There's several different things going on here. But this should be mentioned - IT is certainly wrong in this, but he's not alone, and it's not necessarily Stevens at fault here either.
Yes, Stevens was experimenting last night, and several of the lineups just didn't work out. I think people are focusing on the wrong lineup, though. I don't think it was necessarily the Rozier, Smart, Young, Brown, and Mickey lineup that upset him, or at least solely upset him; he was visibly frustrated at the super small lineup of IT, AB, Smart, Jaylen, and Crowder that we put out there that led to DJ scoring like 6 straight points on us, too.
But, again, what was Stevens supposed to do? We were without both Al and JJ; Amir can only reliably play like 20 minutes a game anymore; KO and Zeller have been so bad lately that they're borderline unplayable; and Mickey just simply isn't ready or good enough to play in these types of games. Stevens is just playing the hand that he was dealt. Sure, I didn't like those super young or super small lineups either, but I understood what Stevens was doing to try and find something that would work with our barren bigs rotation. And hell, I've criticized Stevens' rotations a ton on here in the past, but what in the hell do people really expect him to do last night? Our bigs rotation is one of the worst in the league as it is already, and when you take away two of the main contributors and consider the fact that KO has been pretty much useless since the ASB, that's pretty much a no-win scenario.
Ultimately, the real blame here is not to be put on Stevens; the real blame is to be put on Danny. By failing to upgrade the roster in any way at the deadline, he has brought all of this controversy on this team. This BS approach of trying to compete now while building for the future just simply isn't sustainable. You must either use some of our lesser assets to upgrade this team now to give it a legit shot of competing (i.e. Ibaka, Tucker, Noel, etc.), while keeping our core assets together, or just simply build towards the freaking future. You're essentially handicapping our current team and creating chemistry and rotation problems by not giving them the help they so clearly need. And this is what it leads to - a frustrated, primadonna pint-sized star blaming everyone else on the team other than himself for our recent losses.
But even with that being said,
IT is completely at fault here, too. Calling out the coach is off-limits, let alone the two to three different times that IT has done it this year. Lebron was totally ripped as a primadonna crybaby on here when he was calling out Blatte two years ago, and IT should get the same level of criticism, especially since he's neglected to take any of the responsibility for the losses himself, even when the Phoenix game was pretty much squarely on his shoulders. That's not what good leaders do, and there's just too much evidence to the contrary to argue any different about IT anymore.
For me, this was my last straw with IT. I'm honestly unsure if I really want to extend IT at big money under any circumstance at this point. Beyond having significant holes in his game that simply are not going to go away, I just don't think he's the leader that we need, and this has pretty much been proven the last two games when he's blamed other players and the coach for the losses, yet has not taken the blame himself, which is what a good leader does. And this is all in addition to his "nobody holds me in check" diatribe the other night after the Cleveland game that largely went unnoticed here. Here's what he said:
Although maybe not as loud a performance, at least not by his lofty, King in the Fourth standards, Boston Celtics point guard Isaiah Thomas made a series of key, late-game plays Wednesday night against the Cleveland Cavaliers. When a reporter asked Thomas what Cleveland did to keep him in check, a ruffled Thomas interrupted the question for a clarification.
"Nobody holds me in check," Thomas said after his 31-point, five-assist effort in a 103-99 triumph over the Eastern Conference-leading Cavaliers at a rollicking TD Garden.
"I made plays," he said. "I average 30 points for a reason."
This came after four straight games
where he was literally shut down and held in check in the fourth quarter, and two of those games were major clunkers where IT's terrible play directly cost us games,
including his 6-17, 3 TO game in Toronto and his abysmal 4-21, 7 TO game against Atlanta. In fact, the Cleveland game came right after that abysmal Atlanta game where he was most certainly "held in check," so it's simply hilarious that he's that arrogant.If people don't think IT has an attitude issue this year, then they're just being willfully ignorant because he's on our team. At this point, I'd much rather keep AB at big money long-term than IT, because at least AB is a high-character guy that would always point the finger at himself first before others. AB, Smart, Brown, Al, Amir, Crowder - pretty much everyone else on the team I view as high-character, team-first players. But I simply can't say the same about IT, and that's why I'm ultimately done with him as a Celtic. As long as he is a Celtic, I'll cheer for him to succeed, but now I really hope his tenure here is shorter rather than longer, even if that means a step back in the present in the competitiveness of our team.
Topic: IT Complaints: Fallout & Future (merged IT kvetching threads) (Read 31427 times)