Doc's Straw Men

[wdleehi]

now you are twisting the debate....

you inserted the idea of Sam getting beat off the dribble being the reason for Sam's defensive struggles....

he played 16 MPG in March and 21 MPG in April.....there is no way that he should have gotten more time than that....and to get him more time with starters would have been at the expense of THEIR rest and simply not as important...

the time he spent on the court, they were running the same sets.... attributing him not knowing the sets to him not playing with the starters is also absurd...

Now that is funny.


First, I state that I think they did a terrible job of preparing Cassell to play in the playoffs by not getting him enough time with the starters.


You first try to twist it to
'You want Cassell to start.'

after that is blown out of the water, you are now trying to twist it to
'You wanted Cassell to play more minutes.'


I suggest you try reading the other poster posts again and this time, read what they said and not what you want to twist it into. 


Until then, this argument is pointless. 

if you actually read all the posts you would see that i made the MPG argument at the beginning and this debate was pointless from the get-go based on your stance that Sam being a shooter was somehow Doc's fault because he didn't get him enough time with the starters..

it flies in the face of Sam's entire career. he has ALWAYS looked for his shot first and no amount of time with the starters was going to change that.

playing with the starters also was not going to help Sam stay with Gibson or DWest in the CLE series which is the reason that he was ultimately pulled from the series...

Yes, you added in the MPG. 


Which has nothing to do with any of the other poster's arguments. 

[winsomme]

by the way, here is my initial response to wdleehi....and no where in it is there talk about STARTING Sam over Rondo....

We had roughly three weeks of garbage time where Doc could have made those adjustments to the rotation to prepare everyone for their role, and he didn't.  That was poor decision making.  Leaving Sam in the rotation when he was roughly 0-for-88 on the road was a poor decision, as well.  Results matter.

That is the part that bothers me the most.  The trying to do the rotation on the fly.  The mixing and matching of bench players to starters that has been going on in the 1st 2 rounds.


I do hope he has finally settled on a rotation.  And, please, don't have him panic when the Pistons win a game and come out the next game with a different rotational pattern. 


One last thing, I think he did a terrible job getting Cassell ready to be part of this team for the playoffs.  During the regular season, the majority of Cassell time came with the entire bench.  Few minutes with the starters.  His role was to be shooter and scorer.  Come playoff time, that's all he was prepared to do even when better options were in. 

You like to hope his experience would have better prepared him, but it didn't. 

so you wanted Cassell playing with the starters over Rondo?

and you are criticizing Doc for in the matter of weeks not reinventing Sam Cassell into a pass first PG when his whole career has been predicated on him working off his ability to score...

that only became part of this later and was NEVER central to my complaint about your argument....

my whole point was abøut taking time away from Rondo with the starters in order to give Sam time with them.....it is a ridiculous thing to criticize Doc for -  especially with the reasoning you give.

to suggest that Sam would somehow not look for his shot if he had played more with the starters totally ignores his whole career...and it is not even the reason he was pulled from the CLE series. it was his inability to stay with CLEs shooters...

[winsomme]

now you are twisting the debate....

you inserted the idea of Sam getting beat off the dribble being the reason for Sam's defensive struggles....

he played 16 MPG in March and 21 MPG in April.....there is no way that he should have gotten more time than that....and to get him more time with starters would have been at the expense of THEIR rest and simply not as important...

the time he spent on the court, they were running the same sets.... attributing him not knowing the sets to him not playing with the starters is also absurd...

Now that is funny.


First, I state that I think they did a terrible job of preparing Cassell to play in the playoffs by not getting him enough time with the starters.


You first try to twist it to
'You want Cassell to start.'

after that is blown out of the water, you are now trying to twist it to
'You wanted Cassell to play more minutes.'


I suggest you try reading the other poster posts again and this time, read what they said and not what you want to twist it into. 


Until then, this argument is pointless. 

if you actually read all the posts you would see that i made the MPG argument at the beginning and this debate was pointless from the get-go based on your stance that Sam being a shooter was somehow Doc's fault because he didn't get him enough time with the starters..

it flies in the face of Sam's entire career. he has ALWAYS looked for his shot first and no amount of time with the starters was going to change that.

playing with the starters also was not going to help Sam stay with Gibson or DWest in the CLE series which is the reason that he was ultimately pulled from the series...

