Until this week, little was known about the reason the Cleveland Cavaliers chose to suspend Andrew Bynum indefinitely back in December. Bynum had appeared in just 24 games with the team after signing a two-year, incentive-laden deal that could have paid him up to $25 million. The only thing we knew is what Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports had reported — that Bynum had become a “disruptive” presence with the Cavs.
Now that Cleveland has unloaded the 26-year-old, the story has become more clear. According to Wojnarowski, sources claim Bynum had literally been acting like a child during practice.
He stopped trying on the floor, and became a disruptive presence in practices. Before Bynum was thrown out of his final practice and suspended, he was shooting the ball every time he touched it in a practice scrimmage, sources said – from whatever remote part of the court he had caught the ball.
We already knew Bynum didn’t care about basketball. He felt no sense of remorse over never appearing in a single game with the Philadelphia 76ers during the 2012-2013 season, and one former teammate said he has never seen a player who likes basketball less than Bynum.
Bynum has the physical skills needed to be one of the most dominant centers in basketball. But when he doesn’t get his way, he does things like throwing a hissy fit in practice by firing the ball at the hoop from wherever he stands. If he does that with the championship-caliber Indiana Pacers, they’ll cut him in a heartbeat.
