I just don't get all this blame towards now Rozier, tomorrow Brown, then the day after Kyrie, etc. All these players played high-level basketball last year together. We are forgetting that this team is the same. We have only Hayward jumping on the train. I will repeat all the time, these guys are great players, as well as Rozier. This team is great. They showed it to us last year. Brad Stevens has lost control on this team. It's the reason why our bench sucks, why our chemistry has been lost and why our best players are not showing what they know. They are not playing as a team. It's only Stevens and his staff that is responsible for that and Stevens knows that. Actually, he admits that on the press conf. in Orlando.
Dear fellow Croat Iadera,
Brad didn't lose anything at all.
To me, our "struggles" are fairly simple. We are trying to do a lot of stuff all together at once.
Incorporating Hayward, developing youngsters like Tatum, Brown, Rozier, giving Irving his ball, giving deserving players more minutes (Smart, Morris), Still giving Al the ball, keeping assets for eventual AD trade and so on, all that while trying to keep everyone happy. Like juggling with 15 oranges, it is harder than with 4.
To understand this better, take a team with championship aspirations like Houston or OKC and compare them to what we are doing.
Houston has 1 (sometimes 2) great guy and a bunch of role players - scheme is that simple and therefore easier to execute.
If we had a team with Kyrie and bunch of role players, we would execute it also easier.
Our play would resemble that of Celtic season 2016-17 (53 win team). Good team but no cigar.
Or take OKC, Russ is the god (for good and bad), PG13 gets his and all else must fall in the line - simple as cooking beans.
We can't, or better said, won't choose that path. We have more longterm scenarios than those teams, who are locked onto their singular futures.
We keep our options opened.
They (OKC and Houston) hope for the best with superstar and role players.
Brads job is harder and that's it.
It is much easier not to play optimally with an ocean of possibilities and a list of must-dos.
You want to try more things and have a long agenda.
To me, there is a solace to this, a Bajadera. Once the season takes its toll on players bodies, injuries will start to tire players and deplete rosters.
Houston will once again falter with their one trick pony offense being read once more and Harden having an empty tank (remember last 5 years),
OKC will once again fail with RW as the decision maker in critical moments, they might even say once more than a guy like Robertson was missed.
And we, even if an injury happens to us (except to Kyrie and Al) we will then be better at the end of the year then we were this the whole season.
Just like we did in each of Stevens seasons, we get better as the season goes on.
Now, that's a realy bad excuse for having your team playing well-below their expectations.
You see it as an excuse, I see it as a reality.
We could round our offense around Kyrie, like Houston does around Harden, And all will be simpler and better.
Kyrie would be at 30 ppg, MVP chants, blah, blah...
Our record would probably be better too.
But we would lose out on the trade value of some players and we would get some chemistry issues.
We have 9 guys on the roster who think they should start and no coach could tell them differently to change their minds.
Other teams have 5-6 of these guys. That makes his job harder. And that is beside all other challenges.
Voluntary role acceptance is not solely on the head coach, players need to want it, and that's on them.
By the time we enter playoffs and we look deeper than just about any team, all will look much clearer.
I still see us in the finals when the "real games" start.
