It's Too Late to Apologize

Congratulations, you now will all have OneRepublic's Apologize in your head for the rest of the day. But we're not here to talk about R & B hits of the last five years. We're here to talk about the week that was in the NBA for apologies. If you ask me, we were 0 for 2, striking out badly on both.

No place in the game for this

We'll start with Andrew Bynum of the Lakers. His flying elbow to the ribs of an airborne J.J. Barea can be summed up in two words: bush league. In fact, that is exactly the term ESPN's Mike Tirico (Go Cuse!) used to describe the play. With eight and a half minutes to play, and the Lakers trailing by 30, Bynum's forearm shiver earned him an ejection. He then proceeded to act like a 4-year old and took his jersey off as he strutted off the court. Who would have thought that Ron Artest would be the guy trying to calm down a teammate while escorting them off. Go figure.

Everyone in the world knows that was a dirty play. I have no problem with a hard foul when you are playing the ball. But throwing and elbow to the ribs when someone is in the air, not even coming close to making a play on the ball is flat out wrong. In Bynum's post game comments, he said, "We were getting embarrassed, they were breaking us down. So I just fouled somebody, I was just kind of salty about being embarrassed. ... For me, it was embarrassing to have the smallest guy on the court keep running down the lane and making shots."

Right, you were embarrassed. I get it. Still not a good enough reason for your actions. As your teammate Kobe Bryant said, "they played better than we did, so to make the game ugly like that where players could potentially get hurt, you don't want to see that happen ever. ... It's not something that you want to see happen in the game of basketball, ever."

The fact that Bynum didn't apologize for the dirty play after the game might be more ridiculous than the play itself. Don't give me the "players need a cooling off period after the game" line. Bynum was tossed with eight minutes to play, so he had plenty of time to "cool off". Instead, he waits 2 days, TWO DAYS, to come up with a prepared apology. Big thanks to his manager, agent, Lakers PR staff for help crafting that one.

Poor Decision: LBJ definitely didn't handle his exit from Cleveland the right way

Two days might seem like a long time for Bynum, but that's just small peanuts when it comes to LeBron James. Last night, after the Heat disposed of the Celtics in five games, LeBron James apologized for "The Decision". He didn't apologize for leaving Cleveland (and he shouldn't have to), but he apologized for "the way it happened". Well, first of all, that was your decision to do "The Decision". Secondly, that happened back in July. Now eight months later you are finally sorry about it? You beat the Celtics, so you are now sorry for it? What if the Heat would have lost to the Celtics this round, would LeBron not be sorry about the way it went down?

Here's what I think. I think LeBron knew within a week after The Decision, that is was a bad.....decision. He should have apologized then. Those advisors that were in his ear telling him The Decision was a good idea, should have come right back to tell him that was a mistake. Actually, he shouldn't need someone else to tell him what was right or wrong. He knew it was wrong, and he should have been a man about it much earlier. Don't want to apologize a week later? Fine, why not apologize  during training camp, or after his return to Cleveland, etc. Instead James decided to apologize after accomplishing something that he couldn't do in Cleveland with his teammates there. In my book, that's a cop out. You went and joined forces with a superstar and an annoying sidekick to take down the Celtics. So now you think its acceptable to apologize for the way things went down? That's what I call bush league.