It seems y'all (or most y'all) want to take team deficiencies and reduce/simplify them to player deficiencies. But this is a team game and it's not that simple. In the team game, only holistic solutions solve team-wide problems. So, as is typically the case, a poster has framed a team deficiency (2nd team inefficiency on offense) as a player deficiency (TA has not developed in 4 years), missing the real issue: why is the 2nd team so [dang]ed inconsistent? It's a simple answer really, and we all know it: they don't have a point guard. And point guard is the most important position when it comes to attaining offensive consistency. Last year, we overcame this inconsistency via veteran leadership at other positions (Posey and PJ Brown, with a little Cassell thrown in there). This season, we don't have the luxury. Our two options are simple: build up the point guard position from within (either play Pruitt, with Ed at 2 and TA at 3; or use Rondo as 1st team/2nd team bridge and up his minutes to around 36 or so per night) or increase our veteran leadership from without (signing a PJ Brown-type, or swinging a trade).
Now, admittedly, TA has had some poor games recently, mainly because of high turnovers, but this is not because he hasn't developed in 4 years, it's that, once again, he is being asked by Doc to play out of position. The thing is, Eddie House, while bringing veteran leadership, great spirit, and sometimes great shooting, can't play point guard at all. He doesn't dribble well, initiate the offense well, or have much of a clue about calling the right play and good-to-mediocre defensive teams can absolutely shut down our 2nd team offense by applying just a modicum of ball pressure. That's why House was benched in the playoffs in favor of Cassell and that's why a non-point guard, sometime shaky handle TA is playing defacto point guard right now on our inconsistent 2nd team. It's because, like it or not, on out of position TA is superior to House at point guard. This is a big problem and it won't be magically resolved by ridding the team of TA; on the contrary, it'll just make matters worse. TA is doing his best playing out of position. When he makes a ton of turnovers, the thought in everyone's minds shouldn't be, "why hasn't TA improved in 4 years," but instead, "why don't we have a real point guard on the second team?"
Going forward, we're going to either need to see what Pruitt can give us, see if Rondo can take on more minutes and still be effective with the 2nd team, or see if we can add a quality veteran at the backup center position. All these threads bashing TA--and there's been a lot in the last 2 weeks--keep misframing the issue. In reality, we lack suitable point guard play and/or veteran leadership on the 2nd team and resolving that issue should be both the focus of the Cs heading forward and also the focus of the message board community. I know a lot of lot of you didn't care for the TA signing (or the offseason in general), but heaping all the blame on one guy is missing the point and blurring the issue, and it only leads to terrible threads and a lack of communication.