Michael Jordan Responds to Larry Brown
Michael Jordan’s tenure as an NBA owner is starting to look like his time as a minor league baseball player.His Bobcats have lost 21 consecutive games and are being outscored by an average of 13.9 points per night. They rank last in offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage.
However, they rank 29th in the league in rebounding rate (take that Golden State Warriors!).
Charlotte has only one player—rookie Kemba Walker—with a Player Efficiency Rating over the league average of 15 (his is 15.2). And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the team’s best playmaker, D.J. Augustin, plays the same position as Walker, so it’s difficult to keep both on the floor at the same time.
The bottom line is, the team has gone from bad to worse since Jordan became the face of the franchise, and that decline has coincided with his retreat into seclusion.
Jordan hasn’t been the most talkative person since retiring as a player. He still has his own Nike brand and his Hanes commercials pop up once in awhile. But the smiling guy we see on TV is usually grimacing at Bobcats games, if he’s in attendance at all.
And according to former Bobcats coach and current SMU coach Larry Brown, Jordan’s problems are exacerbated by his own stubbornness and the phalanx of “yes” men that surround him.
“You know I love the guy, think he’s brilliant, but he’s around people who don’t have a clue,” Brown said today on the Dan Patrick show, as quoted by ESPNChicago.com. “And they won’t challenge him. And the more you challenge him, the more you get from him.
“I was sick about it,” Brown added. “I haven’t spoken to him since. I don’t like seeing what’s going on.”
Well apparently Brown’s words were enough for Jordan to reach out to the press, something he’s rarely done as an NBA owner.
In an interview with Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer, Jordan attempted to clear up any confusion about the people that work around him in the Bobcats front office.
“It’s absolutely wrong that I don’t want guys to challenge me,” Jordan told Bonnell. “And the people who say that aren’t in the room.
“The idea that people can’t do that is just wrong,” he continued. “Curtis (Polk, team vice chairman) has worked with me for over 20 years and he’s never had a problem telling me, ‘no.’ Rod (Higgins, president of basketball operations) has no problem telling me no. Fred (Whitfield, team president) has no problem telling me ‘no.’ And Rich (Cho, the team’s general manager) is about as direct and candid a person as you’ll ever meet.”
And as bad as the Bobcats have been, Jordan vehemently denied tanking in any way.
“This was going to be a trying year—we knew that,” Jordan told Bonnell. “But did we want to chase the most Ping Pong balls? No way.”
Jordan went on to say that he expects to be judged by a higher standard than other owners because of the success he had as a player, and that could be right. But at a certain point, even if the team in question is doing poorly, fans have to feel connected to a plan or a direction.
The issue in Charlotte is, the fans don’t know where this team is going. The Bobcats two best players (Augustin and Walker) play the same position. Tyrus Thomas—who signed a $40 million, five-year deal before the 2010-2011 season—has been phased out throughout the course of this year. Charlotte still owes Corey Maggette nearly $11 million next season and it’s unlikely that DeSagana Diop or Matt Carroll will opt out of their deals, so that’s nearly another $11 million added to the cap right there.
How can a team improve when it has so much bad money on its books?
The good news for Bobcats fans is that they’ll have a top-4 pick in this year’s draft and have a 25% chance of landing Anthony Davis with the first overall pick. What Jordan does from there is up to him. No, he’s not alone in that front office and there are other decision makers working under him. However, he’ll be the person who ultimately has to answer to his home state fans and they can’t be too happy right now.
