A coach’s perspective of Bob Knight

Morning, the passing of Bob Knight yesterday, age 83, three-time national champion, one of six coaches ever to win at least three times. Two of them are very old school and John Wooden and Adolph Rupp. And the others, hey, two of them are right here.

They live in our neighborhood. Mike Krzyzewski with five and Roy Williams also with three. Seth Greenberg joins us from ESPN, longtime college basketball coach.

We're going to talk a little bit about Bob Knight. First of all, sir, how you doing? I appreciate your time. Life is good.

Thank you very much. Hope you're doing well. Hope your family's doing well. Everybody's doing well.

It's a great time of the year. Unfortunately, we have to start the start of the season, obviously, talking about coach, but it is a great time of the year. All right, give me an idea as a coach, and you've been a coach for a long time and a good one.

I hope people remember that because you're such a good broadcaster, it could get lost. Like people think Joe Garagiola couldn't play ball because he was a broadcaster. But what are coaches? How do coaches look at Bobby Knight? He was brilliant.

He was an innovator. If you think about the way the game is played even today with Flo. Well, Bob Knight, they played all that motion, right, that transition.

The Hurrian Hoosiers got right into their outfits. You think about spacing. They played with incredible spacing.

You think about reading screens. You think about how they defended. You think about Bob Knight's legacy, just even right now. Dusty May was a former Bob Knight student assistant, basically a manager.

Lawrence Francis made a pretty big deal, all right, with the Clippers and for James Harden. He was a former manager for Bob Knight. You talk about Mike Woodson. You talk about Alford. You talk about Chris Beer, a former assistant coach.

I mean, his legacy is alive and well. Bob Knight was brilliant. Bob Knight was complicated. Bob Knight demanded discipline, but in his worst of times, he lacked discipline. But as a coach, as a mentor, as a guy that was ahead of his time and basically set a standard of playing the game the right way, I think coaches will revere him. As a coach, maybe not some of his antics. Yeah, I know at times, especially for people, and maybe it's hard for us in the media to separate the two because we don't see the influence that a coach can have on a player, on a program, all of that.

We just see what happens on the court during games because we're not in practice. But he coached and won a championship with no shot clock and no three-point line, and then won a championship with a shot clock and a three-point line. What was it about his game, the way he taught the game, that translated?

Well, he was a master teacher. He was absolutely tremendous at scouting and taking apart an opponent, deciding what to give them, what to take away, and he had agility. He had agility to use the three-point shot. He had agility to use the clock.

He had agility not to have to reset at the end of the shot clock because they continued to do what they did well. He did a great job in player development. He was a master teacher, motivator, coach of any sport. He could have coached any sport. You think about all the great coaches, just coaches of our generation. Bob Knight has to be in the conversation.

Think about the longevity of his career. I think that he was conflicted, but in terms of coaching genius, he was tremendously respected. Did he have jealousy issues with other coaches' success? Well, I mean, you would say maybe when Coach K became Coach K before he was his former player, at the end of his career, and obviously when Mike was having tremendous success, look, it was a changing of the guard in a lot of ways. He was not on the same stage that Mike was on.

I mean, Texas Tech is surely far away from Duke in Indiana. A lot was made of that at that one time. I know they went through a period that they didn't talk allegedly, and I don't know that for a fact. I've never asked Mike that, but in the end, Mike has a lot to be thankful for having Bob Knight in his life.

I think that's the one thing. People say, yeah, look, he had, and we've all had players that didn't like us. All that players probably we were too tough on or didn't understand where we were coming from, and most of those things, most of those negative interactions come from kidneys in class, missing the tutoring, being disrespectful somewhere, but that's either here or there.

Bob Knight, last year when you saw Isaiah Thomas and Keith Smart and Quinn Buckner and Randy Whitman and Ken Benson and Mike Woodson, when you talk to former players, a good majority of them would say that Bob Knight, what he instilled in them, changed their lives and changed their lives for the better. Now look, he had some incidences that were not good. You could be demanding on a player, but you can't put your hands on them. That's just the way it is. You can't put your hands on them now or before. And those things were his downfall.

That's just the way it is. It does not take away from his brilliance as a coach, and it surely doesn't take away from all the good things he did for a vast majority of his players and people that were involved in his circle. He also had, Seth Greenberg is joining us from ESPN, he also had a reverence for the coaches before him. I think he had a great grasp of the history. Isn't he always talked about Pete Newell as being... Pete Newell and Coach B.

Right. How did that kind of influence, how did he spread that? He always, my dad played for Claire B at LIU, was one of the great coaches in the history of our game, who was an amazing man.

Coach Knight would talk about Coach B often. I think he respected the game. He respected the people that taught the game. He respected the people that did things the right way.

Now I'll tell you what, if he thought you did things the wrong way, I mean, there was no joke, and he would hold the grudge. And that comes back to maybe the integrity of the game. In terms of how he ran his program, there was never a question in terms of the NCAA or doing things the correct way. I mean, it sounds silly, like the stuff that's going on at Michigan would drive him crazy. As much as he believed in preparation, I think that there was an accountability from the head coach on down, and I think that he would not look on that kindly if what is alleged is true. Oh, there's no question, because I think what is happening at Michigan, not to change the subject and go to something else, I'm going to talk about that later, and I've been talking about it. It speaks to the integrity of the competition.

If I know the answers to the test ahead of time... It's not a victimless crime. It's like cheating in basketball.

You cheat in recruiting. Everyone says it's personal choice, but it's not a victimless crime. The players on the other team were the victims. The coaches that might get fired because they didn't do that are the victims.

So, I mean, there are consequences to the decisions that he made that impact other people if that is true, and it seems like it's... I mean, goodness gracious. Yeah, no, I'm taking tickets and trying to get a competitive advantage. It's crazy. Seth Greenberg, I appreciate your time. I know you want to send your congratulations out to the Texas Rangers for winning the World Series.

Yeah, I'm really excited about it. I was with Tim Kirchner this morning. He gave me a little bit of hope. He said, you know, those young guys at the end, we need speed, and they showed some speed and quickness and the way the game is played. So he gave me a little bit of hope for the Yankees.

And he also kind of said something about Stanton that basically said, when Stanton's not hitting it good, he really is not hitting it good. Yeah, well, I mean, we've seen all that. All right, we'll talk hoops when you come to town or before then. I appreciate your time, as always. All right, brother. Appreciate you, man. You got it. Seth Greenberg here on The Adam Gold Show.