Do you have faith?

[PhoSita]

Gosh things feel bad around this team right now.  So many factors, and they've all been explained before here and elsewhere.

I'm officially in the "blaming the coach is lazy analysis and firing the coach doesn't really solve any of your problems" camp.  I also think that, even if you can legitimately blame the coach for embarrassing, incredibly frustrating blown leads on a Sunday afternoon, it probably doesn't make sense to give that greater weight than the handful of arguably overachieving playoffs runs the coach has to his name. 

That said ... sometimes a team just needs a change and ... saying goodbye to the coach is usually the easiest one to make.

I've been an optimist about the group at the heart of this team -- Kemba, Smart, Jaylen, Jayson, Theis.  I want to still believe in them.  There are plenty of reasons / excuses for how disappointing this season has been.  Still . . .

Maybe there's just something not right and the only way it's going to get better is if something changes.

I'm kinda losing faith, is the point. 

What about you?

[RJ87]

I always thought this team was middle of the pack, so none of this is surprising. There's just not much substance outside of the Jays/Kemba/Smart with Kemba was coming off a knee injury and Smart being better served as a sixth man. We need more shooting, we need more playmaking, we need more leadership. That was all true before the season started.

This team was built as a bridge year team, not a contender (not even a puncher's chance contender).

[seancally]

Have faith that... what? They’ll pull out games in the playoffs and challenge in the East? “As constructed”? Not really.

I understand the Brad anger but agree - I’m not in that camp, and I don’t think a new coach changes the outcome. This is a personnel issue and, to a lesser extent, a health issue. Smart likely changes the outcome of a few of these close losses and effort losses. But maybe we see less of Nesmith if Smart is healthy, so who knows.

That said, while I’d welcome many trades this season, I remain unconvinced that any realistic trade is out there that will catapult us forward dramatically. With that said I think the Celtics and the Heat won’t be in the Final Four this year. But I hope I’m wrong!!!

[GreenlyGreeny]

There is not a coach on the planet who could do a better job with this useless bench than Brad. The blame lies on the GM for assembling such an inexperienced, useless bench.

[jambr380]

Faith that we can win a championship? No way...but I never did. Things had to go especially right for this team to be back at where they were last season. Unfortunately, our competition added All-Star level talent, while we lost it (Hayward). Honestly, it's a testament to this team and coach that we are where we are with this group with the amount of talent that has walked out the door over the last two off-seasons.

Of course it is still possible that we turn it all around - Kemba consistently becomes old Kemba, the Jays continue to progress, Nesmith and Langford exceed expectations, and we use the TPE on a real difference maker.

More likely, we play out the season remaining under the luxury tax, use the TPE in the offseason, and make [possible] major changes at that time. There is still a lot more assessment to be done on the young players - not sure sending them all out for a Redick/Tucker type player is really going to move the needle on the season. Of course I will keep watching - and I would love it if they really start to turn it on - but I am not going to blow a gasket if we continue to be cosmically average. Our best days are still upon us.

[PhoSita]

I always thought this team was middle of the pack, so none of this is surprising. There's just not much substance outside of the Jays/Kemba/Smart with Kemba was coming off a knee injury and Smart being better served as a sixth man. We need more shooting, we need more playmaking, we need more leadership. That was all true before the season started.

This team was built as a bridge year team, not a contender (not even a puncher's chance contender).

So you watched the playoffs last summer and thought it was all just fool's gold, then?

[esel1000]

With the current roster no... if DA actually does something to improve the team, maybe.

[Ogaju]

team is 5th or 6th in the East talent wise. Measure your expectations.

[PhoSita]

Faith that we can win a championship?

Honestly I'm just really tired of this being the metric we always jump to.  And I'm not trying to single you out.  Your post is entirely reasonable. 

I'm just sick of focusing so much on "good enough to win a championship" as the bar for whether the team is worth taking seriously or not.  You know what?  Every single team is not good enough to win a championship until that group actually does.  Every season we see a team that will be really awesome statistically on both ends, win a lot of regular season games, and then fall way short in the playoffs.  Similarly we see teams that look mostly mediocre during the regular season who nonetheless make deep post-season runs. 

The Heat made the Finals last year and went to game 6 against a team that had the two best players in the series; even so, this season they're struggling to get to .500.

The Bucks have had multiple historically great regular seasons, winning a ton of games, enjoying a super high point differential, and leading the league in offense and defense.  Yet we've seen them crumble before they even get within a stone's throw of making the Finals, let alone having a shot at a title. 