Yes, you added in the MPG. 


Which has nothing to do with any of the other poster's arguments. 

yes it does....it has to do with Sam knowing the offense and the defense.....

if your argument is that Sam played the right number of minutes, then the only way he gets more minutes with the starters is if:

1) the starters play MORE minutes (bad idea when you are trying to give them rest)

2) they play less with each other (bad idea because especially with Rondo he needs all the time he can get with them).

either way you slice it, it was a bad idea and there is no evidence that Sam playing with the starters is in any way related to his being pulled from the CLE series...

[winsomme]

well it wasn't their driving that was the problem. it was their running off of screens and getting clean looks at three's. and yeah, Sam had trouble keeping up with those guys and that had NOTHING to do with Doc.

i called for him to make the move House also....but blaming this on Doc not getting Sam with the starters during the final weeks of the regular season is ridiculous.

Doc's priorities for the final weeks were the right one's and that included getting the starters rest while keeping them fresh too....

there was simply no way to get Sam time with the starters the way is being called for without disturbing the other priorities and there is no evidence that that is even a problem...

So preparing the guy you planned on using as the back up PG and possible down the stretch in certain games in not a priority? 

He didn't say it wasn't a priority, but there were other priorities that were more imporant than this one. And once gain, having Cassell play with the starters more during the season, wouldn't have solved ANY of the Cassell problems during the playoffs, especially when he has been playing mostly with bench players anyways. That he plays maybe with one more starter than usual should not be that big of a factor as you guys are making it out to be, especially when you consider the style of play Cassell plays anyways.

You don't like Doc's rotations? Fine. You don't like his bench units? Fine, but that has NOTHING to do with Cassell's struggles. These are two seperate issues, and one is not the cause of the other. House rarely played with the starters, and didn't play at all during the playoffs, yet he came in and performed really well with the starters anyways. There are other things going on here, there's little relation between Cassell's struggles and the way Doc prepared him during the season.

Then why didn't Cassell struggle with the Clippers? 


He isn't prepared to play with Pierce, KG, and Ray.  He doesn't understand the offense and defense as well as he should and could. 

i think you are simply not seeing the true reason that Sam isn't playing right now.....

i actaully think he would be fine in this series. certainly more so than the last one, but why take out Eddie when he seems to be playing so well....

again, Sam not being able to keep up with GIbson and DWest had nothing to do with getting time with the starters....

and again, no one made that point. the point made was that if sam struggles with inferior driving PG's, he will be hard pressed in this series to gaurd chauncy.

what did have to do with not playing with the starters, a bit at least, is after that PG got by him, sam often had zero idea where his help was. He often forced gibson in particular away from KG, instead of pushing him back to the paint where his help was.

the point made about sam not playing with the starters was that he often looked out of rythem. i dont really find it suprising in the least that his best games, games 1 and 2 in clevland, most of his offensive outbursts came with ray and 3 bench players on the floor. he knows those guys, and knows how to use thier games with his own.

now you are twisting the debate....

you inserted the idea of Sam getting beat off the dribble being the reason for Sam's defensive struggles....

he played 16 MPG in March and 21 MPG in April.....there is no way that he should have gotten more time than that....and to get him more time with starters would have been at the expense of THEIR rest and simply not as important...

the time he spent on the court, they were running the same sets.... attributing him not knowing the sets to him not playing with the starters is also absurd...

and now your twisting your own words to try to hurt my argument, in your response to my orignial post about sam and the starters, you told me that the starters in general, and rondo in partcular, didn't need extra rest during the season, and that sitting rondo to put sam out with starters would only have hurt rondo, in particular that he needed every minute he could get because he's only a second year PG. i agree with that btw, but i don't see how sam's total minutes relate one iota to who he was on the floor with.

and again, your MPG qoutes don't actually adress the point at all. i could care less if he was out there for 8 minutes, its who he was out there with that we were discussing, and you've done nothing to address that fact.

and i didn't attrubute him not knowing the sets to the starters, i said he didn't ahve a feel for thier games. that has nothing to do with the sets, and everything to do with playing together.

crownsy, please tell me how Sam gets more minutes with the starters without forcing them to play more minutes or takes away minutes from them with Rondo.

it simply is not possible.

plus, Sam is not all of a sudden stop looking for his shot if he had played with the starters the last couple of weeks of the season. that is his game. it always has been.

