This team is rebuilding, with primarily only
four players that had significant minutes from last year. Did you honestly expect them to play any differently after 20 games into the season?!? It's slowly coming together as it should, with some great defense and running the floor, and flashes of brilliance from some of the young guys, like Sully and Green, and just more time needed to get Jet and Lee in the flow.
Listen, you can't put this many new guys into a system and expect them to be a consistent, cohesive unit at both ends of the floor at
least until mid-season, and
then we've got to add Bradley and shake things up a bit once more for his purpose. I didn't expect to see great ball until late January, and even
that was optimistic, because at this level it just plain
takes time.
But with the level Paul and especially KG are playing at, and Rondo's incredible play-making, by post-season they will be ready to contend, and those without patience or a realistic perspective of just what's required at this level to produce consistent dominance in the NBA, will just have to settle for the Red Claws. I mean, come
on ... this takes patience, adjustment, practice, and
time, and if you expected great ball from this team this early in such a rebuilding season, you just weren't having realistic expectations.
This is absolutely a
good team, a good team that is struggling a bit because it's rebuilding, but a team that plays amazing defense when it's on, that can run the fast-break effectively against anyone, that has a multitude of deep threats, that has one of the best passers in the game, one of the best post players ever, a guy who wrote the book on "intangibles", and a coach who will have them ready by spring to get deep into the post-season.
They are unselfish and hard-working, they recognize what's lacking and are working to remedy it, they have chemistry and good energy, and they know that they're capable of much more, and are striving for that ends. If you can't see it that way, I think it would serve to look a little more closely, not let every loss send you into a nose-dive of despondency, and remember years like '96, '97, '06, '07, to give you a little more perspective on just what a "bad" team really is.
And please refrain from calling others names ... I think we're all entitled to our own opinions, and should be able to discuss things without resorting to those tactics. Because someone disagrees with you, doesn't make them wrong, or any less able to state their opinions. Also, others should not be telling you to leave, or defining what a "fan" is, just because you feel the team sucks, because
your opinion is as important as
anyone's, and you are as much as a fan as the rest of us, K?