Tubby Smith must want to get fired

ORLANDO – Maybe Tubby Smith wants to get fired.

How else do you explain it?

How else do you explain his attorney ostensibly sticking up for his client but, in the process, taking shots at Penny Hardaway and the University of Memphis administration?

Ricky Leftt is the attorney. He’s the guy who said Smith deserved an “A” for his work at Memphis coach.

Well, Leftt deserves an “A-plus” in the category of “Making it easy for Memphis to change coaches no matter what happens in Orlando.”

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In an astonishing interview with my colleague, Mark Giannotto, Leftt: 1) essentially blamed Hardaway for Smith’s inability to recruit Memphis players; 2) said Memphis boosters misled Smith about the school’s possible future in the Big 12; and 3) said Smith has no responsibility to put butts in the seats.

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Never mind if any of those things are true. It may be true that your boss (whomever he or she may be) is incompetent and stupid. It still wouldn’t be a good employment strategy to put that on a billboard.

But let’s take the charges one by one. If only to contemplate just how badly Smith must want to get fired.

1. Hardaway is the reason Smith can't recruit Memphis players

“If you’ve got somebody that wants the job and they’re controlling most of the talent in the city, I’m not casting aspersions. I’ll let you draw conclusions,” Lefft said. “It would only be speculation on my part on what’s going on there, but it’s the worst kept secret in America that (Hardaway) wanted the job and there may come a time when coach has exited that he’ll get the job.”

Now, is it possible that Hardaway — who runs an AAU team and is the coach at East High School — has kept his players away from Memphis in order to sabotage Smith? Sure it is.

Although, to be clear, Smith had two fabulous Memphis players delivered to him on a platter. Both Dedric Lawson and K.J. Lawson were on the team when Smith arrived. If he had kept Keelon Lawson as a full-fledged assistant, they’d still be on the team. But it was more important for Smith to bring his full staff from Texas Tech than it was to make sure he held onto his his two best players.

That was Smith’s choice. Hardaway had nothing to do with it. Nor did Hardaway have anything to do with Smith’s inability to retain another Memphis player, Markel Crawford.

But let’s put aside all that. Indeed, let’s assume for the sake of argument that, at some point, Hardaway decided to discourage his players from playing for Smith. The hard fact is this: Smith's lawyer is essentially conceding his client can’t recruit Memphis. If he can’t recruit Memphis, he can’t succeed at Memphis.

2. The school administration misrepresented their chances of joining the Big 12

“There’s some people that now sit on the board that are some pretty significant folks, along with the president and both the athletic administrators who were part of the process, and (they) represented to him that this was going to happen,” Leftt said. “He gets there and all of a sudden it appears as though they were never really a contender.”

Again, is it possible that all this is true? It is more than possible. At one point, Memphis administrators and boosters were openly optimistic about future Big 12 membership.

But why in the world would Smith’s lawyer take shots at the most important people at the university? He even specifies “people who sit on the board.” So he's criticizing the very people who will decide whether Smith should remain the coach at Memphis.

3. Smith doesn’t have any responsibility for cratering attendance

I always suspected this is what Smith believed. That would account for his utterly indifferent approach to public relations. But now his lawyer has made it explicit.

“It’s not the coach’s responsibility to put butts in the seats,” said Lefft, which would be true if the head coach lived in a fairy tale.

But Smith makes $3 million a year. Who does he think pays that salary? And why does his contract include $1.1 million for television and radio appearances and another $1.1 million for public relations, public service and public speaking?

Smith was offered the job because attendance and contributions had fallen off dramatically under Josh Pastner. He has done nothing to reverse that trend. Indeed, if he is fired, it has less to do with his record than the fact that Memphis is out $800,000 a year under its FedExForum lease and out another $1.1 million because of declining contributions.

So, to sum up, Smith’s lawyer has conceded his client can’t recruit Memphis players, has said his client has no responsibility for selling the tickets that pay his salary and — if that weren’t enough — has criticized the most powerful people at the university.

Maybe the man knows Smith is already on the way out and just wanted to get his shots in. If not, he certainly made it simpler.