[crownsy]

again, thats your argument, not mine.

and why would sam need more minutes? again, you duck the issue. Why could sam not play 8-10 minutes with the starters instead of 20 with the bench as he did? rajon could have still played his minutes, and mixed some in with the bench players.

And, again, you twist my argument, and make it one ive never made. my argument has never been, in any post, that playing with the starters would make sam change how he plays, and ive never advocated that he should. it's always been that it would have allowed him to be more comfortable within the flow of the offense when he's on the floor with pierce, allen, and KG. Right now he looks like a guy who's played limited minutes with the other guys on the floor, which is what he's done.

[crownsy]

bud- no, i don't see the contridiction, becuse what your saying is false. outside of those 2 games, most of the time Sam has been on the floor it's been with KG and ray, and sometimes pierce as well. Just because he played with the bench in games 1 and 2 doesn't make something a contridiction. while i do agree that his game doesn't suit our style, who was running him out there until game 6?

That's completely false, most of the times he has been there with Powe/Davis, Posey, PJ and maybe either Pierce or Ray.  At most he has been with two of our starters, that's hardly playing with our starters.  Most nights he has stuck around to play with more starters has been on nights that he has either been playing good (which would make the point moot) or when Rondo is simply not performing and Doc sticks with Cassell to see if he can shoot us into the game somehow.  Yes, that Rondo who is still inconsistent in the playoffs even after playing the WHOLE season with our starters and in his own right should be better at running our offense.

About running him there until game 6, is a complete different complaint and issue all together. And I've said it before, I understand this complaint and agree with it to an extent. The only thing I said about this issue is that House wasn't the clear-cut answer as many here have made it out to be.

you can't have it both ways, if sam's sturggles have nothing at all to do with doc, as you both claim, that doesn't make doc immune to critics pointing out that he stuck with him for 3 pivital games, and completly changed his role from the end of the season to game 1 of the playoffs. keeping players in when they aren't preforming is a coaching decision too.

Again, two different issues. It's one thing to say that Cassell is struggling because of Doc, and that Doc has left a struggling Cassell there too long. But I also point out our long discussion about how Rondo himself hasn't been consistent, which has enabled Cassell to play more. And once again, House is not the clear cut answer, especially when Cassell comes in with a couple of game saving plays in the playoffs. It regains trust on him and faith in him, and he has surely warranted that faith because of his career. It wasn't clear cut then, it isn't now. House has been playing extremely well though, and it should be his spot to lose. With that said, he was highly unffective against Detroit, so there's still some lingering doubt there.

what i find suprising in all these posts is the idea that doc needs to be above critiscm for cassell. thats uterly false. what is true however, is that doc should be givin credit for realizing that he was wrong, and going back to eddie. Thats a good coaching decision.

Main problem is that they're making Cassell's struggles seem as if it was entirely Doc's fault. It's completely untrue, especially when you see the way he has been shooting and how he has been missing a ton of makeable shots. That's not on Doc. It has always been that way with Cassell, throughout his whole career

really? post the minutes log then if your so sure, rather than resort to the sam argument you used in the rondo thread "i see it different, your wrong, im right. move on"

and, to put it bluntly, i think if a player is killing your team for multiple road games, and you don't do anything about it, thats on you. does the player have some blame? you bet, he's out there, but explain to me how that excuses doc from not getting him out for the good of the team again?

as i said, doc did that, and credit to him, but it took 2 series in which sam was downright awful on the road on both sides of the ball, and bad on defense on both sides, and for that i see no problem with people calling him out on it.

[BudweiserCeltic]

really? post the minutes log then if your so sure, rather than resort to the sam argument you used in the rondo thread "i see it different, your wrong, im right. move on"

Don't know what you're reffering to specifically, and I'm not going to do the homework for you. And I've gotten some support for the Rondo thing, so I think my position on it has become quite strong.

and, to put it bluntly, i think if a player is killing your team for multiple road games, and you don't do anything about it, thats on you. does the player have some blame? you bet, he's out there, but explain to me how that excuses doc from not getting him out for the good of the team again?

