The Stevens era so far is defined by two things.
1. The tremendous run to end last season.
2. Tremendous inconsistency the rest of the time. I've never seen another team that repeatedly plays so well and then plays so poorly.
Stevens has to get credit for the former but blame for the latter.
Mike
Is it really his fault? The team is so void of talent that the losses aren't surprising, yet the wins against projected playoff teams are.
That's heads I win, tails you lose.
Stevens gets credit for all the double digit leads the team has racked up under him. But he also has to get the blame for the truly ridiculous number of times the team has imploded and wound up losing those games. Stevens gets credit for the team playing some of the best defense in the league. But he also gets the blame when, in literally just a couple weeks, they go from that to the atrocious defense we've seen the last two games.
Mike
You repeated yourself and added what you thought to be a cute metaphor.
Anything different in those 2 games, Mike? Smart doesn't just make a major individual contribution on D, but allows us to defend to our strengths. Without him, IT becomes a bigger liability and AB drops from a major plus to... even? Perhaps a minus? As a defensive-oriented team, the dominoes then fall as they will. If you want to minimize Smart's impact via (D)RPM, as has been done today, go ahead... yet those same stats have KO as the MVP, so you may want to proceed with caution there.
I'll toss you points -- Stevens seems to have lost the locker room this week. He's also being open about it, and took the blame upon himself in the end. But without a star, this team relies upon team play, primarily on the defensive end, and that's lost when our line-ups get twisted and you lose your buy-in. Is part of that on him? Sure, has to be. But to a limited extent, given he's already overachieving with 1/2 the wins we've collected through the 2nd half of last year. The roster sucks... blaming Stevens for it, though, is absurd. Dude pushed an unfamiliar group of scrubs to the playoffs last year, and despite a tougher East, probably will again this year if we're relatively healthy. You can blame DA, though, for a lack of talent if you wish. Where's McHale when we need him?!