To understand JB you must know just how unusual his upbringing was. His Dad was a Teutonic iconoclast. he set high personal standards for himself. he never gave JB the slightest bit of warmth or encouragement. he cared but he would never show it.
JB worked at basketball like a maniac. He was expected to be self-motivated. it was a given that it would take a super human effort to even get acknowledgement from his Dad.
People read too much into it when they say that JB has thought this through and thinks it is the best way to get through to McC. This is simply how JB rolls, plain and simple. he tells it like it is. he could care less about contemporary psychobabble and touchy feelie considerations. He is a taskmaster. what counts is individual performance and winning. If a player does not perform, JB has no sympathy. If a player fails, he has scorn.
We think of Knight as the ultimate hard nosed coach. Because JB is not a micromanager, few people realize that he is the most hard nosed coach in the world.
JB,s life depended on working his tail off. He was so thin that BJ would look like the hulk (6.3 & 140), and he had no hops. Yet, he was a darn good player. second leading scorer as a senior and good enough to get a sniff at the NBA, if not for his decision to coach. JB is old school, hard ass. There are none like him left.
