This has been an unbelievable turnaround for a team. I am happy to say that I was part of the minority that didn't fall in to the trap of despair with the slow start. But I certainly did not expect this much of a turnaround. It is crazy.
Beyond the "Ime has to go" take, there were some others that have not aged well:
"Tatum and Brown can't play together"
"Marcus Smart needs to be traded because he can't play PG"
and of course the most common one, "we need more shooters".
The last one, every team would like to have better shooting, it was kind of a silly take in the first place, but it turns out we had plenty of shooters, we just needed to execute the offense better and get better looks.
Yup yup yup; patience.
Fans kneejerk like crazy. It's almost as if they have never seen a movie where "character arc" was a thing.
Ever seen a movie where a person or a team is losing and losing and losing until suddenly it clicks and they start winning?
That's how that
works.
You need adversity to grow. If everything comes easy, you're not going to grow as hard.
The reason the '08 squad was so insanely good, was because these guys had been failing for dang near 15 years.
And developing winning habits? Well that doesn't happen overnight.
Fans also tend to only care about a single statistic. W/L. Which, if you're being fair, isn't all there is to it. You can improve in other areas before that column changes. And if you're too much of a homer, you're going to miss all the individual improvements because all you can do is seethe at the L's.
In fact, if you only care about W/L, you start saying dumb things like "THIS ONE PLAY COST US THE GAME". No it didn't. You lost the game because you put yourself in a position to lose it. If you'd hit literally 1 more shot, you'd be absolutely fine. If you'd gotten 1 extra steal, you'd be fine. If you'd had a hand up on that one shot, you'd be fine. Stop being kneejerky. 1 bad play doesn't mean a player needs to be ran outta town. Especially if they were flawless 90% of the game.
Building a team is about a lot of things. It's about learning more and more about your individuals, it's about discerning their strengths and their weaknesses. It's about finding out how to best help them compensate for those weaknesses, and how to best utilise their strengths. All of that takes time.
P A T I E N C E .
This extends to Theis who's going to still have some bad games. And Derrick White who quite clearly needs to overcome the lid that's on the basket. And Nessie who's trying to stay healthy just like Timelord was at the start of the season.
And heck, even if we don't win it this year, that's just more adversity we can overcome. Lessons to be learned by everyone. Rookie coach included.
Sorry; end of rant :]
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