Bickerstaff might have taken a shot at Jarrett Allen by praising Dončić for playing through rib injury

Bickerstaff commended Dončić for taking a shot and playing through a rib injury which is something Allen refused to do.

Former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff joined Sirius XM’s The Starting Lineup with Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine to break down the conclusion of the NBA Finals on Tuesday morning. In the course of doing so, he praised Dallas Mavericks star Luka Dončić for playing through a rib injury.

Bickerstaff said:

[Dončić] is a guy who was taking shots in his ribs so that he can go out and play right? He was playing through pain. He wasn’t complaining. He was still playing 40 plus minutes trying to go out and get it done. So give him the opportunity to learn from it . . . There’s room for improvement, sure, but give the guy credit for the job that he did.

These comments are innocent on their own. However, Bickerstaff going out of his way to mention Dončić received “shots in his ribs” is still a sore subject given Jarrett Allen didn’t take an injections which caused him to miss the final eight playoff games for the Cavs.

It was reported that there were members of the team that weren’t happy Allen didn’t try to take shots. This included Marcus Morris who saying, “If you put me in that same position, ‘do I play?’ Yes.”

That all said, it’s fair to point out that Bickerstaff likely wasn’t taking a jab at Allen. Dončić was listed as having a thoracic contusion which is painful, but it isn’t broken ribs like Koby Altman confirmed Allen had during his end-of-season press conference.

“I’ve never had a broken rib, but I’ve had several people reach out to me about how much it hurts,” Altman said last month. “You can’t drive to work, you can’t sleep, you can’t tie your sneakers. Jarrett tried to give it a go. I mean to the last day-and-a-half, he was trying to go up and down on this floor and do some real basketball moves. It’s hard to play basketball if you can’t raise your arms over your head. I know there was speculation of more stuff he could have done.”

Bickerstaff presumably knew that Allen’s injury wasn’t the same as Dončić’s. Given he just went through knowing the specifics of a rib injury, it’s fair to say that he would be more sympathetic to someone trying to play through that than most. After all, playing through broken ribs isn’t normal even if there are rare instances of someone trying to play through a serious rib injury.

While I believe this wasn’t a dig at Allen, it seems that Donovan Mitchell might have. Mitchell posted a picture of himself and Allen on Instagram shortly after Bickerstaff’s quote began making the rounds.

Only Bickerstaff knows the true intentions of his comments. Not everything has to be seen in the most disrespectful light possible. That said, it’s understandable to view it that way given Bickerstaff might’ve been able to keep his job if Allen played and his team was better able to take advantage of the Boston Celtics’ thin frontcourt without Kristaps Porziņģis.