But Cassell also had some inspiring performances mixed in as well... and although Rondo wasn't as bad as Cassell, he has been quite incosistent himself, and by that token I would've had Doc pulled Rondo out of the game, but we don't have many good alternative options.  And once again, I'm not even debating this. I've said time again and again in this thread that I understand the complaint and agree to it to an extent, but there are to separate issues being discussed here (you keep tying them up into one), so no need to keep bringing this up since I've already said that you're partly right. The only thing I'm saying on this situation is that the benching of Cassell for House isn't as easily clear-cut as many here are making it out to be.  Should have Doc made a more seemingly and timely transition? Most probably. But the plain decision of benching Sam for House is not an easy decision to make and not as clear-cut.

as i said, doc did that, and credit to him, but it took 2 series in which sam was downright awful on the road on both sides of the ball, and bad on defense on both sides, and for that i see no problem with people calling him out on it.

I have no problem with that too, but people shouldn't act either as if House was the clear answer, when most of the threads discussed this year in this forum was about how we need PG help and how even though House brings good energy to the game, he really isn't back-up material even when he has played overall better than expected. And then you consider how NO COACH has ever given this kid a chance, and then you consider the track record of great playoff performances by Cassell, and you'll see how the decision of one over the other and bench Cassell is a very very hard one to make.

[winsomme]

again, thats your argument, not mine.

and why would sam need more minutes? again, you duck the issue. Why could sam not play 8-10 minutes with the starters instead of 20 with the bench as he did? rajon could have still played his minutes, and mixed some in with the bench players.

And, again, you twist my argument, and make it one ive never made. my argument has never been, in any post, that playing with the starters would make sam change how he plays, and ive never advocated that he should. it's always been that it would have allowed him to be more comfortable within the flow of the offense when he's on the floor with pierce, allen, and KG. Right now he looks like a guy who's played limited minutes with the other guys on the floor, which is what he's done.

please explain to me what your argument is and what you think i'm saying your argument is....

i fail to see how you can play Sam more minutes with the starters without either playing the starters more or playing them together less....

you make it sound like he had NO minutes with the starters which is decidedly not the case...

the question is how to have gotten him more minutes with the starters without sacrificing something else...that's the first question anyway.

the second is how that would make Sam any less of a shooter/scorer - which is what wdleehi was claiming Sam was doing because he didn't have enough time with the starters...

[crownsy]

the original argument was that sometime, during you know, the 3 weeks that didn't count, at some point, mabey in the early third or early 2nd, doc could have found sam 4-6 minutes a night with the starters.

you then proceeded to inject MPG of the bench going up, for some reason ive yet to fathom, as a way of showing that wasen't possible.

and how could i have found sam time with the starters without anyone losing minutes? quite simple really.

at the start of the second quarter, rajon sits while sam plays the first 6 minutes with the starters, rondo plays the final 6 minutes of the half while the starters rest and the bench is in. the second half you do whatever you want with everyones minutes.

net extra time for starters= 0. they were going to play those 6 minutes anyway.

lost time for rondo= 0. he just plays one shift with the bench.

stretch that out over the 10 or so meaningless games at the end of the season, and sam gets a full hour with the starters.

as to your second point, what on earth does what you think wee wanted have to do with my argument? there quite separate, and you quoted my post and put in that i had said i wanted sam to change his ways. thats quite false, and unfounded. me and wdl are to different posters, with different opinions, despite your effort to lump all three of us in as doc bashers because we don't agree with you.

[winsomme]

there is something that i think people don't understand about our rotation as it pertains to the backup PG position.

when you look at our lineup, there are a few things to take note of.

1) Perk is not a 40 MPG player. due to a combination of foul trouble and keeping him fresh. thus he usually comes out of the game early.

2) Pierce and KG are a combo who time on the court together is at a premium. thus, it is important to keep them on the court together as much as possible. thus, they often rest at the same times.

3) when you are playing the backup PG, you are almost certainly not playing Rondo.

that leaves you at a place where the backup PG who in the playoffs will not get much more that 12 MPG is playing with 3 reserves and Ray Allen. that is why that happens and there is good reason for that.

now when you add in that in the final month of the season, we were trying to get the starters some extra rest while at the same time keeping the #1 unit's chemistry at it highest, there is virtually no way to have given any substantial time to Cassell with the starters without disrupting something that was far more important  than that.

especially if the reason to do it was to get Cassell be not as much of a scorer.....something that he has been his entire career...

it's  just ridiculous to make this complaint about Doc....

