Beilein says Cavs “no longer playing like a bunch of thugs”
During a film session Beilein said the team was “no longer playing like a bunch of thugs,” only to backtrack and say he meant slugs. Yikes. https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28450077/john-beilein-apologizes-cavs-says-meant-call-players-slugs-not-thugs
Im guessing Beilein wished he stayed at Michigan right about now.
January 8th, 2020 at 11:16 PM ^
This isn’t gonna go over well
January 9th, 2020 at 1:59 AM ^
What’s the context here? Was the team playing slow or unsure of themselves? That’s like the only situation where “thugs” and “slugs” can be misconstrued and not come off as an old white guy having a Freudian slip.
PS... why the fuck did he take this job? Could have had the Magic or Pistons gig. Instead he chooses to work for Gilbert who already has a suspect personality given his stupid Comic Sans letter about Lebron and is also a Spartan. This couldn’t have gone worse.
Between John and Patrick, the Beileins are going through it these past few months.
Update: Seems like the players discussed this with the FO according to Cleveland.com and they’re OK with putting it behind em. Obviously don’t think JB is racist but it’s surely not going to help his case for keeping his job. I’m inclined to believe the team was just having poor pace of play and JB had a slip saying thugs but damn dude... he’s really not helping himself.
January 9th, 2020 at 5:26 AM ^
Maybe he realizes he's in over his head and is trying to pull a Larry Brown.
January 9th, 2020 at 7:13 AM ^
I can’t believe how much of an absolute disaster it has been for Beilein. Oh well. It’s in the past and we get 5 stars now so good luck.
January 9th, 2020 at 8:07 AM ^
I'm surprised you are surprised. I think most people that have seen his coaching style assumed the current NBA is a bad fit. The best place for Beilein is an under performing major conference program where he can bring in under the radar recruits and coach them up.
January 9th, 2020 at 12:27 PM ^
Yeah, lol, the guy who refused to recruit one-and-dones is now coaching in a league full of them.
January 9th, 2020 at 1:57 PM ^
As good as Beilein has been for us and through 40 years of college coaching, there exists a huge jump in taxing of his ability, character, and limit in NBA coaching gig. There are also the Peter Principle at work and getting-old-but-still-think-young-and-hard-to-teach-an-old-dog-a-new-trick factors mixed in therefor him.
Still, best luck to him!!
January 9th, 2020 at 12:11 PM ^
How can he be in over his head when pro s make 10 times $$$ What the coaches make.
his only mistake was leaving Michigan.
January 9th, 2020 at 8:20 AM ^
"Why the fuck did he take this job?": John left Michigan because he completely screwed up the roster Juwan is currently stuck with and he did not wish to deal with the consequences. That's pretty much the long and the short of it. And he had better check himself here. It takes years to build a good rep-it takes seconds to destroy it.
January 9th, 2020 at 9:33 AM ^
I think there is something to this. His highly ranked recruiting class, the sophomores we’re watching this year, seems to be slightly overrated. But they are only sophomores so maybe it’s too soon to tell.
January 9th, 2020 at 10:06 AM ^
I'm not sure if one "miss" of a recruiting class would be the main reason someone would leave for the NBA?
January 9th, 2020 at 12:40 PM ^
John left Michigan because he completely screwed up the roster Juwan is currently stuck with
I don't know why people keep searching for something other than the obvious answer, which is that he just wanted to give the NBA a try. He would have left in 2018 for the Pistons if they had offered. The Cavs did.
And I'm not sure how he "screwed up the roster"? He would have had all of our current guys (who are still a top 25 team and have beaten Gonzaga, don't forget) plus Jalen Wilson.
January 9th, 2020 at 8:57 AM ^
Maybe he wants to go the Hoke route and come back here as an assistant coach, with the hope he can replace Howard when he move on to the NBA.
January 9th, 2020 at 10:42 AM ^
Why is there a presumption that "thugs" would be of one ethnicity or another?
thug (noun) -- a violent person, especially a criminal. (Google search result)
January 9th, 2020 at 10:59 AM ^
You are either 8 years old or have never left your basement. Come on man!
January 9th, 2020 at 12:40 PM ^
SanDiego Wolverine, I believe that several posters genuinely do not know how loaded the term really is. I sometimes have trouble keeping up with what’s appropriate to say and what isn’t, and I’m a fairly progressive black man in Northern California. I’m perfectly willing to give the poster the benefit of the doubt and not jump on him/her for presumed ignorance.
