All Ball Sports: Harbaugh talks loudly, and carries a big stick
by Paul Teetor
The new Los Angeles Chargers coach came, he saw, and he promised.
Championships.
Make that multiple championships.
Jim Harbaugh didn’t take the modest, aw-shucks approach at his introductory news conference Thursday at the YouTube Theatre in Inglewood.
He took the alpha dog approach: Follow me to the promised land and together we will conquer the National Football League.
“We’re in one of the great cities there is, Los Angeles, Southern California, and they respect talent, effort and winning,” he said. “It needs to be multiple, multiple championships. We come in humble and hungry, but that’s our goal.”
The “humble” part was just for the written record. The core of his 45 minutes at the microphone was the phrase “multiple championships.”
There hadn’t been anything like it seen or heard in all of sports since LeBron James got carried away at his June 2010 introductory news conference with the Miami Heat. He promised “not one, not two, not three championships,” thereby implying that at least four championships would be won by the new Big Three of himself, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.
The actual number of titles won by the Heat in LeBron’s four years in Miami: two. And it would have been only one except that Ray Allen hit the greatest shot in NBA Finals history – a buzzer-beating three-pointer that tied game six against the San Antonio Spurs and eventually led to an overtime victory and an NBA title won in a tense game seven.
That shows you how tough it is to win one title. Talk about multiple championships is taking it to a whole other level.
But Harbaugh, 60, has the resume and the track record to back up the pie-in-the-sky talk for a franchise that has never won a Super Bowl, either during their 56 years in San Diego or the seven years that they have been in Los Angeles.
They finished 5-12 this year, which qualifies them as one of the worst teams in the NFL. But in the Jim Harbaugh universe, that just makes them ripe for a quick turnaround.
Both his 44-19-1 NFL record and his 147-52 college record were based on fast turnarounds of struggling programs.
He quickly boosted Stanford from the outhouse to the penthouse of the PAC-10 while developing Andrew Luck into one of the greatest quarterbacks in college history. Luck was on track to be one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history until a string of injuries forced him to retire.
In four years, Harbaugh coached the San Francisco 49ers from one of the worst teams in the NFL to three conference title games and one Super Bowl, which he lost before his conflicts with management led to his sudden departure.
And he just led Michigan last month to its first undisputed national championship in 75 years. Michigan worked hard to retain him, but three factors brought him back to the NFL.
The first, as always, is money. The Chargers reportedly offered him $80 million over five years and that was hard to turn down.
The second factor is that college football has become the wild west. Conference realignments, massive use of the transfer portal by any player who happens to be unhappy, and the growing influence of NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) money for scrubs as well as stars have made the game unrecognizable from just a few years ago.
But the third and biggest factor bringing him to LA was the presence of quarterback Justin Herbert. Second in arm talent to only one man – the great Patrick Mahomes – he just needs the right coach to help him take the next step to being a championship quarterback.
And Harbaugh – known as a quarterback whisperer – is just the right coach to take Herbert to the next level.
Bring on the multiple championships.
Mira Costa guard Jacob De Armas fights his way to the basket in last Thursday’s game against Redondo. Mira Costa finished 5-5, for third place in the Bay League.
Westbrick is now Westbrook Again
One year after the Lakers traded Russell Westbrook to the Jazz, who then cut him loose to sign with the Clippers, the man Lakers fans derisively called “Westbrick” because of his off-target shooting is proving all the haters – including All Ball – wrong.
On Friday night, in a 136-125 win over the Detroit Pistons, Westbrook scored 23 points to become the 25 player in NBA history to score 25,000 points.
Westbrook also had nine assists and showed that he is a completely different player now that he has accepted coming off the bench and is the catalyst for the second unit with his bursts to the basket and great passing, setting up his teammates for easy shots.
That was exactly the role he refused to play with the Lakers, who of course had LeBron James and Anthony Davis above Westbrook in the pecking order. The Lakers wanted to exile him to the second unit and have him perform the same role he now has with the Clippers, but coach Darvin Him was afraid he would lose him completely if he demoted him and never did what he wanted to do with Russ.
But when he came to the Clippers, Westbrook realized it was his last chance to adjust to his declining athleticism – he’s still a top athlete, just not the TOP athlete in the NBA – and more important to cut out the wild three points shots and the crazy pull up jumpers that he just couldn’t perform consistently anymore.
Most of us thought he didn’t have the humility to make the transition to the next phase of his hoops career, but this year he has pulled it off spectacularly.
With four future Hall of Famers on their roster – Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden – the Clippers needed one of them to take a step back and focus more on creating for others rather than himself.
Westbrook took it upon himself to be that guy, and it has worked like a charm. With Kawhi playing at an MVP level and Harden – who wants one last huge contract in the off-season – on his best behavior, the Clips have been the hottest team the entire league while winning 25 of their last 30 games.
So, All Ball will officially swear off using the mocking nickname Westbrick.
Let’s hope we never have to take it out of storage again.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. ER