[winsomme]

the original argument was that sometime, during you know, the 3 weeks that didn't count, at some point, mabey in the early third or early 2nd, doc could have found sam 4-6 minutes a night with the starters.

you then proceeded to inject MPG of the bench going up, for some reason ive yet to fathom, as a way of showing that wasen't possible.

and how could i have found sam time with the starters without anyone losing minutes? quite simple really.

at the start of the second quarter, rajon sits while sam plays the first 6 minutes with the starters, rondo plays the final 6 minutes of the half while the starters rest and the bench is in. the second half you do whatever you want with everyones minutes.

net extra time for starters= 0. they were going to play those 6 minutes anyway.

lost time for rondo= 0. he just plays one shift with the bench.

stretch that out over the 10 or so meaningless games at the end of the season, and sam gets a full hour with the starters.

as to your second point, what on earth does what you think wee wanted have to do with my argument? there quite separate, and you quoted my post and put in that i had said i wanted sam to change his ways. thats quite false, and unfounded. me and wdl are to different posters, with different opinions, despite your effort to lump all three of us in as doc bashers because we don't agree with you.

you are all over the map here.

first of all, the beginning of the second quarter is usually when KG and Pierce are resting. so you would in effect be adding  minutes to them at a point in the season when we are trying to give them rest. you also are cutting House out of the rotation...

on your critique of my second point, i have no idea what you are talking about...

i think you are operating from a stand point that Sam got zero time with the starters which is simply not true...

[crownsy]

1) Perk is not a 40 MPG player. due to a combination of foul trouble and keeping him fresh. thus he usually comes out of the game early.

what does that have to do with the scenario i just quoted you? thats a nice tidbit, it says absolutly nothing about what i just posted.

2) Pierce and KG are a combo who time on the court together is at a premium. thus, it is important to keep them on the court together as much as possible. thus, they often rest at the same times.

ok, so under my scenario, they do rest at the same time, again, what was the point of this tidbit?

3) when you are playing the backup PG, you are almost certainly not playing Rondo.

right, again, what does this have to do with the scenario i just qouted you, you would be playing sam while rajon rested.

that leaves you at a place where the backup PG who in the playoffs will not get much more that 12 MPG is playing with 3 reserves and Ray Allen. that is why that happens and there is very good reason for that.

this is patently false. doc goes out of his way in the playoffs to keep at least 2 of the 3 in, he's said it in multiple interviews, and does it as often as he can. i happen to think its a good coaching move he's stuck to most of the playoffs, when not limited by foul trouble. If you don't believe me, post the minute log that proves cassell plays with allen only for long stretchs, outside of the aforementioned clevland games.

now when you add in that in the final month of the season, we were trying to get the starters some extra rest while at the same time keeping the #1 unit's chemistry at it highest, there is virtually no way to have given any substantial time to Cassell with the starters without disrupting something that was far more important  than that.

incredibly false, and based solely on opinion, not fact. By the end of the string they were sitting starters for full games. there were plenty of games where doc could have followed my above scenario, and gotten sam time with the big dogs while not affecting anything, and this excuse of yours that it would have been dangerous for chemistry is proved false by doc saying he was going to rest guys, and in fact giving full days off.

especially if the reason to do it was to get Cassell be not as much of a scorer.....something that he has been his entire career...

again you have no counter for my argument, which doesn't include that point in any way, shape, or form, but you hammer on it. Thats not a valid response to me, im not wdl.

it's  just ridiculous to make this complaint about Doc....

whats ridiculous is how you try to twist post together and make up arguments to shoot down that no one put forth.

[winsomme]

1) Perk is not a 40 MPG player. due to a combination of foul trouble and keeping him fresh. thus he usually comes out of the game early.

what does that have to do with the scenario i just quoted you? thats a nice tidbit, it says absolutly nothing about what i just posted.

2) Pierce and KG are a combo who time on the court together is at a premium. thus, it is important to keep them on the court together as much as possible. thus, they often rest at the same times.

ok, so under my scenario, they do rest at the same time, again, what was the point of this tidbit?

