Coaches who think for themselves pariahs among social media set
In this, the era of public thought policed by selfappointed social-media illuminati, there is one way for a coach to be branded as a lousy fool: Do something that strays from the accepted dogma.
Twice this week, once successfully and once not, a Philadelphia coach had the belly to ignore such senseless regulation.
The first came Tuesday, when the Flyers lost, 6-5, in Nashville. With 1:17 left and the Predators having improved a 5-on-3 powerplay to a 6-on-3 mugging by pulling their goaltender, Scott Hartnell scored to forge a 5-5 tie. Whatever would happen next, the Preds would retain a man advantage. As it was, there was a legitimate debate about whether Nashville had been offside before the Hartnell goal.
Dave Hakstol asked for a video replay, aware that the risk was a delay-of-game penalty. It was his last, best chance on that night, in that situation, with that momentum shift, against that opponent to win the bloody hockey game. Yet the minute the replay acquitted the Predators, the critics pounced on Hakstol for doing his own thinking, not theirs.
By the end of the week, Hakstol was acknowledging that he should have more assuredness of being correct before risking an additional shorthanded situation. It’s the way it works when there is allowed to be only one way of thinking: The offending party must walk it back or be battered around into eternity.
The Flyers lost the game, 6-5. It’s sports. Losing happens. As a point of fact, it happens every game to a coach who followed the accepted, approved script.
Two nights later, in Charlotte, it was Doug Pederson’s turn to be cyber-ridiculed when, after a Carolina penalty during a successful placement kick, the Eagles coach chose instead to seek a two-point conversion. Understand that taking points off the board is a groupthought mortal sin. So once Pederson did that, he was made on the internet to look like a goof. Turns out, LeGarrette Blount successfully ran for the 100-percent, point-after bonus.
Once, nothing was deemed more outrageous than an NBA player attempting a three-point shot. When the Sixers won the 1983 championship, Maurice Cheeks made one of them the entire season. And he became a Hall of Fame candidate. What did it take, Copernicus, to finally calculate that a 50-percent bonus on an outside shot was a reasonable risk? Eventually, the basketball police not only decriminalized the threepoint shot, but began to insist that even centers be called stretch-fives and attempt them with regularity.
Sometime in this century, football coaches will be publicly approved to go for the two-point conversion. And they will stop surrendering after three downs. And, once they figure out that there is no penalty for doing so, their default position will be to punt the ball out of bounds and avoid the risk of a return.
But group-thinkers are battlers. They don’t easily surrender. No, they will nod like drugged captives when Dusty Baker pulls Max Scherzer during a one-hitter, yet uses him later in final game of the same series as a relief pitcher, both times to disastrous results. But there was the pitch-count thing. And there was the no-tomorrow rule. And around the sports think-tank, those are not suggestions, but laws.
Sometimes, though, a little disobedience not only works, but is necessary for change.
The 76ers will pay Joel Embiid $148,000,000 over the coming five years to play basketball. They think he can do that. They don’t know. More, if Embiid reaches certain incentives, he will earn $178,000,000. Evidently, working for $148,000,000 isn’t incentive enough. But the market spoke. And that’s what it shouted.
Embiid has a chance to be a great player. There have been few centers, perhaps none, as capable of swishing a three-pointer at one end then sprinting to the other to block a shot. He’s only 23. He can be a winner. But he’s injured all the time. Has been since college. He’s undependable.
Bryan Colangelo leaked it to his trusty messengers that the Sixers have some vague salary-cap insurance rider against long-term injury to Embiid. So even if there is another injury, the Sixers won’t necessarily be trapped, payroll-wise. Or so it seems.
It’s Josh Harris’ money. And better to spend some on the Sixers than on another British soccer team. But Sixers fans better hope the cash was spent on good basketball, not just what it seems: A deeper investment in a cockamamie process that required losing games.
Just because something has become a tradition, it doesn’t mean it is right. And the first baseball team to reject a champagne celebration for winning an early playoff round will be recognized as courageously refusing to accept intermediate achievements. The rest will realize how pathetic they look and follow the new trend.
■ The Eagles had 10 penalties the other night in Carolina. The Panthers had one. Naturally, outrage ensued. But just because one team does something wrong 10 times, it doesn’t mean the other team must be made to stand in the corner, too.
Is it possible that there was lousy officiating in Charlotte? Yes. Likely, even. But not necessarily. Penalties are just that: Penalties. They don’t entitle the offenders to an equal number of penalties on an otherwise innocent team. There is, though, a word for that: Hockey.