lipoli390 wrote:Alex -- thanks for the reality check. Fact is, there is nothing new in a team's best player calling out his teammates. We can debate whether Love is as worthy as the likes of Kobe and Bird, but I see nothing wrong with a player of Love's caliber ( our only allstar caliber player) calling out players for pouting and not joining in timeout team huddles in a big close game like last night's. He's understandably frustrated by the fact that this organization has failed to assemble an adequate supporting cast around him. At the end of the day, this team's horrible record in close games is on our front office. Thanks to McHale we have Love and Pek. But Kahn and Flip have failed to adequately build around those two pieces.
Lip and alex, you guys are completely missing my point in initiating this thread. I think I have made it very clear several times that I have no problem with a player getting in another player's face...that's leadership, and it's what this team sorely needs. And I have no problem with a star saying the team needs to play better.
But the five examples you provided are completely different from Kevin's approach of singling out specific players, and doing it in a coward's fashion rather than face to face. I think if you read these five examples, you will easily see how different they are from the Love approach.
Take LeBron, for example. In the heat of action, he confronted Chalmers directly. LeBron is the leader of the team, and fans expect leaders to do what he did face to face. But then take a look at his comments to the media. Rather than blasting his teammate to some media jackal Love-style, instead he is supportive of him. He says he was wrong, and that he apologized to Chalmers personally. And he said "I ride with him every day". I know you guys can see the difference between Love and James, and this example is a perfect example of how a leader acts.
The Larry Bird article is another great example of leadership...thanks for providing it and please send a copy to Love. Whereas Kevin is most comfortable citing specific guys deficiencies to the media, Bird calls out the entire team...which includes him. It's all about pronouns. Larry understands that "we" is the correct pronoun for a leader to use...Kevin gravitates toward "he" or "they".
Same with Kobe. Again, he doesn't call out a specific individual, he just says the entire team needs to be better. Again...leadership.
And no problem with Jordan decking Steve Kerr. In fact, I called for Pek to throttle Love earlier in this thread. Emotions run hot in games and practices, and shit like this happens. Again, very different than whining about a player to the media.
Even Dwight Howard doesn't come across as immature as Kevin, in that he doesn't single anyone out. I don't like his comments though, because it sounds a little like Dwight is saying nobody but him is working hard. Not appropriate. But do we want Dwight Howard to be a leadership role model for our star. I'd prefer that he act more like LeBron and Bird.
I hope Kevin is reading this...he can learn a lot from these leadership examples :) .
