Tony Parker is Sick and Miserable in Ben Howland’s Dead & Joyless UCLA Basketball Program

Add Tony Parker to long line of talented athletes with potential who have gotten sick and tired of languishing away in Ben Howland's miserable program. Here is a tweet from Parker last night, which is still up:

A lot of told me this wasn't for me I wish I would've listened

— tony parker (@tonyparker32) December 23, 2012

I suppose some may fault the kid for firing off a selfish tweet when the team is winning huge (!) games. But for those who have been following this program for a while know that all of this is not happening in a vacuum.

UCLA basketball currently has only 8 scholarship players on its roster and three of them play in the post. One would think now would be the time when Howland would give a kid like Parker extended mins and get him comfortable with other freshmen in the lineup. Instead like has done last few years Howland is playing favorites and wasting the mins on guys with little upside, while making someone like Parker miserable and (home) sick in Westwood.

What Howland is doing is especially craven because a kid like Parker would be a solid building block for the next coach. Instead Howland - the tone-deaf jerk that he is - seems to be intent on driving another player out of Westwood. Of course if we had a competent athletic director, he or she would sit down with a rogue coach like Howland and hold him accountable.

Instead, we have Chianti - who runs an incompetent athletic department, which seems to be more pre-occupied with leaking stuff to press making UCLA look like a bigger joke and mess in the eyes of rest of college basketball program, instead of taking proactive measures to save Coach Wooden's program.

GO BRUINS.