So it seems like "good enough to win a title" will always be this subjective measure that is influenced a ton by the biases of the person talking about it, and it's never possible to really prove that a team IS good enough until it already has, at which point it's no longer up for debate.  That makes it kind of an annoying and mostly useless metric, if you ask me.


Is this group good enough to win a championship?  No, obviously.  I know that because they're not playing basketball very well right now and teams usually have to play basketball really well to win a title.  But they could be playing super well and we would still have no idea if they can ever win a title.


I'm more focused on this --- is this group good enough to play really high level basketball consistently for sustained periods of time (as in multiple seasons)?  Do they have it in them to become a group that closes out talented opponents in tough games instead of having these fourth quarter collapses so often?  Will a team built around the current faces of the franchise -- Tatum, Brown, Smart, Kemba -- ever be one of the signature teams in the league?  Or have they already peaked?

[RJ87]

I always thought this team was middle of the pack, so none of this is surprising. There's just not much substance outside of the Jays/Kemba/Smart with Kemba was coming off a knee injury and Smart being better served as a sixth man. We need more shooting, we need more playmaking, we need more leadership. That was all true before the season started.

This team was built as a bridge year team, not a contender (not even a puncher's chance contender).

So you watched the playoffs last summer and thought it was all just fool's gold, then?

I've been consistent in my belief that you can't lose the playmaking we've lost to date in Hayward and Horford without replacing their skill level and just be okay. The playoffs are a weird anomaly, you're playing your best guys bigger minutes and relying less on the bench. Without the Jays playing 40ish minutes per game, that's more minutes to be filled by question marks like Teague and Semi. Occasionally, those guys will surprise you but more often they won't. Heck, a strong section of our bench can't even break the rotation when we struggle.

We entered the season placing a lot of weight on Tatum and Brown to carry this team in a way they haven't had to yet. Kemba being out sped up that timeline. I think the world of the Jays, but the writing was on that wall that there'd be growing pains and this team lacks someone on the bench who could step into the vacuum.

So no, not fool's gold. But a lot of pie in the sky thinking from folks who thought this team could compete for top 2 seed.

[Vox_Populi]

I have zero idea what's wrong with this team. Yes, they're terrible at assisting - but they were last year too (54.2 AST% this year vs. 55.7 AST% last year). Yes, the bench can't score, but they couldn't last year either: 29th in bench scoring per possession last year vs. 30th this year. Yes, we lost Education Reform Hayward, Wanamaker, and Kanter but we didn't have Hayward most of the Playoffs, Wanamaker has been terrible this season, and I can't imagine a team dying on both ends due to the loss of Enes Kanter.

Yes, the defense is worse and the offense are worse but I don't really know why. I'm too lazy to check, but I imagine our offensive shot location is about the same: a ton of pull-up jumpers and few free-throws. I imagine defensively the same is true as well: Celtics give up more threes than average but protect the paint. And of course, I think Brad's had only one or two teams ever be in the top ten in defensive rebounding, so I doubt that's the issue too.

I almost want to blame chemistry issues, but I feel like we'd have heard whispers by now like during the Kyrie year. But to answer your question, I have faith Tatum and Brown are stars and that Timelord is a future starter with a chance to be better than that. I also have faith Stevens is a good coach. That's pretty much it.

[PhoSita]

I always thought this team was middle of the pack, so none of this is surprising. There's just not much substance outside of the Jays/Kemba/Smart with Kemba was coming off a knee injury and Smart being better served as a sixth man. We need more shooting, we need more playmaking, we need more leadership. That was all true before the season started.

This team was built as a bridge year team, not a contender (not even a puncher's chance contender).

So you watched the playoffs last summer and thought it was all just fool's gold, then?

I've been consistent in my belief that you can't lose the playmaking we've lost to date in Hayward and Horford without replacing their skill level and just be okay. The playoffs are a weird anomaly, you're playing your best guys bigger minutes and relying less on the bench. Without the Jays playing 40ish minutes per game, that's more minutes to be filled by question marks like Teague and Semi. Occasionally, those guys will surprise you but more often they won't. Heck, a strong section of our bench can't even break the rotation when we struggle.

We entered the season placing a lot of weight on Tatum and Brown to carry this team in a way they haven't had to yet. Kemba being out sped up that timeline. I think the world of the Jays, but it the writing was on that wall that there'd be growing pains and this team lacks someone on the bench who could step into the vacuum.

