helping run out Paul Westhead out of LA. In his final act as a member of the
team, Johnson was head coach but he gave up when he couldn’t control the likes
of Nick Van Exel.
Both Jordan and Johnson are some of
the league’s greatest players but don’t think for a moment that their reps are
as vanilla as they would like. Jordan has yet to prove anything post-player.
Johnson? Well, he was one of the worst coaches in Lakers history.
After Jackson left the Lakers in 2004,
after management clearly decided they would opt to go with Kobe Bryant’s whims,
he came out with a book on the 2004 season titled, ‘The Last Season’. In that
book, Jackson told in rich detail the problems in dealing with the young
superstar that caused the team to unravel. Rudy Tomjanovich took over the
season after but he didn’t finish it citing health reasons. No doubt the
pressures of coming in post-Jackson had a huge effect on Tomjanovich’s health. Jackson’s
longtime assistant Frank Hamblen finished the year before Big Chief Triangle
returned.
Not every NBA coach has Jackson’s
cache. Who else? Pat Riley? Larry Brown and George Karl to an extent. But for
the rest, it’s touch and go. Vinny del Negro sympathizes with Van Gundy’s
predicament. “When things are going well every one is patting you on the back.
When things are going bad, that’s when you see how much support you really
have,” he told the Los Angeles Times’ Broderick Turner.
When Mike D’Antoni couldn’t get much
out of Carmelo Anthony, he turned the keys to New York’s game to the most
unlikely of people – journeyman Jeremy Lin. And what followed was the
hardcourt’s version of Tebow-mania. When Anthony returned, the Knicks sputtered.
Coincidentally, Stoudemire and Lin also got hurt not soon after. D’Antoni
resigned having enough of this craziness. When assistant Mike Woodson took over
as interim coach he wisely decided to hand over the keys to Anthony. As much as
the Knicks are winning again, they are also feasting on bad competition. Let’s
see where they go come playoff time.
Anthony was the franchise savior in
Denver where he was first drafted. But eventually the team gave up on him. That
game against Oklahoma where he bizarrely remained on the floor after bumping
Kevin Durant could have been his Ron Artest moment. While Anthony has become a
poster child for the current NBA problems, luckily, he still has time to
rewrite history. A championship or two will help erase that coach-killer tag
that comes along with his $18 million price tag.
And then there’s this bit of news.
Isiah Thomas was just fired by Florida
International University after three years on the job as head coach (his team
posted a cumulative 26-65 record). Thomas was one of those mini-general
managers during his time with the Detroit Pistons. As a player, Thomas is one
of the NBA’s All-time 50 greatest. But he had a hand in the trade of Adrian
Dantley for his childhood buddy and stooge Mark Aguirre. He was one of those
who instigated the freeze out of Michael Jordan during His Airness’ first
All-Star Game. Karma eventually set when it was said that his non-inclusion in
the 1992 US Men’s Olympic Team to the Barcelona Olympics was due to Jordan’s
influence.
You see, Dwight Howard, in case it
isn’t obvious yet, what goes around comes around.
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