I do think some of the posters who claim that “thug” isn’t racially coded language are being quite disingenuous, and they are making specious arguments to justify their positions (especially the ones that cite the Indian origin of the word “thug”. That means nothing. A swastika has Indian origin too).
Finally, kudos to the board. This discussion has remained remarkably civil, probably in no small part because of our respect and admiration for what coach Beilein did for the program we love.
January 10th, 2020 at 10:09 AM ^
I was surprised to hear that the word "thug" is considered to have racist connotations. But I accept that the meaning of words evolves as time passes, so now I know. And Beilein should have known its meaning -- and he must have, since he is claiming he said slugs.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:36 AM ^
I have two nephews who are thugs, they're both caucasion
January 9th, 2020 at 7:25 PM ^
I mean he wanted to coach in the NBA, and neither the Pistons nor the Magic offered him. The Cavs did, and I can't imagine many other teams being on the edge of their seat to hire a 67 year old career college coach.
A job in the NBA is still a job in the NBA and he took the first one offered, he couldn't afford to wait for a better situation.
January 8th, 2020 at 11:17 PM ^
You don’t accidentally say thugs instead of slugs. He fucked up and since he was already on thin ice he’s probably done, no way he gets the locker room back now
January 9th, 2020 at 3:42 AM ^
I mean, if you were a project director at a consulting firm and you said that your mostly black employees were finally not working like a bunch of thugs, you’d be hard pressed to keep that job.
January 9th, 2020 at 6:30 AM ^
The guys in the locker room don't give a fuck about this. Playing like a 'thug' means playing street ball. Nothing more, nothing less. The media will probably act like you and make it a big deal, but it's really not. Glad his team is finally trying to play basketball and not street ball.
January 9th, 2020 at 7:33 AM ^
Exactly.
January 9th, 2020 at 8:42 AM ^
Exactly.
January 9th, 2020 at 9:29 AM ^
No it doesn’t. If you bothered to read the article you’d know nobody took it like that. I grew up in Baltimore and went to schools over 90 percent black and nobody ever once used playing like a thug to describe street ball. In fact playing basketball like street ball was considered a good thing because it meant you were playing tough. This is a dumber defense of this then pretending he meant to say slug.
January 9th, 2020 at 9:33 AM ^
No matter how the homers try to explain it, an old corny white dude telling a bunch of black guys that they're not playing like thugs anymore (since he got there to stop them) is going to rub people the wrong way.
January 9th, 2020 at 9:49 AM ^
I have to post twice on this because it is getting so many upvotes. Calling a group of black people thugs is racist, full stop. It doesn't mean the person who said it is racist, or a bad person, or meant it that way. But saying it is racist. It doesn't mean anything else, Beilein isn't claiming that because he isn't as dumb or out of touch as the 19 people who have upvoted this comment.
January 9th, 2020 at 10:28 AM ^
Yeah, it’s decidedly a slur for black and Hispanic people. And sometimes Italians.
January 9th, 2020 at 10:50 AM ^
I'm so confused by how language gets hijacked to mean whatever the fuck people want it to mean at a particular time. So help me here...Obama used the term thugs *all* the time. The mayor of Baltimore used it *all* the time. So that's not 'racist' because the person using the word was black?
I need cue cards for this shit because I didn't realize that calling someone a thug was now a slur against their race. So the ground rules are If I refer to any white, Asian, Indian person as a thug then it's OK? Why in the actual fuck would some groups get a 'pass' for using the word and not others? Isn't that in itself, racist?
I genuinely need someone to explain why the word thug is now co-opted and considered racist because for roughly the last five decades I simply understood it to mean a bad dude or criminal. I've heard it used in conjunction with government workers plenty of times.
edit: After reading through the thread the term was apparently hijacked by Richard Sherman (LOL, the arbiter of language now I see) and 'them' because no one can apparently explain who decided that the word no longer had its original meaning. Someone better tell Merriam-Webster.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:00 AM ^
Apparently the idea of context is too hard for you to grasp. Words mean different things in different situations.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:05 AM ^
Ok so give me the context here. Can't wait to hear it. Why is the term Thug now racist? Who got to decide that it was now *officially* a racist term because apparently me and a whole bunch of other people didn't get the memo.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:11 AM ^
When you're an old white man talking to a group of younger, predominately black men who have surely been called thugs before in a negative context based on their skin color rather than their behavior. Got it? Hope this helps you out in your future interpersonal interactions.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:16 AM ^
So no white people were called thugs? Ever? LOL ....Jesus Christ.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:21 AM ^
I truly don't understand your comment. Of course white people have been called thugs. Do we need to go over the context part again?
