He’s a public figure that thousands of coaches and younger players look up to. His mistakes that affect people outside his family are for public consumption. That’s how being a celebrity works. The “sanctity of the locker room” is how you get into cover-ups and coaches treating players poorly.
Who cares who thinks poorly of him? Who am I to tell a black man or woman how they feel about him now? Heck, four years ago, people on this very board were ready to fire the guy. When you are in the public eye, people will think different things about you. And that’s ok. Why is that considered more important than having a conversation about race and how words are affected by it? I think it’s an important national conversation to be had.
Like a few of us have been saying, how he treated his players/families and others in the past and in the future are going to determine how he is viewed later. So far, I think it’s been a good sign for him. If he was an asshole like Bob Knight, I think people would have turned on him quite severely. But the players, most talking heads (not talking about Stephen A/Bayless types that are just there to stir controversy) and many fans have responded appropriately to his comments.
Well, yesterday evening the Pardon the Interruption guy basically said it’s being way overblown and anyone who knows Beilein knows this is a non-story.
I think it pretty much has ended unless he doesn’t have the respect of the players and they call him out publicly. On ESPN’s website, it’s the last headline on the right on their NBA page. Nothing on their main page. It got a mention in the game recap last night.
From what I’ve seen, Michigan fans have acted far more defensively than JB did and they’ve been far more passionate trying to quell discussion than there have been people talking about it hysterically, thinking he’s some despicable human being.
Beilein made a serious mistake in using that word, he apologized personally and publicly, and it seems like apologies were accepted regarding what he said. This doesn’t change my opinion of him as being a good and respectable man.
The other side to this is that this is just more evidence that he made a suspect decision in leaving Michigan to take an NBA job. Financially maybe it was a good move but this was never going to work for him. We are not even at the all-star break and he has clearly lost the locker room. His firing at the end of the season seems inevitable. In the NBA, the players run the show. Why he would want to take his old school and controlling approach to the pros and think it would work was very perplexing to me. I just think it’s unfortunate that such a good coach could end his career on such a sour note.
Maybe they have moved on. I was curious to see how they’d respond in their next game, and they beat the Pistons in OT. Maybe this blowup (and his subsequent conversations with his players) actually will end up clearing some of the air.
It’s hard to evaluate the decision when you don’t understand his motivations. From public comments and connected folks, it seems clear that lifestyle was an important factor, and that making it to the highest level was a professional self-actualization. Nobody has mentioned a financial motivation. I’d argue that Cleveland’s location (close to Ann Arbor and Patrick’s now-former job) and Mike Gansey’s role, not to mention willingness to offer the job, were the primary drivers of joining that particular organization.
I’d also note that turnarounds are kind of his specialty, and that Michigan was a train wreck in his first season as well, before his methods took root and the roster fit better. He signed a longer than normal contract for a reason.
So…while things are clearly bad right now, it’s certainly not a foregone conclusion that he’s made a mistake or that it’s a failure. Certainly still could be…but too early to say even in spite of the horrendous start out of the gates.
Good points and you are correct in the fact that I don’t know his motivations for making the leap. I’ll just say this - I personally didn’t understand his desire to want to deal with powerful professional player egos and I thought this would end poorly for him. We’ll see if he can turn it around but I still have a tremendous amount of doubt that this arrangement will work.
Shaq and Barkley are great TV (in moderation). Love the insight of 3 former players in this situation. Hard to be an effective coach nowadays in the NBA with the way things leak and get into social media (the millions of dollars in salary probably help you sleep at night, but…).
Really wondering if there is a split between the pampered veterans and some of the younger guys who may be more receptive to Beilein’s methods. I just keep thinking of Love’s hissy fit when Sexton didn’t pass to him.
If we follow Kenny’s logic, the players, who did not voice their complaint immediately, either were not bothered by anything said or are very shy/ sluggish about voicing their complaints directly and in the moment.
It’s rare that I agree with Charles Barkley about freaking anything anymore, but those two break it down correctly. The idea that Beilein would mean to call his players thug-like when they were playing slug-like. . . just too hard to put together a damning case. And–as I think I said above–my perception was that Beilein has already won over, long ago, the people who really matter in this case. No one thinks he’s a hipster or terribly clued in to popular culture; no one thinks he’s a racist.
#Cavs rookie Darius Garland: “We’re all behind coach. I knew he didn’t mean it.” Added Collin Sexton: “We wanted to get a win for coach, just to show him that we’re with him.”
Wouldn’t surprise me if the younger players supported him more. Younger players haven’t played for enough coaches to complain about watching too much film
