So Raja Bell got sent home from the Utah Jazz road trip. He had a meeting with Kevin O'Connor and coach Tyrone Corbin. It sounds pretty familiar.
There have been plenty of clashes between players and coaches. Jerry Sloan and Greg Ostertag used to get "sideways" with each other, as Sloan described it, on a semi-regular basis. Karl Malone had a few moments, as did Carey Scurry, Mel Turpin, Darryl Dawkins, Blue Edwards and many others.
But one clash between a player and a coach stands out for me. Frank Layden got into it with star Adrian Dantley and sent him home from Phoenix. He also fined him "30 pieces of silver" for being a traitor. That episode probably had a lot to do with the fact that Dantley was soon traded by Layden to Detroit in exchange for Kent Benson and Kelly Tripuka.
Hopefully, this clash between Bell and Corbin has been hammered out and cooler heads will prevail. I like Raja a lot. He's always been good with the media and has been friendly to me in his two stints here. But someone has to be in control, and that someone is the coach. They say they've worked things out and they're ready to move on. I hope so. But it does kind of seem like deja vu all over again.