That's fair.  I have never been that worried about losing Hayward because at the end of the day he just wasn't healthy and available for hardly any games that mattered during his time there.  I don't think he really made any significant positive contributions to the playoff run last summer. 

You're totally correct, though, that this team lacks playmaking, especially with Kemba hobbled and Smart injured.  Jayson and Jaylen are very good, but they're still a long ways off from being able to run an offense.  That's a huge problem right now, the way this team is constructed.


I guess the question is whether that is a profound flaw that can be fixed with the kinds of moves you might imagine Ainge doing with the TPE, or with a signing the team might make using a cap exception next summer, or via the draft.  My fear is that it's not, and only a major upheaval will lead to this team performing drastically better than what we've seen lately.  Sure, health would make a huge difference, but they'd still fundamentally lack playmaking and probably struggle in crunch time.  Yet it's also hard to see what major change Ainge could make unless it's firing the coach (which to me is a desperation move that almost never works) or trading one of the core guys.

[Tr1boy]

Gosh things feel bad around this team right now.  So many factors, and they've all been explained before here and elsewhere.

I'm officially in the "blaming the coach is lazy analysis and firing the coach doesn't really solve any of your problems" camp.  I also think that, even if you can legitimately blame the coach for embarrassing, incredibly frustrating blown leads on a Sunday afternoon, it probably doesn't make sense to give that greater weight than the handful of arguably overachieving playoffs runs the coach has to his name. 

That said ... sometimes a team just needs a change and ... saying goodbye to the coach is usually the easiest one to make.

I've been an optimist about the group at the heart of this team -- Kemba, Smart, Jaylen, Jayson, Theis.  I want to still believe in them.  There are plenty of reasons / excuses for how disappointing this season has been.  Still . . .

Maybe there's just something not right and the only way it's going to get better is if something changes.

I'm kinda losing faith, is the point. 

What about you?

Like Danny has said. This is not a championship team

Thats all there is to know

[JBJT619]

I always thought this team was middle of the pack, so none of this is surprising. There's just not much substance outside of the Jays/Kemba/Smart with Kemba was coming off a knee injury and Smart being better served as a sixth man. We need more shooting, we need more playmaking, we need more leadership. That was all true before the season started.

This team was built as a bridge year team, not a contender (not even a puncher's chance contender).

So you watched the playoffs last summer and thought it was all just fool's gold, then?

I've been consistent in my belief that you can't lose the playmaking we've lost to date in Hayward and Horford without replacing their skill level and just be okay. The playoffs are a weird anomaly, you're playing your best guys bigger minutes and relying less on the bench. Without the Jays playing 40ish minutes per game, that's more minutes to be filled by question marks like Teague and Semi. Occasionally, those guys will surprise you but more often they won't. Heck, a strong section of our bench can't even break the rotation when we struggle.

We entered the season placing a lot of weight on Tatum and Brown to carry this team in a way they haven't had to yet. Kemba being out sped up that timeline. I think the world of the Jays, but the writing was on that wall that there'd be growing pains and this team lacks someone on the bench who could step into the vacuum.

So no, not fool's gold. But a lot of pie in the sky thinking from folks who thought this team could compete for top 2 seed.

It couldn't be anymore well said than this TP

[PhoSita]

Gosh things feel bad around this team right now.  So many factors, and they've all been explained before here and elsewhere.

I'm officially in the "blaming the coach is lazy analysis and firing the coach doesn't really solve any of your problems" camp.  I also think that, even if you can legitimately blame the coach for embarrassing, incredibly frustrating blown leads on a Sunday afternoon, it probably doesn't make sense to give that greater weight than the handful of arguably overachieving playoffs runs the coach has to his name. 

That said ... sometimes a team just needs a change and ... saying goodbye to the coach is usually the easiest one to make.

I've been an optimist about the group at the heart of this team -- Kemba, Smart, Jaylen, Jayson, Theis.  I want to still believe in them.  There are plenty of reasons / excuses for how disappointing this season has been.  Still . . .

Maybe there's just something not right and the only way it's going to get better is if something changes.

I'm kinda losing faith, is the point. 

What about you?

Like Danny has said. This is not a championship team

Thats all there is to know

Please see my post earlier in this thread.  "This is not a championship team" has virtually no intellectual content other than "the team isn't playing basketball especially well at the moment."