No Excuses

[ballin]

Lately I've seen a lot of defenders of the Perkins trade saying, "Hey, guys, I know it looks bad now, but how about we just wait and see what happens before we judge the trade so harshly?"

On its face this sounds like a reasonable suggestion. Yet it's not.

First of all, I believe we've all seen what this trade has done to our team, and we're free to judge. Hell, dozens of players around the league, coaches, GM's, sports commentators, and others have rendered judgment upon this trade, and their words haven't been kind.

The problem with the "let's wait and see" approach, other than the obvious fact we've seen enough already to know it was a bad trade, is the fact that it's a win-win for trade-defenders.

In the very unlikely event we now win a championship, the Perkins trade will be immune to criticism whether or not it helped or hurt us in that endeavor. Chalk that up as a victory for the trade-defenders.

But if we lose, there will always be a myriad of excuses that the trade-defenders will be able to provide in order to "prove" that losing Perk had "nothing" to do with the loss. Inevitably, one of the Big 3 will have a bad series, and he will be scapegoated by the trade-defenders mercilessly, who will then proceed to ignore any suggestions that perhaps Perkins could have helped us weather an offensive drought or two.

The fact is, the "wait and see" approach should more aptly be entitled "wait until I have a better excuse".

[nyceltsfan]

Agreed.  If Rondo attacks and we continue to play solid D, the main problems with this team right now are scoring and rebounding.  With Rondo attacking, the scoring will take care of itself.

I will be extremely upset if a lack of rebounding causes us to lose this year.  In my opinion, that does not have much to do with Perkins - rebounding and boxing out are fundamentals of the game.

[manbehindtheman]

Agreed.  If Rondo attacks and we continue to play solid D, the main problems with this team right now are scoring and rebounding.  With Rondo attacking, the scoring will take care of itself.

I will be extremely upset if a lack of rebounding causes us to lose this year.  In my opinion, that does not have much to do with Perkins - rebounding and boxing out are fundamentals of the game.

I don't know about that one, it seems to be that perkins was a very good rebounder so if we get beat on the boards that is a direct result of him being gone.

[bbd24]

Lately I've seen a lot of defenders of the Perkins trade saying, "Hey, guys, I know it looks bad now, but how about we just wait and see what happens before we judge the trade so harshly?"

On its face this sounds like a reasonable suggestion. Yet it's not.

First of all, I believe we've all seen what this trade has done to our team, and we're free to judge. Hell, dozens of players around the league, coaches, GM's, sports commentators, and others have rendered judgment upon this trade, and their words haven't been kind.

The problem with the "let's wait and see" approach, other than the obvious fact we've seen enough already to know it was a bad trade, is the fact that it's a win-win for trade-defenders.

In the very unlikely event we now win a championship, the Perkins trade will be immune to criticism whether or not it helped or hurt us in that endeavor. Chalk that up as a victory for the trade-defenders.

But if we lose, there will always be a myriad of excuses that the trade-defenders will be able to provide in order to "prove" that losing Perk had "nothing" to do with the loss. Inevitably, one of the Big 3 will have a bad series, and he will be scapegoated by the trade-defenders mercilessly, who will then proceed to ignore any suggestions that perhaps Perkins could have helped us weather an offensive drought or two.

The fact is, the "wait and see" approach should more aptly be entitled "wait until I have a better excuse".

All the same people, the dozens of players around the league, coaches, GM's, sports commentators, and others also counted you out last year come playoff time.  Most had you losing even in the 1st round.  You had King Perk even at that time.

Guess what, this board believed them last year too.  Until they shut their mouthes and made it to the finals.

My moneys on Ainge and Doc.