Thanks, Hwangjini. I like to ramble. I was originally responding to the thread asking why people are talking about trading Horford then figured I'll put it on a separate page. If I am going to critique ball hogging, then I don't want to be a hypocrite with blog hogging. I feel if I ramble on my own threads, that could be a fair compromise. I'm hogging my own thread!
I was checking out some of the game threads earlier in the season. It was too much of a distraction.
On your recommendation, I just skimmed through last night's. JPotter was so negative. You seemingly brought him back from the ledge.
I liked the two put backs by Isaiah off his own misses. It reminded me of Bird doing it against I think the Rockets. It's a famous play. I realize you must know what I'm talking about, but it was the one where Larry caught and shot it off the rebound.
Tommy says those are "How did he do that" plays. It's true.
Marcus Smart is like that for defense. It's possible we can combine the two and it is a workable, championship contending back court for value.
It is not so simple as lining up three stars and then filler. That worked for Ainge in 2008 and then Riley stole the blueprint for Miami. But then LeBron went back to Cleveland and all their lucky number one picks. Golden State emerged. San Antonio perhaps still sticks around that upper echelon. I'm not saying it's impossible for Ainge to reproduce the KG-Ray move, but this time it just feels different. We are in a unique situation to be a top eight team with top picks pouring in for the foreseeable future. The other scenario had Pierce starting to get antsy. It was a now or never predicament. That's not what is going on this time. If Danny made no more trades and just rode this out, he is possibly looking at a ten year window. People clamoring for Cousins don't seem to understand the idea of the window.
How can the Brooklyn pick be included in a trade, for example, when neither the Celtics or other teams know what it's worth? Miami looks like a tanking contender. Even if the Nets end up where they are now as #1 in tankathon ratings, we could still end up with the fourth pick. I'm not trying to be negative, but it's the truth. How can such a volatile pick be traded? There's too much uncertainty. And it is rude to the current team to always downplay their chances and talk up negatives.
I can be negative here and there. I try to say it as matter of fact. Some people have given up on Olynyk. Maybe they have never liked him. He could be part of the solution. I am hard on him because he needs to play with focus and urgency. And he has of late.
It is big news what Marcus Smart has been up to lately. He has made a huge leap over the last month. Nailing his free throws at a superstar rate has to mean something. But so many simply seem to hate his game. They leave him no room for a ceiling on offense. So what are negative fans going to do if Marcus turns the corner on offense which seems much more likely at this point?
I used to attack Bradley albeit years ago. I was wrong. I attacked Turner last year until I didn't. I praised Sullinger until I didn't. People are putting the horse in front of the cart instead of sitting back and giving this team and its players room to grow. That's excessive negativity.
One of the big problems with the Perk for Green trade was that while it solved one problem, it created another. We needed a backup for Pierce. The trade made sense in that regard. But perhaps it was akin to shooting at a mosquito with a machine gun. It was overkill. Devil's advocate will say Danny had extra centers at the time and then bad luck with those centers, but we didn't need Jeff Green as much as we just needed a Pierce substitute for fifteen or twenty minutes.
Washington is not where we want to end up. Their stars are perhaps flashier than ours except for Isaiah of course, but the rest of their team does not add up to anything great.
We need a big center. That seems to be what everyone agrees on. It's not about rebounding necessarily. If we still had Sully, we'd be better at it, but he was slowing us down in too many other areas.
I think there is an element of physics to this. If we make trades out of impatience, we are going to lose the asset base. Things like Isaiah and Bradley needing new contracts are out of our control. It seems pointless to discuss. I am of the opinion that such decisions cannot be made in a vacuum. We can't know what Olynyk is until the season is over. We can't know if we can win or not with Isaiah until it unfolds.
Say Rozier gets enough play to show he is a legitimate NBA guard although perhaps not good enough to crack the Isaiah-Avery-Marcus rotation. Terry seems superfluous to them. But if he could get enough time to show his stuff, then we could maybe steal a Noel with Rozier as the key piece. Yet as it is, no way would Philly take that swap. So then we have to add in Olynyk. We might have to add a bunch of other things.
Now, the problem is Noel is a restricted free agent. Philly is not going to just gift-wrap him to us like Phoenix did with Isaiah.
But if you roll the dice on someone like Larry Sanders, you get him for free in that you only have to cover his contract. That is the kind of player Danny should add. Or I saw a list of quite a number of big centers who may be available in trades and they would not cost so much like Noel probably will.
If Danny can add such a center, we will become a lot more dangerous for this current season. Or maybe it will be Amir. We are not going down without a fight no matter what. We are equal to Toronto or very close. It wouldn't be a shock to beat them.
It's also still a long ways off to the playoffs, so maybe we should wait until the end of the season to evaluate our chances against Cleveland.
I am not worried about the Cavs or Toronto if we take care of our own internal growth and Danny makes that one sly move to shore up the front court.
Jaylen Brown still has time to solidify himself as Jae's back up.
Olynyk still has time to cement his niche on the team.
These things are unfolding, and even if we fall short this year or perhaps stumble at the end, we will still have the next year to look forward to.
The way a lot of people write, it seems we have been the Atlanta Hawks on a treadmill for ten years, when we actually only recently turned the corner and seriously started moving up the NBA power rankings.
There is now and the future and I think in both cases, the team is more than healthy overall for prospects. I include this year. I am giving away nothing as a positive fan. I think we can win it all right now. It comes down to health and stamina. Brad's teams always get better within seasons.
If only Cleveland and Golden State can win it all, then so be it. But I don't believe that. I think we still have an incomplete grade for this season and that it is a developing story, not something anyone can know with certainty how it will play out.
Thanks for mentioning the game thread. I feel I made the right decision to avoid them if last night was typical. It must be. I see the excessive amount of negative comments in the main section, so why would the game threads be any different?
Topic: Knee-Jerk Negativity Is Tiresome (Read 2921 times)