i'm a little irked by all this talk about phil jackson not being in red auerbach's league as a nba coach. as a coach AND a human being, jackson leaves auerbach in the dust. red proved what a schlep he was when he denigrated jackson's accomplishments. don't kid yourself, auerbach had the greatest nba player ever(that's fucking right!)in bill russell. he surrounded him w/some of the best(certainly for that era)role players in the history of the game. the very idea of auerbach making sense of(much less coaching effectively)a petulant pippin or a loony rodman or even a narcissistic jordan is laughable. phil jackson has never once made an issue of the record or been anything but deferential to auerbach. he's a class act. red ain't & he did that to himself:
"He's never tried building a team and teaching the fundamentals," Auerbach told a New Jersey newspaper before Jackson tied his record. "When he's gone in there, they've been ready-made for him. It's just a matter of putting his system in there. They don't worry about developing players if they're not good enough. They just go get someone else."
there's nothing like someone holding some kind of record in sports & someone coming along to challege it. it really brings out the best in folks. for example, the doddering smug remnants of the 1972 miami dolphins. the "only" unbeaten team in nfl history. everytime anyone starts to get close, you can bet don shula will be wheeled out to disparage whoever it is that's about to replace him in the record books. after don, the rest of the crew come out, swaggering in an absurd parody of male bravado. young athletes HAVE to swagger, it's part of the mindset. when you're over 60, you just look like a fool, a jealous fool. the only reason i didn't mind the pats not actually going the whole season unbeaten(tho they did actually BEAT the dolphin's record in the number of games they won)is knowing we'd be subjected to hearing all the excuses & rationalizations & what have you that the dolphins have been saving up all these years. sour grapes coming from folks who have absolutely no reason for having them are sickening.
i don't really like kobe & i don't like this lakers team but that's all beside the point. i like the idea of phil sitting there in the record books alone, w/no asterisk. just a class act who knows how to manage to win & remain a class act at the same time. if you think that's easy, just look at all those folks sitting behind jackson's record.
absurdly, w/barely 1/3 of the baseball season done, the local hacks(ray ratto must be on the giant's payroll)are already projecting this ultimate loser team into the playoffs. they're doing this while watching the dodgers sail away w/the division & hearing the rockies hard charging it up the standings. not to mention ignoring at least five teams(mets, marlins, braves,cardinals cubs)who are inexplicably playing well below their standards. i think four of the five of those teams will end up finishing better than the giants.
when you're a hack & a homer, what are you going to do? i imagine if ray wrote what he really thought(i'm thinking this guy's not as silly as he comes across), he'd have problems getting those up close & personal interviews w/the team that he has to have to survive. i imagine he'd be standing outside of bochy's closed door while other reporters sat inside if he came clean about what a third rate manager bochy really is.
i've said it before: this game is hard & i think mocking anyone for not possessing skills i think they should have is ridiculous. i'm not mocking bochy(i just think he's way over his head)or the giants(they're trying really hard). when they sink like a stone in the hard heat of the summer & the pennant races, i'll feel kind of bad, tho it's not like they're soaring like icarus right now.
it's the fake hype the hacks are producing & knowing they'll turn on this team in a heartbeat when it all comes falling down that i can't stomach. i know it's too much to expect some kind of integrity from local sports journalists. i'd just like a little less mendacity, or, more precisely, less fickleness.
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