Another Coach A Victim To Child Who Would Be King

I could care less that Mike Brown got fired as Cleveland Cavs head coach. I think it's funny that he won coach of the year last year and then got fired this year. That just shows you that winning a coaching award in the NBA is like winning a Grammy- it's a nice little piece of hardware to keep in your house to remind people of what you used to do when you're working as an insurance agent in ten years.

Brown didn't particularly look like he knew what was going on and his long term strategies were similar to those of a man named Cletus playing chess. He's gone now and I doubt you'll see him surface as a head guy anytime soon.

What is troubling about the firing is the wide speculation that LeBron James got Brown fired. The argument itself is pointless: Brown is gone. What stems from these discussions is the frightful amount of power that LeBron James has over the daily operations of an entire franchise.

LeBron was born in 1984 which makes him 25 years old right now. Yet he will decide on who gets hired in Cleveland next. The Cavs have to acquiesce to his demand if they want to keep him in Ohio.

And that's just messed up.

LeBron is an amazing basketball player. Without him, the Cavs sink in the standings and ticket sales sag. I get that.

But he's a 25 year old guy who knows nothing about running an organization. In fact, the thing that controls LeBron seems to be his ego above everything else. From his refusal to shake hands after losing the Orlando series last year to the removal of a video footage of a college guy dunking on him, LeBron look incredibly prone to the stupid little temper tantrums young people throw when their priorities are all out whack.

And the Cavs are prepared to go through LeBron to make all of the decisions. They have to. Or LeBron and the ticket sales will leave.

So while most 25 year-olds out there are finding out what it's like to be kicked in the teeth by life, whether it's by a fruitless job search, the sudden realization of how much money student loans rip out of your paycheck, or just how fleeting your job can be if a boss or co-worker just doesn't like you for some reason, LeBron is running an organization despite zero experience doing so.

You'll have to excuse me if I don't wear a Cavs jersey around.

What The Cavs Need Is Jake Taylor

By now you've probably heard about the rumors concerning LeBron James' mom having and affair with James' teammate Delonte West.

James' lawyer says that's not true, but he's, you know, a lawyer. Others claim that it's absolutely true, but they don't exactly have...ahem...hard evidence.

True or not, this rumor is now being blamed for LeBron's sudden disappearance from the playoffs against the Celtics. The NBA MVP apparently found out about the affair during the series and just mentally checked out.

You could also probably blame Boston's nasty defense for shutting LeBron down, but for argument's sake, let's just say it was the affair. How do you rebound from that next year?

I'll tell you how.

The Cavaliers need to bring in Jake Taylor to soothe things out. Taylor, of course, is the aging catcher of the possibly fiction Cleveland Indians baseball team portrayed in the movie Major League.

Now Taylor is a baseball guy, so he can't be anything more than a consultant, but he played for the Indians so he's already familiar with Cleveland. Perhaps his signing will help lure LeBron back.

The real value of Taylor comes in the form of moderator between teammates. Remember in Major League, Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn was seduced by Roger Dorn's wife as an act of revenge against Dorn's cheating ways. Then she told Dorn! What a heartless bitch! Didn't she know there was a pennant to win?

Anyway, the Indians arrived at the ballpark to play the Yankees for the pennant only to find out Dorn knew the Vaughn had slept with his wife. It was a tense period, but Jake Taylor managed to sort the whole thing out and with his help, the Indians won.

Taylor has the history the Cavs need for a locker room presence, plus, he's a proven winner. In fact, when Taylor left Vaughn, I hear Vaughn fell back into drug use and even threatened his spouse with a knife. Oh to have the silky interpersonal touch of Jake Taylor back!

The Cavs have the issue of re-signing Lebron, but if they get him back, Taylor should come right afterwards. He can show LeBron the ropes while possibly even brining in Willie Mays Hayes for a pep talk. The result very well could be a trip to the Finals. Then the Cavs could win a championship in spectacular fashion and while they're all celebrating in a crowd, LeBron punches Delonte West, then helps him up and they all hug in euphoria. I haven't decided if LeBron's mom would be part of that hug.

It's a Hollywood ending for Cleveland.

Mr. Whineypants

On Tuesday, the Cleveland Cavaliers lost a close game to the lowly Indiana Pacers. It was a bad loss for the playoff bound Cavs, but it was one of 82 games.

What made this game stand out was the way it ended: on a referee's whistle. Two fouls in the final seconds of the game determined the outcome of the game. Both calls were awful, the second being a make up call for the first mistake. It was a lesson in how not to ref a game and will not go down as a shining moment in the NBA.

That's not what get me steamed though. It was a regular season NBA game in February. Cleveland will still be in the playoffs and the Pacers will probably not. Unless either team loses out on a post-season seed by one half of a game, there is nothing that will come from this game in the standings.

What got my sports pants in a wad was the reaction by the Cavs after the game. The post game tirade of Cleveland coach Mike Brown about the foul being the worst thing he's ever seen was probably true.

But I can assure you that Brown would have very little to say if only the first call was made against the Pacers. And that's where I have my problem. The first bad call made against Indiana was made because a ball was being lobbed up to King James. It was just as bad of a call, but it was made by someone guarding LeBron. Therefore, the call was just accepted as an NBA star foul.

Give the Pacers credit. After LeBron tied the game up, Indiana ran the exact same play against Cleveland ran and forced the referee to whistle a make up call or face the ridicule of not calling the game correctly. I don't know how two wrongs make a right, but that's just the way things work in the NBA. If the ref swallows his whistle, he would have a froward Pacers team on his hands.

So the ref makes the call and Indiana wins. But the ref actually made the call against....gasp....LeBron! What?! LeBron James called for a foul in crunch time? A bad foul called on him? Surely not!

And that is where I have my fundamental problem with the NBA. It is such a star powered league that when someone like King James gets called at the end of the game, the story isn't only about whether it was a good foul or not, it's that the foul was called on a star player.

The top line of the A.P. post game story was "LeBron James grudgingly lived with the NBA's non-star treatment Tuesday night." Oh, poor guy. He got a foul called on him.

James was at least understated about his anger at the final call. You couldn't say the same about his coach. After his initial rant, Mike Brown just couldn't leave it alone, saying "I don't care if I get fined. It is what it is. I saw the two plays; just a bad call determined the outcome of that game," Brown said. "If they want to fine me for telling the truth, fine me. This isn't me. I never do this."

Do you know why you never do this, Coach Brown? Because you have LeBron on your team, you idiot. If Cleveland wins the game on that final foul against Indiana, a bad call would have determined the game too. But Coach Brown is used to getting those calls because he has LeBron. He apparently expects it now since when things don't go his way he becomes unhinged. It was like watching a five year old throw a tantrum.

So chalk this game up as a win for the everyman NBA player who is tired of seeing Tim Duncan's bug eyes of disbelief at every foul called on him, Dwyane Wade's fall down maneuver after a shot to draw a cheap foul, or any other star's expectation of preferential treatment.

Just play the game and deal with it. Everyone else does.