January 9th, 2020 at 11:29 AM ^
If anything, the word thug has always had a behavioral connotation to it and *never* one associated with race. If a person or group decides that somehow, magically, the word is now associated with their race where no racial context existed previously, why the fuck even have words?
January 9th, 2020 at 11:51 AM ^
*never* one associated with race.
Agree to disagree on that one, I guess.
why the fuck even have words?
To argue on the internet, obviously.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:55 AM ^
How does one get the ability to down vote something? Asking for a friend.
January 9th, 2020 at 12:06 PM ^
Did you just call Jesus Christ a thug?
Wtf man?
January 9th, 2020 at 11:50 AM ^
I blame Tupac.
January 9th, 2020 at 12:06 PM ^
Richard Sherman is not the one who decided thug should't be used. If you want to actually educate yourself Here is an interview with a professor of english language discussing the evolution of the word thug and how it is used https://www.npr.org/2015/04/30/403362626/the-racially-charged-meaning-behind-the-word-thug
Also Obama and the mayor of Baltimore got a ton of pushback for using the word thug to the point there was an entire article about Obama not regretting using it and the mayor apologizing for it https://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2015/04/29/obama-white-house-baltimore-stephanie-rawlings-blake/26585143/
I know its going to be hard to grasp but good people can use bad language. Obama isn't a perfect human who is the arbiter of right or wrong on anything. He fucked up in 2015 and got called out for it. Beilein fucked up in 2019 and is getting called out for it. Nobody is accusing either of these two men of being racist, just pointing out that they used racially charged language.
January 9th, 2020 at 10:55 AM ^
Cancel Culture strikes once again.....
January 9th, 2020 at 11:08 AM ^
Somewhat agreed here. I would hate for someone who has zero prior track record of racial insensitivity to lose his job or otherwise be "canceled" because of one dumb mistake. It seems he was contrite about the mistake and his excuse would be pretty lame and unbelievable if this wasn't the guy who gets excited about subs. Hopefully he can move on and this story becomes an afterthought.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:06 AM ^
I get why using the word "thug" is not appropriate, but it obviously wasn't Beilein's intention to make a racial slur. My first connotation for thug, is Italian mafia guys. In college I used to joke that my preferred profession would be hired thug, but that I didn't want to go to jail. I get that "90's rappers" appropriated the word with Thug-life, etc., but it's a stretch to call it a racial slur, in this specific context. If anything Beilein weakened his case by changing it to slug.
What would be the racially sensitive option here? Street ball? Punks?
I think calling people what they want to be called (PC) is appropriate in almost all circumstances, but this is silly.
January 9th, 2020 at 12:14 PM ^
How about just saying what he presumably meant? “I’m glad we aren’t playing in such a disorganized, incoherent, inefficient fashion.”
I’m a black man with a terminal degree, and I’ve been referred to as a thug on more than one occasion. I thoroughly believe coach Beilein should be forgiven, not canceled, and that no one should be defined by their worst choices (I say that as someone seven years sober from addiction). But he also needs to see how much of a failure of recognition this was and how socially problematic it is. If he didn’t know before, he’s likely to know now.
January 9th, 2020 at 2:26 PM ^
Congrats on your sobriety! I’ve worked with a lot of people who were in recovery and saw first hand what a challenge it is
January 9th, 2020 at 12:03 PM ^
They gave enough of a fuck to take it to GM’s office! Look I sing JB’s praises but let’s not trivialize this. He could’ve easily used streetball or just said a very uncontroversial word like “unorganized”. He’s a great man, so he has earned enormous benefit of the doubt. However, at this rate it’s hard seeing him finish past the 2021 season.
January 9th, 2020 at 12:45 PM ^
You don’t accidentally say thugs instead of slugs
Why not?
I'm not saying it's good to call your players "thugs" but why is it impossible that he could have misspoken?
Beilein's not the most polished speaker. He got tongue-tied a lot when he was here just giving interviews to the press.
January 9th, 2020 at 7:05 PM ^
Maybe he has a lisp.
January 9th, 2020 at 9:23 PM ^
That's lispist
January 9th, 2020 at 7:20 PM ^
What a privilege it must be for a few of the folks on this thread to see an older white man call a group of mostly black young men thugs and not understand why it's being seen as a racially insensitive statement regardless of the intent.