The New York Knicks-Denver Nuggets Fight: A Wholly Different Perspective – Update

I left you, in my last post on this topic, with this quote from Red Aeurbach:

“It all boils down to this. I used to hate these college coaches or any coach that was 25 points ahead with three minutes left to go, and they’re up pacing and they’re yelling and coaching because they’re on TV, and they want their picture on, and they get recognition. To me, the game was over. The day’s work is done. Worry about the next game.

“So I would light a cigar and sit on the bench and just watch it. The game was over, for all intents and purposes. I didn’t want to rub anything in or show anybody what a great coach I was when I was 25 points ahead. Why? I gotta win by 30? What the hell difference does it make?”

How ironic is it that Red Aeurbach just passed away before this incident?

What would Aeurbach have done, watching George Karl continue to “coach” his starters while rubbing his team’s victory in the face of his opponents with 1:15 left in the game? Probably sent in “Jungle” Jim Loscutoff, the Celtics enforcer and had him throttle J.R. Smith while Smith was on his way to the basket, that’s what.

But that was in a day when rough tactics and enforcers and ethics were part of the NBA game. A breach of ethics led to an enforcer entering the game to exact a measure of revenge for the ethics breach – no harm, no foul. Or, in Aeurbach’s case, a technical foul, no suspensions, no fines.

In today’s post-Auburn Hills environment ethics are no longer part of the NBA, no matter how much commissioner David Stern would like for us to believe. Stern makes deals with his owners and mandates an age-limit rule that strains and twists the credulity of labor laws but allows team owners to better gauge the talent pool from which they pick. Stern changes the instrument by which his employees, the players, make their money without so much as an, “Oh, by the way…” Stern then attempts to use his friends in an ever-pliant media to push his change – all in the name of a back room deal made that fills his coffers – and gives nothing in the way of money to the employees affected by the fundamental change, and the deal. In the work environment, coaches make sure that those who they don’t get along with are seen in the worst light by keeping their starters on the floor at the tail end of a rout. No harm, no foul, right? Not unless the opposing coach decides to pull a Red Aeurbach and decide to use a player as an enforcer to send a message to the opposing coach and his players; the message being, here’s a reminder that there are ethics by which the game is played.

Today we are so perspective-deprived that we can only be are fixated on the incident itself and the players involved. They are fixated on who threw a punch and did he run away afterward, fixated on how the incident adds to the image of a coach as a failure, fixated on how this incident affects player’s endorsement monies, how it affects their “street cred.” Selena Roberts of the New York Times, in an article written yesterday, illustrates the worldview of the perspective-deprived sports writer:

The Knicks were down by 16 with less than two minutes left in the game. Where is the Knicks’ we’re-not-going-to-take-this spirit in the first quarter or the second or the third? To watch the Knicks in a blowout is to see a team strut without any feathers.

Is any team more defiant after 20-point defeats? Does any team have more practitioners of false bravado?

Collins isn’t the only takedown artist on the team, but he makes for an easy go-to ruffian for Thomas. He is a rookie and an educated enforcer. Collins played for Temple when Coach John Chaney once ordered a goon to take out the competition.

Ruthlessness is a quality Thomas embraces. He once set picks with devilish elbows as the championship ringleader of the Detroit Bad Boys. Yet, somehow, he didn’t appreciate the aggressive defense Bruce Bowen played while a guarding jump shot against the Knicks in a mid-November game.

In an unhinged moment, Thomas angrily confronted Bowen from the sideline, then urged his team to simply break the feet of Bowen, the Spurs’ fabled defender.

“Break his neck,” that’s what Bowen said he heard.

Why isn’t dirty turnabout fair play with Thomas? With his career at a fragile win-or-else pivot point, with his team mired in frustrating inconsistency, with his insecurity on alert, he absorbs every loss as a personal slight and perceives every slight as a personal affront.

Every defeat is a referendum on him. For Thomas to take the blame for a blowout is to be accountable for his failures. Every player’s miscue is a reflection on his roster assemblage. For Thomas to scold a star over a mistake is to question his own decisions. Every critic is a threat. For Thomas to be shown up by Gregg Popovich’s Spurs or George Karl’s Nuggets is to have Larry Brown’s pals rub the past in his face.

This is the paranoia of perception — and it’s a distraction. Thomas isn’t coaching a game as much as he is strategizing his image. How does he look in this win or that loss?

