nobody said AB was not a huge factor. but he will not make a difference as far as us being a REAL CONTENDER.....we still need a guy to rim protect when KG is out. wilcox and collins are not those guys i am not afraid to say.
Honestly, what more does ABradley need to do show how critical he is to this teams title hopes?
When Bradley took over from Ray last season our team turned from being barely a playoff team to being a serious contender. We didn't add any key bigs in the process.
This season we couldn't put together a three game stretch of playing "Celtics basketball" until convenietly one game after Bradley's return - we didn't pick up any new bigs over this stretch, the only change we made in that regard was moving Collins to the bench so we have a proper big to back up KG.
I don't know how much of it is about his physical play, his mental boost and his impact on the roster (i.e. ability to move Terry to the bench) but ever since the 4th quarter of his first game back the body language of the entire team has changed.
Suddenly we have gone from a team who looks lazy and disintersted, to a team that is looks focussed and emotional. Guys like Green, Terry and Collins (formerly invisible) are now playing lock-down defense. We're more physical - teams are getting frustrated playing against usagainst us, games are getting chippy and our guys are refusing to back down. Finally we are showing signs of Celtic effect, which has opposing teams dreading the thought of playing us because they know that even if they win, they aren't coming out of it without a few bumps and bruises.
I can't tell you what individual aspect changed this (it's probably a combination of them all) but over this three game stretch we are playing 'championship contender' basketball, and we have not played that at all this entire season up to this point. I find it very hard to believe that this is pure coincidence and that our guys just happened to wake up one game after Bradley returns. If you look at the impact he had last season, that's too much coincidence.