We mentioned something that seemed quite clear in our post about Heat players being unhappy with Erik Spoelstra — that leak had to come from either LeBron James camp or CAA, the agency that represents all of the Heat’s big three. Just people trying to protect their players by shifting blame to the coach.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo confirms that in his latest anti-James screed, saying it was James’ right hand man Maverick Carter who planted the story. The reason was to distract from the build up of LeBron returning to Cleveland on Thursday.
You can believe everything Wojnarowski writes or not, that’s up to you, but it’s clear the James/Spoelstra relationship is not going swimmingly. James has said he’s not having fun and asked for other changes in how he is used. You don’t have two long sit-down meetings with your coach when everything is going well. And from the Heat’s 10-8 record, it’s clear things are not going well.
What’s different for James is the Heat are standing up to him as an organization in a way Cleveland did not. Spoelstra is on the front lines of this — telling James he can’t miss a team flight to stay an extra night in New Orleans, telling him he has to play point guard at times whether he wants to or not. Spoelstra is the one fighting the fight but you can bet he has the backing of Pat Riley and Micky Arison.
Brian Windhorst, who covered James in Cleveland and now is doing the same in Miami for ESPN, writes that standing up to James like this is key, something the franchise did not (and in some ways could not) do in Cleveland. Something the Cavs paid a price for.
Now is when the (Heat) organization — be it president Pat Riley himself or Spoelstra in one of their series of meetings or perhaps both — need to tell James that they won’t completely accommodate him. Spoelstra will remain the coach and the team is going to stay the course. That means James, whether he likes it or not, will to continue to be asked to sacrifice parts of his game.
It may be hard in the short term but this course of action will make a difference over the long haul. The evidence resides in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ recent history.
Windhorst’s point is that James has basically gotten his way wherever he has gone. Nobody wanted to offend, everybody wanted James on their side, everybody wanted to make him happy. If the Heat do that, they will pay, both on the court and in stability of the organization. Windhorst sees this as the James testing the organization and they can’t buckle or change.
The Heat likely won’t buckle. But until the team on the court gets on a little winning streak and beats some quality opponents, these tests and these questions will remain.
