Protecting America's Children from Unsound Arguments: Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski "Riley should support coach, not replace him"

For the most part, I enjoy reading Woj. I don't enjoy his work in the aspirational Kelly-Dwyer-is-the-fan-we-all-want-to-be sense which leaves me hunting furiously through the Ball Don't Lie archives but rather with a muted respect for his ability to get Eddy Curry-sized scoops (cf. steaks and Michael Jackson talk with Kobe to Dwyer's Jordan retrospectives).

Still, Woj has earned deserved criticism for valuing his earnest, fiercely held viewpoints over whatever the facts of the situation maybe as any poor soul who had the temerity to click through to his LeBron James mauling knows all too well. Here, in his column imploring Pat Riley to not make a coaching change, he abandons logic:

They’re holding this against Spoelstra too, now. Which is absurd. Somehow, great players need a coach with gravitas, someone who can command respect. Everyone always insists it has to be a former player. No simulators need apply. Only, that logic is forever flawed. Spoelstra worked his way up from a video guy, the way former Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown had done. If James didn’t respect them, it had nothing to do with their playing résumé. James would never survive under Riley – the old one, anyway – unless he made some dramatic changes in his professionalism.

So here is the claim that Woj is trying to counter: "Great players (i.e. Mr. James) do not respect coaches who've never played the game. No simulators need apply."

Here is Woj's move: "That logic is forever flawed because Spoelstra and Brown (two coaches LeBron arguably respects as much as he respects Soulja Boi's DeShawn Stevenson tribute) worked their way up from being video guys."

Well, Mr. Woj, it's, in fact, your logic which is forever flawed. Take it from me, a man who once squeaked out of a state university with a B.A. in Phil, your logic is flawed forever, flawed eternally, flawed until time becomes an abstraction in the remnants of a post Helio-explosion solar system. Try as you might to bend the facts and the sentences to your will, Phil Jackson is right. Players do not generally respect simulators, that is coaches who are armchair dictators, assuming that videos and play-books tell them all they need to know about sweat, tears and Jacksonian "being in the moment."

Who I would want to coach an NBA team v Mephistopheles' All-Stars for my eternal, corrupt soul:

1. Phil Jackson
2. Larry Brown
3. Pat Riley
4. Hubie Brown
5. Red Holzman

Man, you know I don't need to spell out what 4 of these 5 coaches share. I also probably don't need to tell you Hubie Brown played professionally for 13 games and put up 13 a game while playing stifling defense.

If you've read this far, you are not a simulator.