Posted by TheGame:
Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Charlie Ward.
Charlie Ward once came into camp playing the best ball of his career. The season started and Charlie averaged nearly a double, double. He was so thoroughly outplaying Howard Eisley that most were wondering why Howard was playing at all let alone 15 minutes a game. If you remember correctly what happened next? Don Chaney tried to explain to us that Howard was struggling to play off the bench and needed to start(my guess is Layden/dolan told him he had to play) to produce. Not only did Charlie go to the bench but he also started playing less minutes than the guy he was clearly outplaying. Some nights he would barely play at all. Somenights he would play only the fourth quarter. Some nights you'd see him in the first half and barely see him in the fourth. Then his role became the designated fourth quarter guy, then it wasn't. It was constant change. But all the while he was splitting minutes at a position that he had earned. I'm sure he was upset. I'm sure he was confused. But what did he do? He put the team first and busted his arse regardless. Many people accuse him of being a bad player and overmatched. But the guy was never accused of taking a night off.
could you imagine the response from our guys if they lost minutes to a lesser player for the "good of the other player". They would go ballistic. Outside of the rookies no one would put up with that. Well this year some of that is going to be going on. What will be the reaction? Will they buck up and be men. Or will they play the role confusion card and once again have another excuse for turning 50 win talent into a 20-30 win team.
It is one thing to confuse one player on a team regarding their role. That happens alot and is to be expected when a coach is trying to tweak his team. However, it is entirely different when the coach pretty much confuses the ENTIRE team as to its role. You are trying to use last year as a prediction for how the players will react this year. My point is that last year is not a good prediction of how the players are going to react this year because the situations are totally different. Last year was not about players refusing to sacrifice for the team. These players were willing to make sacrifices and wanted to please LB, they just had no idea how to please LB b/c LB could not be pleased. In fact, the only way LB was going to be pleased was if he got new players. Let's judge the players by what they do for a sane coach. This is an entirely new team. Most of this team has been here less than 2 years. So what happened 3-4 years ago should not be blamed on this team, and last year needs to be forgotten, along with LB.
I'm not predicting anything. I'm raising the question to see another side of things. These players had this reputation before they got here. I came on this site and was blasted for about 8 weeks trying to explain to people that LB would not change the fortunes of this team. I thought he'd make us better but I didn't think he would change us from a mediocre team to a good/great one like others expected. Only the players can do that. But fans are still waitign for the coach to do that. I'm raising the same questions I did last year as Isiah comes in. We are walking around thinking 40 wins would be amazing. That in itself is amazing to me. We have 50 win talent but we are hoping for 40 wins. Right now we have the make-up of a mediocre team. Whether Isiah comes in here and wins 25, or 35 or 40 games isn't important. What is important is how do we improve the team from here. We all know in order to improve the team we will have to trim the fat. My question is why is it taking management so long to get this. It's been 2.5 years and we may finally be getting it. Whether we win 25 or 35 or 40 games these problems aren't going away. We aren't a contender with a selfish me first, maybe I'll show up in shape this year team. In order to contend we will have to get rid of the "selfish maybes" and replace them .So can you blame me for questioning them now?
