no actually, it what's makes him a dbag. Great coach no doubt but one can simply call him what he is to so many others too often, as I just did, or we can do it as Scott Pitoniak and Waters have done in their work on him and call him socially challenged for multiple valid reasons they point out. But he is who he is at this point which is a rather complicated guy (nice way of saying what I said he is above, this much too often)
True story. Patient walks in my office yesterday. Was up at the Carmelo center earlier in the week checking it out with his daughter. Sees JB in the hallway, says hello as he sees him in the hallway and as he walks right up and near, JB completely turns away rude style does not acknowledge him with his daughter let alone say hi. He said in the office to me yesterday that if there's such a thing as karma then "his team will suck tonight and get their butts kicked by UConn". That 's all I was thinking about as I watched the game and then read post game about the karma talk that Hackcuse brought up.
Another coach up there politely engaged him in conversation for a long while at the Melo center shortly thereafter whereupon when he asked why JB is so unfriendly, the coach walked away laughing.
One might say that this is an aberration. No. Nearly the same exact thing happened to me 5 years earlier in the Oncenter of which we were both at listening to Lou Holtz speak. JB at the front VIP table talking all throughout the speech such that Holtz had to tactfully call him out on it as Holtz was talking about respect and discipline.
So afterward when it was appropriate and tactful and after waiting for when he had finished with all other conversations and he was alone standing, no coat on, not rushing out; I went up to him and said thank you for the years of great memories put my hand out to shake, and looked me straight in the eyes and shrugged literally saying nothing, no smile, no simple basic civility/citizenship or acknowledgement.
Big deal right? And I'd agree, just another awarkward asocial socially challenged person. No big deal. But you'd think at this point in his life this simple basic act of civility could be mastered. Is it really that hard to be decent?
And listen he may very well be right on this latest blow up (Katz does seem like a douche) and feel rightfully so one has to fight fire with fire, this I can get. But here's the point, with a couple of basic local schlubs (and many others I'm sure) no big deal, we accept it for better or worse as part of the package as hard as that may be to do sometimes. He's now showed (as the channel 5 news announcer said last night) his incivility on a national stage, a stage populated by people who might not be so inclined to blow it off as "JB just being JB" and result in what Otto and others above and elsewhere have stated, more acrimony and maybe more unwanted extra scrutiny.
This may have some legs and it will be interesting to see where it goes. Makes it hard to like the guy, to say the least, and worse yet root for them as hard as I'd like to sometimes.
