Tod Murphy wrote:
WallyWorld - good thoughts on the Love situation. I think it is very valuable to probe into it like you are doing, so thanks for adding to the perspective.
Here are some of my thoughts after watching the game last night.
Love is 24, has overachieved, is a top NBA player, but he still has a lot of lessons to learn about team, leadership, defense, offense and how to represent himself and the organization. He's talking about playoffs and being a contender. His production contributes to that, but he does not understand how to take a team and move them to the next rung in the ladder.
MJ and Kobe had a lot to learn from Phil to get to the place where they got all those rings on their fingers. One of the best things Love could do right now is stop acting like a D-bag and a know-it-all and go to Adelman with some humility and say to him, "Show me how to be a part of a winning and contending team."
He shows that he knows almost nothing about building trust, which is the foundation for moving towards a high performing team. This is true in sports and in corporations. He has to recognize what he does to destroy trust and what he is and needs to be doing to build it.
You watch and listen to AK. He understands what it takes to build a winning team. Love could learn a ton from him and he should be grateful that Kahn got him.
Rubio? Go back and find how he was talking this past summer. He was disturbed by the team dynamics and as he called it, lack of family. He contrasted it to his Spanish national team that was so clearly there for him in the summer while he rehabbed and he felt the family aspect that he saw was missing.
Love should have recognized what Ricky was saying and come to him and said, "Let's figure out how to build this." Instead, at that very time, he was interacting with the other American Olympic stars and bitching.
Love has the treasure right in front of him of Rubio, AK, Shved and Pek. Instead of embracing what he can learn from them, he is acting like a jerk and destroying trust with guys that are very willing to follow him and build it with him. But they must be looking at what he just did with this interview and be confused.
I don't doubt that the interview was a strategic decision. It was a poor strategic decision to do that at this time. It didn't help Love at all. It hurt him before his team, organization and the fans. (The point is not if what he said was true, most of it is. But we already heard it from Love and it was foolish to do that now and publicly.)
I hoped he learned something from this. Show some humility, be a learner, and start contributing to winning.
So far, Mr. Love, you have pretty much sucked this year and let your team down. And last night's performance was pathetic. Stop whining on the court and publicly and start earning the the max money you are getting paid!
Oh now, this is just fantastic. Thank you for these thoughts. I totally concur.