Roberts obviously believes her myopic perception of Thomas as she is willing to engage in thinking for Thomas, taking the action of Thomas not wanting his team to be “shown up” – a breach of ethics – and extrapolating that to mean that Thomas is worried only about his own image. Isiah Thomas did warn Carmelo Anthony, a player Thomas has great respect for, not to drive the same lane ventured down by J.R. Smith – the same J.R. Smith who previously and inanely, except to those for whom watching ESPN dunk highlights is the highlight of their evenings, executed a slam worthy of the NBA Dunk Contest. Roberts is only correct in the fact that:

“For Thomas to be shown up by Gregg Popovich’s Spurs or George Karl’s Nuggets is to have Larry Brown’s pals rub the past in his face.”

And even then, she is only half-correct. Thomas never implied that he felt shown up by Popovich. Thomas was livid with Bowen’s overt breach of ethics and Popovich’s shrill defense of his player.

Thomas is livid that Dean Smith, a man of ethics and class could have spawned such self-absorbed, malevolent creatures such as Larry Brown, Roy Williams and George Karl. Neither Brown nor Williams ever gave a damn about their collegiate players’ personal welfare; they only cared about wins and losses and how the losses affected their image. Williams exists today in the insulated environment of the university of his training ground, North Carolina. But he knows he cannot do and say what he did at the University of Kansas because Dean Smith shadows his every move (if you can hunt down an ESPN, The Magazine article by Gene Wojciechowski, The End of the Line about former KU player, Luke Axtell, you’ll gain real insight into how Williams cares only about his image). Brown’s “play the right way” image is just that – image. The truth of Brown is well-known and needs no going-over here. And that brings us to Karl.

Karl’s exploits are explained in my previous post on this topic. But this quote from Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban’s personal blog, Blog Maverick is used to better understand exactly why it is Karl, not the players, not “the organizations” that should bear the full brunt of Stern’s ire.

Players respond to the environment they are placed in. Players respond to the expectations created for them by the organization.

Coaching a team is not just about Xs & Os. Being a general manager isn’t just about picking players. Being a Team President isn’t just about profitability. Being an owner isn’t just about entertaining customers or grandkids in your suite….Basketball is a team game, as well as a team business. It has its own set of organizational dynamics. GMs should know whether their coach is in control of their team and what the culture for the team the coach is defining. GMs and team presidents should know whether their players are prepared and have the character to deal with the stresses on and off the court that the NBA brings and if not, should be taking the responsibility and steps required to put them in a position to succeed.. All should be involved in communicating with the players to define what the on and off the court expectations the organization has for them.

The interesting thing is that the players know exactly where the flashpoints are. They know who the players that will instigate or escalate problems. More importantly, and more troubling, they are left to have to decipher exactly what it means when either the team/coach/GM/Owner either knows and doesn’t care, or is oblivious to what the players consider to be obvious.

In the case of Karl and Thomas, Cuban’s quote is to be applied in this way: coaches know exactly were each other’s flashpoint are. And George Karl knew with certainty that leaving his starters on the floor would incite the old school, “breach of ethics” mindset in Thomas. Karl, known to be as disingenuous as he is outspoken, particularly when throwing a player under the bus, “swore on his children” that he meant no harm in leaving his starters in the game with 1:15 left in the game. Karl’s saying he was afraid that if the game got under 10 points, it would have a “negative effect on his team” is equally disingenuous. With the score 119-100, if the Nuggets held the ball for 24 seconds without shooting and the Knicks scored within six seconds of possessing the ball – making three-pointers – the Nuggets would have won by at least 10 points. To put Karl’s actions in context with the Cuban quote, it is troubling that Nuggets’ owner Stanley Kroenke either doesn’t care or is oblivious to Karl’s capacity for malevolent manipulation of circumstances in which he plays a role.

Though Thomas cannot be exonerated for his actions, or his implied actions, he must be aware of the post-Auburn Hills world the NBA lives in and cannot escape culpability in the actual take down of J.R. Smith or the ensuing fight. However, to fail to place the brunt of the blame on the head of the true instigator of the fight, is a more egregious act than the fight itself. Karl’s players did nothing other than follow Karl’s orders. Thomas’ players did nothing other than to address a serious breach of NBA ethics in a time-honored fashion, whether or not under Thomas’ order. By failing to place blame with George Karl and Kroenke David Stern leaves open the door for similar events in the future.

Red Aeurbach, recently deceased, has already turned over in his grave.