3) when you are playing the backup PG, you are almost certainly not playing Rondo.

right, again, what does this have to do with the scenario i just qouted you, you would be playing sam while rajon rested.

that leaves you at a place where the backup PG who in the playoffs will not get much more that 12 MPG is playing with 3 reserves and Ray Allen. that is why that happens and there is very good reason for that.

this is patently false. doc goes out of his way in the playoffs to keep at least 2 of the 3 in, he's said it in multiple interviews, and does it as often as he can. i happen to think its a good coaching move he's stuck to most of the playoffs, when not limited by foul trouble. If you don't believe me, post the minute log that proves cassell plays with allen only for long stretchs, outside of the aforementioned clevland games.

now when you add in that in the final month of the season, we were trying to get the starters some extra rest while at the same time keeping the #1 unit's chemistry at it highest, there is virtually no way to have given any substantial time to Cassell with the starters without disrupting something that was far more important  than that.

incredibly false, and based solely on opinion, not fact. By the end of the string they were sitting starters for full games. there were plenty of games where doc could have followed my above scenario, and gotten sam time with the big dogs while not affecting anything, and this excuse of yours that it would have been dangerous for chemistry is proved false by doc saying he was going to rest guys, and in fact giving full days off.

especially if the reason to do it was to get Cassell be not as much of a scorer.....something that he has been his entire career...

again you have no counter for my argument, which doesn't include that point in any way, shape, or form, but you hammer on it. Thats not a valid response to me, im not wdl.

it's  just ridiculous to make this complaint about Doc....

whats ridiculous is how you try to twist post together and make up arguments to shoot down that no one put forth.

i explained to you why the backup PG in our rotations ends up playing most of their minutes with Ray Allen.....and the reasons why not to mess with that.

your whole suggestion is perdicated on changing our season long rotations of our starters in order to get Sam Cassell 4-6  MPG with our with them.

you simply could not get it done without messing with something that was far more important than getting Sam minutes with the starters. it is absurd.

[winsomme]

incredibly false, and based solely on opinion, not fact. By the end of the string they were sitting starters for full games. there were plenty of games where doc could have followed my above scenario, and gotten sam time with the big dogs while not affecting anything, and this excuse of yours that it would have been dangerous for chemistry is proved false by doc saying he was going to rest guys, and in fact giving full days off.

by the way, your whole criticism is based on OPINION that Sam somehow is not ready to play with the starters....that is not a factual stance...

and even if i bought your premise that Sam is somehow unable to play with the starters right now (which i don't), with all the resting of starters, it made it even more important to play those guys TOGETHER when they WERE playing.

this is just a totally misguided critique.

[jay_jay54]

Yeah...  if anything, most of Doc's critics were saying BBD should play *less*, and that the Game 5 performance was fool's gold.  Which it was. 

In that particular game, Doc's hunch paid off, and he was smart to stick with Baby.  That doesn't mean playing BBD was the logical move at the time; it wasn't. 

In Game 6, Doc shouldn't have relied upon him too much (and most fans wouldn't have played him at all), and Doc certainly shouldn't have left him in the game while he was spitting the bit down the stretch.

I also disagree with Doc's justification for the Cassell move.  When something is working well all year, you don't suddenly change it for the playoffs.  When a player is in your top eight players all year, you don't suddenly yank him out of the rotation for the playoffs. 

We had roughly three weeks of garbage time where Doc could have made those adjustments to the rotation to prepare everyone for their role, and he didn't.  That was poor decision making.  Leaving Sam in the rotation when he was roughly 0-for-88 on the road was a poor decision, as well.  Results matter.

Doc can try the "woe is me" game all he wants, but he's paid $5 million per year to make good decisions.  The fact that we're 97 games into the season and Doc is just now figuring out which players to play consistent minutes is disconcerting.

It seems like from the first jumper Cassell made in his first game,House's days became numbered,or his minutes on the court...the (media) announcers,all jumped on a Sam Cassell bandwagon,and quickly started to pick House apart.As much as i like listening to and respect Mike Gorman opinions,he started it the first game Cassell played in by repeating statements like,"thats what Sam was brought here to do,thats why we have Sam,veteran experience to come in and right this ship,when it is out of sync".Statements like those became commonplace in the media.It seems like Doc was playing, follow the leader,because,his words after a few games were all about Sam being a savior,and House has served his purpose.From the  beginning of the season, to its end ,Eddie contributed to this team, in a  big way.Im not sure that Doc's decision to play Cassell in front of House was all Doc's idea,but it was unfair to Eddie,regardless who was behind it all.