CLEVELAND: The verbal dust-up earlier this week between New York Knicks President Phil Jackson and LeBron James over the word “posse” made Detroit Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy examine himself and his own language. And Van Gundy, blunt and transparent on most issues, acknowledged he has used that word before in relation to African-Americans.
Both James and his business partner, Maverick Carter, considered Jackson’s use of the term posse disrespectful to what James and his friends have accomplished. Jackson hasn’t responded publicly, but Van Gundy took it upon himself to admit where he has erred.
“When LeBron or Maverick Carter or Rich Paul or whoever makes a statement that they’re offended, instead of just reflexively trying to defend yourself and say there is nothing racist about it, look, the people in the majority don’t get to decide what is racist and what’s not,” Van Gundy said. “It’s like men don’t get to decide what’s sexist and what’s not. You have to listen and if you care, you listen and you try to get better from it.
“When the whole thing came up with Phil’s comments and the whole thing, I was sort of guilty. I felt guilty about it a little bit. Even though it’s a long time ago and I know my intent wasn’t nefarious in anyway, still, you look at it and you say, ‘You know what? They’re right.’ And you got to watch the language that you use.”
Van Gundy is both the Pistons’ coach and president. He said he wasn’t going to seek out James or Paul, his agent, before or after Friday’s game, but he would acknowledge it if he ran into them. Paul also represents Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
“You can’t be afraid of those kind of dialogues,” Van Gundy said. “We’re not going to make a lot of progress if we can’t have those kind of dialogues and particularly if we in the majority, whether it’s male or white or Christian or whatever or straight or whatever is in the majority, aren’t willing to look at the way [that we are], the language that we use and the treatment that minority people — people in the minority — get, we can’t make progress.”
Big numbers
Scoring is up across the NBA this season, which is forcing teams to recalibrate the way they evaluate their defenses. A quicker pace to most games means 23 teams entered Friday averaging at least 100 points per game. That’s the same number as last season after just 15 teams did it during the 2014-15 season. Tyronne Lue said assistant coach Mike Longabardi, his defensive coordinator, still likes to cling to principles such as holding teams to 24 points per quarter and 96 for games.
“In our game today, that’s not even possible,” Lue said. “The game has changed. There’s not two low post guys dominating the paint and posting up the whole game.”
Long break
The Cavs won’t play again until Wednesday, so Lue is giving the players the weekend off.
“I can’t remember the last time we had this long of a break from a Friday to a Wednesday at this point in the season,” James said. “Throughout the season you don’t get much time to spend with your family because you’re traveling so much, you’re playing so many games so I’m going to give most of my time to my family.”
Dribbles
The city of Independence, where the Cavs’ practice facility resides, is renaming part of Brecksville Road “Cavaliers Way” during a ceremony on Monday. … The Cavs host the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday.
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at www.ohio.com/cavs. Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/JasonLloydABJ.