Markieff Morris: Fighting with Archie Goodwin was just leadership

Markieff Morris shoving Archie Goodwin on the bench during Wednesday night's loss to the Warriors isn't unhappiness. 

Unhappiness leads to sulking. Unhappiness leads to poor performance. Unhappiness isn't wrapping your palm and fingers around another man's, a teammate's neck.

This is a step beyond. This is a chemical reaction. This is what happens when you drop a Mentos into a Diet Coke or when you toss a match into a vat of alcohol. 

Morris, shortly after getting into that aforementioned physical altercation with Goodwin (which you can watch here), has a different name for it: Leadership.

Morris may say that he's just leading, and it's certainly presumptuous to view a relationship externally and immediately jump to conclusions, but there are a few things we know to be true.

We know Morris demanded a trade over the summer after the Suns dealt his brother to the Pistons. We know Morris took back his request publicly at the beginning of the regular season. We know Morris, who should've been on the rise coming off the best season of his career, dogged it at the start of the season to such a degree that at-the-time coach Jeff Hornacek thought it'd be best to sit him on the bench instead of even playing him. We know teams around the league have reversed course on his contract. What was once thought to be a team-friendly four-year, $32 million deal isn't so right now, even if Morris has upped his play since Phoenix fired Hornacek at the beginning of the month.

For all the talk there is about uncertainty with the Kings or weirdness with the Clippers, the Suns have a chaotic situation going on, as well. And though it's unfair to compare leadership styles—there's no right way to lead—it's hard to imagine how getting into a physical altercation in public can help the 14-40 Suns dig themselves out of the hole they've already created for themselves.