Can a Bad Guy Ruin a Good Team?
September 1, 2025
Other than the top loser in Philadelphia sports history, Brett Brown, there has never been a bigger pushover in coaching and managing than Rob Thomson.
Brown’s coddling helped to ruin Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, among others, during his torturous seven-year tenure as coach of the 76ers. In the end, everyone finally realized that Brown was good at only one thing – losing.
Is there any other way to describe a 221-334 record?
Now we’re seeing the impact a sudden shift in Thomson’s equally docile style is having on Nick Castellanos, an overpaid head case whose own assessment of his talents is delusional.
When he isn’t whaling at outside pitches and walking back to the dugout, Castellanos has been in a snit lately about Thomson’s recent acknowledged desire to replace him late in games for defensive purposes.
Nick doesn’t think he should ever come out of games.
Nick thinks he’s good both at the plate and on the field.
Nick is wrong.
Even an analytics-hater like me has to admit the merit of some numbers, and Castellanos’ ranking as the worst outfielder in the big leagues passes the eye test. He is an ungodly -12 Outs Against Average – even worse than statues like Giancarlo Stanton of the Yankees.
Because Thomson tries to avoid conflict at all times, the manager has closed his eyes and bit his lip for most of the 2025 season, but now he is finally feeling an urgency in the final weeks before the playoffs.
“I think we’re all at the point now where we’re all-in,” Thomson said after replacing Castellanos with Harrison Bader in the ninth inning of a 2-1 win over Atlanta on August 29. “Whatever is best for the team to win a game that night, we’re all in. Check your ego at the door.”
There are two glaring inaccuracies in that riff. One, Nick is most definitely not all-in. As for checking his ego at the door, there is no coat room big enough to contain the bloated ego of the $20-mill-a-year outfielder.
Castellanos is a bad guy.
There, someone finally said it.
He has been a jerk for all 13 years of his big-league career, leaving behind him a parade of managers, players and fans who have had to cope with his me-first style. Incidents with all three have been piling up ever since he broke into the big time with a sneer and a snarl.
In fact, this isn’t the first time Castellanos has challenged his manager for making the obvious defensive move late in close games. He whined about it the one time it happened two months ago, making an “inappropriate comment” that forced Thomson to bench him for the next game.
Proving what a pushover he is, the manager didn’t replace Nick again until August 29, eliciting a look of disgust by the narcissist in the dugout and some curious statements after the game.
“It’s a big adjustment,” Castellanos said.
Yeah, collecting $100 million over five years while sitting on your ass for one inning must be so unsettling. How did he avoid a stint on the IL for his punctured ego?
Castellanos’ behavior raises an interesting question about character in the ongoing drama of a pennant race. Can a good team survive a bad guy? Is it best to kowtow to the star, or to put him in his place? How do different teams handle the same kind of selfish behavior?
The most interesting recent case I have encountered involves the Eagles and their troublemaking safety Chauncey Gardner-Johnson. The Birds managed to tolerate two separate seasons (2023 and 2025) with CGJ, making it to the Super Bowl both times.
They even won it all last year, before cutting ties again after an endless string of dramas that included everything from dissing Eagles fans (‘I bleeping can’t stand the bleepers!”) to allegedly placing a hit on Giants WR Malik Nabors. (The accusation by his ex-girlfriend Summer Bunni was unfounded.)
In the course of last season, CGJ even found time to alienate Taylor Swift fans with some stupid remarks on social media. CGJ was an excellent multi-tasker.
A couple of months after the parade, GM Howie Roseman dumped CGJ and all the drama on Houston for a bucket of nothing. So annoying is CGJ, a championship was not enough to keep him around.
And let’s not forget that we are still living in what should be the Carson Wentz era for the Eagles, if somehow his fragile pride could have survived the dishonor of the Birds drafting Jalen Hurts in 2020.
This is the same Carson Wentz who said he had “mixed feelings” when the Eagles won their first Super Bowl because he was injured during the playoff run.
I am convinced the Birds would still be waiting for their first parade if they had hung in there with Wentz, who has shown an uncanny knack for choking in big spots ever since that Super-Bowl season.
But hey, $132 million in career earnings is not a bad way to swab your wounds.
Finally, the Sixers got two jackasses for the price of one when, during the infamous Process years, they drafted Joel Embiid in 2014 and Ben Simmons in 2016.
These two top picks share a dislike for playing basketball – a serious shortcoming when you consider they have made a combined $470 million so far in the NBA, with more games missed than played.
Under the pliable leadership of Brett Brown, Simmons developed an aversion to shooting the ball, to the point where he passed up a dunk that cost the Sixers a deep run in the playoffs in 2021. Most of his time, both here and in New Jersey, Simmons led the league only in sulking.
And Embiid is the enigma to end all enigmas. While he cashes $51 million in salary each season, the biggest question is whether he will ever get in good enough shape to earn even a small percentage of that money.
In his spare time, Joel has mastered the art of playing victim, lamenting his bad luck and howling over any perceived slight. He has been weighing down the Sixers for close to a decade now, with no end in sight.
So, to get back to the original question – Can a bad guy ruin a good team? – the answer is hell, yes.
Castellanos has been doing it for years on the Phillies.
Wentz has become a poison pill for every NFL team (except the Chiefs in 2023, when he was a backup who didn’t play).
Embiid and Simmons have dragged down every team they have been on, and will ever be on. Joel even managed to turn toxic the season he was named MVP.
Only the Eagles were able to overcome Chauncey Gardner-Johnson and win last season.
How did they do it?
They had leaders so strong (Hurts, Saquon Barkley, Brandon Graham, Lane Johnson) that they drowned out all the noise with brilliant play in big moments.
The Eagles were the exception to the rule last season.
In other words, the sooner Nick Castellanos takes his tired act to another city, the better.