By season`s end there will be a conspiracy theory going amongst the small market teams about how Stern jerry-rigged the schedule to get the Cs good lottery odds. Our schedule is pretty front loaded "to make sure we pack in the losses before Rondo comes back."
November doesn't look that tough to me. Sure, there are a lot of games in there, but the competition doesn't look all that stiff. There are plenty of games against the likes of the Bucks, the Magic, the Bobcats, the Cavs, the Jazz, the Hawks, and the Raptors.
There's a road game against Miami in there and a tough little three game stretch where we finish off a mini road trip against the Rockets and Spurs and then come home to face Indy, but other than that, I could see this team winning about half of their first twenty games even if they are without Rondo.
10 of the first 16 are on the road. 'Doesn't matter who you play, in the NBA, that's a tough schedule. It's even worse on young teams.
Go back and look at the 'young' teams last year that actually played well over all - even making the play offs. All did much, much worse on the road.
I'm not an advocate for tanking, but with no Rondo, I would consider it a small miracle for us to get to the end of November with 8 wins. I'm not going to say it can't or won't happen. I just would consider it an amazing feat. I would be actually happy with 6 wins (which would be 6-13). While that's bad, I think things get a little easier from that point - and Rondo will be coming back at some point.
December flips things around. A few tougher teams, but 9 home games to only 3 on the road. I think that will be the true 'test' of how the season goes. If they can do any sort of run during that time, then they could reach the New Year at least close to .500 and maybe playing with some confidence. But if they can't even win at home, and Rondo's comeback pushes to 'late' December ... they could be in pretty sad shape, record-wise.
January starts of with a brutal first two weeks. Heck, it's last two weeks aren't all that nice either.
February, March and April look much 'friendlier'. That's what is going to make things really interesting. The team could actually be starting to play well by then, and finally have a stretch of more winnable games. But because of the brutal November and January schedule, not matter how hard they try, they could be sitting with a pretty awful record at the end of January. The could literally be 'in line' for a top lottery seed at that point.
But then, assuming they are fully healthy, if they actually put themselves to it, they could literally play themselves out of it over the last three months. The question is: Will they?
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Topic: To Tank or Not To Tank, That is the Question (Read 57372 times)