Pistons Blog

Atlanta's burning

Man, now I've got Atlanta Hawk fan (all seven of them) mad at me. I swear I am not trying to turn myself into a public enemy; it just seems to be working out that way. My colleague and friend Sekou Smith from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution took my little commentary on Josh Smith that ran in my NBA notes column Monday to Josh Smith. I had questioned Smith's maturity after he threw a hissy fit during the Hawks-Pistons game when he wasn't getting the ball enough. Anyway, both Smith and Tyronn Lue said it was all a lie. It was not. I saw what I saw and heard what I heard.

The incident happened right in front of me. Smith was yelling at Lue to throw him the ball on two straight possessions. When he didn't get the ball on the second one, he screamed at Lue to throw the damn ball. Play stopped, a foul or something, and Smith kind of threw his hands toward the bench and yelled something to coach Mike Woodson about Lue. Then there was a timeout and two assistant coaches and Lue all tried to calm Smith down before he went into the huddle. I did not make any of that up. And I wasn't trying to make it sound like Smith and Lue were going to blows or anything like that, just that Smith was unjustifiably frustrated. Which he was. So, I don't know how the story was presented to those guys by Sekou, I just know the incident happened as I described it.

My only regret was the dumb, brain-cramped mistake I made calling Smith an unrestricted free agent. I know he is restricted. Why I wrote it otherwise, who knows? It's the same reason that for the second straight year, I referred to Sam Mitchell as the coach of the Timberwolves. Huh? I know he coaches the Raptors. It's not easy being me sometimes, trust me on that....