Sure. If somebody can't adequately control their emotions, they'll probably be unsuccessful at their job or flame out in some other way.
Soldiers, police, firefighters, surgeons, EMTs, etc. all deal with emotional trauma every day, and they do their jobs well. Yet we somehow excuse basketball players from maintaining focus and energy for 48 minutes per night?
That's warped to me. If this theory is true (it isn't) we've got to have the softest, most mentally fragile team in the history of Boston sports.
This whole post is completely divorced from reality.
Everyone on the Celtics has controlled their emotions just fine (except for Smart, flipping off the fan). It's not about controlling emotions, it's about how real life off the court affects players and how little time we spent considering that.
In most other professions, IT would not have come in for work. If he were a surgeon or a lawyer or a cop he'd be on leave. And really, comparing these guys who play a game for a living to firefighters and EMTs is ridiculous.
Looking over this thread and seeing just how quickly "having emotions" became a moral failing for some seems to have proven the OP's point.
Having emotions isn't a problem.
Not being able to control emotions is.
Everyone not named IT has no excuse to underperform. Dion Waiters and Dwayne Wade both had relatives murdered last year. Did their teams collapse around them out of empathy?
Who on this Celtics team hasn't controlled their emotions? Because the only guy I would level that criticism at is Marcus (flipping off the fan), who has also been one of the team's better players these two games. So I don't know who you're talking about.
According to the OP, the entire team is underperforming due to undergoing emotional trauma, akin to every player suffering a serious physical injury.
If that's true (I don't think it is), then the team is extraordinarily mentally fragile.
No need to misrepresent the OP. The point is emotional trauma is often overlooked and avoided. You prove the point well.
I quoted your post. It's exactly what you said.
Roy, I read what he wrote and you are clearly misrepresenting his words. Or you just don't understand them. Either way, you've proven his point.
His point that, if this team is extraordinarily weak-minded minded, fans shouldn't criticize that?
But seriously, what part of this is a misrepresentation?
According to the OP, the entire team is underperforming due to undergoing emotional trauma, akin to every player suffering a serious physical injury.
In a world where we accept that stress is a constant factor, the hope is that we manage the stress, or even use it as motivation to over-achieve -- this is the premise behind "clutch" performances. I think the OPs point is that a team that experiences a highly stressful event might experience (in some respect) a traumatic response to the event -- causing unexpected emotional phenomena and quite possibly subconscious impact. I do believe that a basketball team does consist of "co-workers" (referring back to Roy's comment on page of this thread), but really atypical co-workers, possibly could be considered something in between a "family" and typical co-workers in response to a teammate's tragedy.
I understand that if there is a counter-productive (counter to basketball success) emotional response by the team -- perhaps impacting focus and sustained energy, that this is not what you would hope for from a professional team. However, these are human beings and it certainly is plausible that the poor performances in games 1 and 2 are attributable in part to the after-effects of the tragedy. You can say this is weak-mindedness I guess, but it's hard to know how anyone would react in similar circumstances as these circumstances are difficult to replicate.
In an event that did not occur in-season (or playoffs) but I think absolutely had residual traumatic impact on a bona-fide championship team -- ask Larry Bird and Kevin McHale if they think that Len Bias' death had an lingering emotional impact on the team's performance in 1987. The team did make it to the Finals but I think there was a pall over the season (and perhaps beyond) that had an emotional impact. The Big 3 never won again.