Being a beat reporter for a professional sports team has to cause a lot of internal conflict.
You have a job to do and that is to present the facts regarding individual games, individual players, and the circumstances surrounding a professional sports entity.
If you are around the same group of people everyday for eight or nine months out of the year, you would be unbelievably callous if you didn’t develop some sort of relationship with players or coaches.
Assuming the person involved isn’t a first class jerk, you want them to do well, it’s just human nature.
Here is a fact. There is no such thing as a perfect coach/manager. Even the best of them have weaknesses, even though sometimes the beat writers don’t want to admit it.
For example, Terry Francona is recognized as one of baseball’s best managers, and rightfully so. He’s won two World Series with Boston, including their first in 86 years, and took the Indians to another one.
It is one thing to guide the Red Sox, one of the sports’ big market teams to two pennants, but taking the small market Indians to one shows he is the real deal as a skipper.
We believe most baseball fans would agree there is no one they’d rather have managing the Indians, but that doesn’t mean every move Tito makes is the correct one.
Francona is famously patient, we have said at times this patience starts to become stubbornness. That’s a fine line for every coach or manager.
In essence, they are the same as the beat writers. They have been through successful seasons with the players and they want to give them the benefit of the doubt. By this time, watching Tito for more than five years in Cleveland, we can usually tell what players will or will not get the benefit of the doubt in terms of playing time or pitching usage.
As for the Cavs, Tyronn Lue coached the Cavs to a world title in 2016. He is a much better playoff coach, and does a good job designing plays after timeouts.
However, the Cavs’ defensive schemes in the regular season are atrocious. Lue’s loyalty to Mike Longabardi should be called into question. At least to the public, the coach continuously talks about pace, but never a defensive mindset.
Lue also is a loyalist, favoring the players who have won for him in the past. JR Smith and Tristan Thompson have had tough years, but at least the former doesn’t seem to lose playing time.
Right now, it seems that no matter what the question is, the answer is Jeff Green. Lue named him a starter for the rest of the regular season and playoffs the other day when he doesn’t even know the playoff match ups.
Lue’s other weakness to us is a feel for the game. He stays too long with players who clearly do not have it on that day. We aren’t talking about LeBron James or Kevin Love. We are talking about the role players. For example, if Jordan Clarkson doesn’t have it that day, he’s not making shots, then try someone else.
Even Hue Jackson, despite having the worst record in NFL history over the past two seasons has defenders in the media. Again, Hue seems to be a good guy, but defending a 1-31 record should call credibility into question.
The point is even the best coaches or managers aren’t perfect. Just because fans question these weaknesses, it doesn’t mean they want them fired.
We also understand the world of social media has people who fire Francona or Lue each and everyday.
We know it can be tough for the media to ask a tough question about strategy, and guys like Lue won’t answer them anyway. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be called into question.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 