john beilein breaks bad

the boys of late winter are off to a good start [Bill Rapai]

Calling it a clown show would be too kind. If you don't live in Ann Arbor, you can skip to the next section. Ann Arborites: last night the anti party city council majority fired the city administrator for no reason. They put the motion to fire him on the city council agenda at the last second. There was no discussion about why Howard Lazarus was getting fired; the anti party simply ignored the Open Meetings Act, decided to fire a dedicated civil servant, and set 300k of city money on fire.

This is par for the course for the current majority, which has openly considered violating state law—Bolt vs Lansing if you want to know—only for city staff to say "uh… that would violate state law." Firing Lazarus is like firing the crash alert system on your car. Since the goal of the anti party is to freeze Ann Arbor in amber to the detriment of the entire county outside their core constituency, this suits them just fine.

Ann Arbor can restore a city council majority not intent on driving off a cliff on August 4th. So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna figure out which ward you're in and you're gonna vote for one of the following people on August 4th:

ERHBPY5WkAAR3F-

Then Ann Arbor governance can move on from the bit where the city council majority spends its time shrieking and flinging poo. Thanks in advance.

[After THE JUMP: Speaking of disastrous situations: the Cavs!]

This is fine. [Patrick Barron]

Welcome to our roundtable article, where the staff of MGoBlog talks about whatever's going on in the Michigan world. Today it's the destruction of civilization and everything in it worth keeping. It has swear words in it.

THIS FEATURE HAS A SPECIAL SPONSOR JUST FOR TODAY

Say, you know who can get you a quick and painless mortgage and isn't Dan f'ing Gilbert? Matt Demorest of HomeSure Lending. But this other company who just stole Beilein from me will also be my real estate agent you say? Well Matt can now do that too! He'll also handle your loan personally, get you through the parts that can get really complicated, and is not, to my knowledge, some Spartan who recently swooped in to steal the Hall of Fame coach of your favorite basketball team just to stick it to you. Matt wouldn't do that. He just moved into a new office at 2100 S. Main Street--in shouting distance of Crisler Arena—and people in the neighborhood would probably really hate him if he did something like that.

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sits silently, occasionally forgetting to breathe

Alex: They better hire from outside the family.

Seth: Maybe we need to establish real quick what words are appropriate on MGoBlog.

BiSB: FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK

Brian: We're PG-13 so this would be an appropriate...

Seth: Well FUCK.

Ace: The worst(?) part is the Cavs fucking suck. And they’re owned by Dan Gilbert! Collin Sexton is the living embodiment of every Beilein nightmare about a point guard!

Alex: Beilein must have just wanted to leave. The Pistons job was a better one.

Ace: I have to agree with Alex after reading the Woj article.

Brian: My wife just moaned "oh I'm so sorry" and seems physically hurt. She doesn't even care about sports.

Ace: The lottery is Tuesday night. As in tomorrow.

Beilein didn't want to move himself and his wife far from Michigan, and the Pistons' borderline playoff roster with little financial flexibility to make changes made staying in-state less appealing. Cleveland's rebuild status, with point guard Collin Sexton and a 14 percent chance -- along with New York and Phoenix -- to earn the No. 1 pick in Tuesday's NBA draft lottery appealed to Beilein.

One would think knowing whether that 14% chance at Zion pays off would be rather important!

Unless, as Alex mentioned, Beilein was ready to go.

Alex: It’s one of the worst jobs in the NBA.

Seth: AND HE HAS TO WORK FOR DAN GILBERT.

Ace: Who famously never holds onto anyone for a long time, even LeBron.

Seth: I live in Metro-Detroit. I don't know a single happy person working for Dan Gilbert.

Alex: There’s a strong, strong chance he gets fired without making the playoffs (although I guess you can get to the eight seed in the east with a buttcheeks team, as we’ve seen very recently).

Brian: They have Kevin Love until he's 86 and their main asset is the fact they have a bunch of contracts that are up in two years, so they can go... woo free agents to Cleveland?

Alex: It’s pretty close to a blank slate.

Brian: Which worked once in the very specific case of Lebron.

BiSB: (I'd like to also point out that the Pistons being Not-Terrible for the first time in a while actually HURT them, which... damn that's really Pistons).

Alex: They might have to attach assets to get rid of Love.

Ace: Barring Zion, and even with him, it’s an extremely tough path. The rest of the draft kinda sucks, too. Cavs can’t really take Ja Morant.

Alex: Zion is probably going to spend multiple years in the wilderness whether it’s Cleveland or somewhere else.

Seth: The only mindset I can possibly square this with is "I'm the greatest basketball coach alive and I can bring my coaching greatness to win with coaching in Cleveland and retire a god," which is a very sports coach mindset.

Brian: Maybe he just did this so he can draft Poole third overall.

Alex: The only mindset I can think of is “I want to leave Ann Arbor now.”

Ace: This probably doesn’t say great things about how he feels about next year’s team.

Seth: I like my Beilein as Daenerys theory better than Brian's Beilein as Michigan Basketball Twitter theory.

image

GoT apologists: "Beilein has been dropping hints that he'll leave on a Monday in May to coach Cleveland for 8 seasons!"

Ace: If he thinks he can win it all here, I have to think he takes another shot.

Brian: I don't even know man. Even if he doesn't love the outlook for 2019-20 if he wants a title over the next five years Michigan is 10000% more likely to do so than Cleveland

Alex: Well, next year’s team wasn’t going to win it all, but it was going to be a good team.

Seth: *extremely naïve young child voice* Maybe he just thinks Yaklich is ready?

Alex: That’s the thing: what’s the ceiling for him in Cleveland?

Ace: Sure but the NBA is a new challenge and he’s accomplished everything at the NCAA level except a national championship.

Alex: Working for a dipshit owner and drafting in the lottery every season until he gets fired in December after starting 5-22?

Brian: Kind of a big "except"

Ace: Fair, but he’s still staring down “greatest coach in program history” or “greatest coach in program history.”

Brian: I simply cannot fathom this decision and will never be able to. It is beyond me.

[After THE JUMP: There are crazier ideas]

[Marc-Gregor Campredon

2/12/2019 – Michigan 69, Penn State 75 – 22-3, 11-3 Big Ten

I muted the TV and went to go get something to eat at halftime, so I didn't realize what had happened until my eye slid to the chryon at the bottom of the screen some ten minutes later: John Beilein, ejected from the game. The replay followed: