I don't know if you saw the Jim Carrey movie from a few years ago titled "The Number 23". It was about a man whose life became consumed by a number, and by that number's seeming to pop up in almost everything he studied, such as historical events. Adding numbers, subtracting numbers, multiplying and then subtracting numbers, etc...he saw the number 23 everywhere he looked, and it almost cost him his sanity, and the lives of his family.
I thought of that this morning as we all wait to hear if Tom Izzo is going to announce today that he will take the Cavaliers' coaching position. The process has been slow and tedious to get to this point, a little like trying to run a hundred-yard dash in coagulating cement. And in my opinion the reason for this slow pace is simple...
The Number 23 Enigma.
And no, not the fear of an actual number, as in the movie I cited above, but the fear of taking the Cavs' job and then having LeBron James bail. For then what would Izzo be stuck with? What would he have given up his comfortable college coaching career for? Perhaps for a team which would win 20 games, or 30 games, less than it did this year.
Yes, I know that LeBron is taking the number 6 for next season. But, at least up until this morning, it seems as if the fear of a current number 23 - and what he will decide to do - is also consuming the Cavaliers' desperate need to get a coach in and to prepare for 2010-2011.