BluesRocker
Banned
This comment and other comments like it are so astonishingly ignorant of the realities of professional sports, I don't even really want to respond. I'm only doing so because I'm bored, so what the hell. I guarantee you, 99 percent of the great players in the history of the NBA have openly defied a coach at one point or another. 99 percent of the great players in the history of the NBA have had significant conflicts with a head coach and/or front office and/or teammates.
It happens. All. The. Time. It's not uncommon.
There's this absurd fantasy among people on this board that Deron was some rare egomaniacal case study who somehow destroyed the team because of behavior that is completely commonplace around not just the NBA, but pro sports in general. Is all of what Deron did defensible? No, of course not. But that's not the point. The idea that some of you (including Jazz FO) have that the Jazz should somehow be the one franchise in the league that shouldn't have to deal with a star who's a bit of a headache is completely ridiculous. Every single superstar player in the NBA is a diva. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Exceptions are extremely rare.
Karl Malone was a diva and a headache. Michael Jordan was a diva and a headache. So was Larry Bird. So was Magic Johnson. So was Wilt Chamberlain. So was Kareem. So was Shaq. So was Hakeem Olajuwon. So was Barkley. So was Scottie Pippen. So is Dwyane Wade. So is LeBron. So is Chris Paul. So is Paul Pierce. So is Kevin Garnett. So is Dwight Howard. So is Dirk Nowitzki. So is Kobe Bryant. So are Durant and Westbrook. So is Kevin Love. So is Blake Griffin. This is reality.
"He was a cancer on the court." For god's sake. No he wasn't. The team won and won and won with him on the court, for several years. He made teammates immeasurably better. The problems he ended up being a part of and/or causing are regrettable and I'm not defending them per se, but they're par for the course. Keep in mind, for the first 6 or 7 years of Jordan's career, lots of people thought he was just a selfish a**hole.
Someone in an earlier post suggested that we should just keep going with the kind of team we have now. Which is an adorable sentiment, except you have virtually zero chance to win anything if you build a team like that and avoid superstars simply because you don't want to deal with their attitude. Want to keep plugging along with our current plan with no stars? Great. Then your ceiling is the 2011 post-Carmelo Denver Nuggets. Congratulations.
And I only say that because it's been true throughout, oh I don't know, the entire history of the NBA. Except, I guess, that Pistons team a few years back - but that's the exception, not the rule, and that team an uncommonly dominant defense, and it was still kind of a fluke that they won. (And even despite having a true superstar, they still had their share of divas. Chauncey? Rip? Sheed?)
Anyway, I'm rambling, but point being: Anyone moaning about D-Will's attitude and how the team is "better off without him," or how they wouldn't want him even if he wanted to come back, need to get a clue. He's obviously not re-signing with the Jazz, but adding him to this team would be a massive, massive improvement. Any suggestion otherwise is absurd.
Exactly. You bitches just got owned..... And that was pretty much what I just said on pg 5. But this poster is right.