What a disconcerting game. In the first half, we looked like we would at least beat bad teams such as the Lakers this season, but in the second half, we looked like we were one of those bad teams. I've noticed some common denominators in our effectiveness. When we're good, we're making a lot of jump shots and threes (Sound familiar? If not, try the season before last). When we're bad, there's no structure on offense or defense for the team to rely on. The offense is stagnant when our shooters aren't lighting it up. Ray has been cold lately; not surprising, but incredibly frustrating given his refusal to do anything but shoot his way out of the slump (Even stranger when you think about it: Ray is probably one of the best penetrators in the NBA), especially considering the way Rashard has been playing as of late. I can't see any reason why the ball shouldn't go to Rashard in the high post every single time we run a half court set. I hate to say this about my favorite player, but Luke Ridnour is complete crap right now. He is getting consistently outplayed by Mateen Cleaves. Mateen Cleaves. The rest of the team doesn't look much better, unfortunately. Most of the players just do not know what they're doing on the court. Ironically, one of the few who does Radmanovic, who has given us a lot of energy off the bench and reeled in his excessant shooting for the most part. Otherwise, it looks like a pickup game at times, with everybody just kind of standing around hoping to get an open shot. The Sonics now have the league's worst defense. There's no team defense, which is all-important because we have, at most, one or two good individual defenders on the team (just a random thought, but why didn't Weiss put Cleaves on Kobe?). Last year, we were able to overcome this by limiting the amount of offensive possessions the opponent had, due in no small part to better rebounding. This year, our best rebounders in Fortson and Evans are, respectively, injured/idiotic and playing if Collison gets in foul trouble. And, please, don't tell me Jerome James leaving is the source of our problems. I will hit you. Now, although it may not show, I don't really like to bag on Bob Weiss. However, the symptoms the Sonics are displaying all fall on his shoulders. The lack of structure and failing system are the responsibilities of the coach. Yes, he needs time to solidify the rotation, but I find it hard to believe that if he hasn't figured out the right system for the Sonics to use by now, that he's the right coach for the team. If he's not going to display some basketball know-how, he's got to make the team disciplined. That's how Nate McMillan succeeded last year. Nate isn't the finest basketball mind in the NBA, but he at least made sure we played hard and focused. If Bob Weiss can't educate or motivate, how is he going to get the Sonics back on track? That's the question burning up my mind right now. I refuse to believe that we can't make the playoffs in the lower seeds. The team is not different enough from last year's to decline that sharply, and we were far from maximizing our talent (in my opinion, at least) throughout the season. Anyway, that's my two cents on not just this game, but the season so far.
Nice summary. I was going to post a similar diatribe this morning. Obviously (or maybe not so obvious lately? ) the Supes are my favorite team but I find them almost unwatchable right now - horrible defense and an offense where on 7 consecutive possesions we ended up with 6 threes. Basically, if Ray Allen isn't hot we're probably going to lose.
^ Yeah the Supes are my favorite team also and right now Im unexcited for their games, I kinda dont want to watch them but I will anyway. It was dissapointing tho, we were winning in the first, but that was only cuz Kobe barely played. Then after that he just murdered us in the second half, it was pretty embarassing. I think we need Nate and his DEFENSIVE style of coaching back.
It is time to realize that this team just isn't that good. Luke and Nick are not solid starters yet, and they might not get there. Vitaly is pretty much a complete joke. He is terrible. Petro is our starter out of our four players that can play center, and he is at best a kid that should be in college. Lewis can't rebound at all for a 6'11" Forward. Allen, it seems, has completely lost faith in his team. Bob Wiess? Rick Brunson? Mikki Moore? I don't care how it ended up, Vlad was terrible last night. He may have hit some threes, but the ones he missed helped the Lakers stay in the game. Has this team ever heard of "high percentage shots"
^^I agree with your comment about Luke, and want to add that he can't finish games. Having AD last year hid a lot of Luke's crappiness, but Cleaves and Flip don't have the experience yet.
Here is my synopsis about this team this season. Any team that can't defend and rebound is going to struggle. Coupled with the fact that we have no low post game and we've lost the ability to get offensive rebounds makes it difficult to become a high scoring offense. If we are allowing teams to shoot a high percentage from the field, rebound their misses, shoot difficult shots on the other end, and are one and done you aren't going to have a good basketball team. And right now we aren't a good basketball team. Coach Weiss seems to be a bit overwhelmed and as much as I want give him an opportunity to prove his worth he has to coach with a sense of urgency. I've yet to see him challenge the team for poor play and poor effort and I think that the major difference between last season and this season was in particular our post players played with more intensity on the inside. Watching Kobe dominate the game yesterday proved to me that as much as Ray wants to take the role of the leader, when push comes to shove his bark is bigger than his bite. Ray Allen is a second tier star that wants the responsibility and the cloudt of league superstar. Kobe took the challenge of not only carrying the offensive burden but guarding Ray full court and making every field goal attempt a marathon possession. After watching that game I'm convinced that Kobe is the best player in the league and that Ray Allen isn't competitive enough to make an impact if his jump shot is not falling. There are a lot of things wrong with this team but I'm not willing to give up on them yet. The only way this ship is going to sink is if Rick Sund resigns. If that competitive fire begins to fizzle out there will be major changes on the horizon and I'm sure that whatever changes are made will be in the best interest of the organization for now and long term. You can't continue to be patient with people who are motivated by selfish means. Sonics fans are about as fairweathered as they come. For this team to have success they are going to have to band together and forget about everything that is not directly related to basketball. Hopefully this forum remains a place where true Sonic fans support the green and gold. 12 games is only about 1/7 of a season. There is a lot of basketball left and this team needs all the support it can get.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting odde23:</div><div class="quote_post">It is time to realize that this team just isn't that good. Luke and Nick are not solid starters yet, and they might not get there. Vitaly is pretty much a complete joke. He is terrible. Petro is our starter out of our four players that can play center, and he is at best a kid that should be in college. Lewis can't rebound at all for a 6'11" Forward. Allen, it seems, has completely lost faith in his team.</div> ALL very very valid points. This team is missing something huge that it had last year, something that made a frontcourt of Jerome James, Reggie Evans, Potapenko, Collison, and Fortson look like one of the deepest frontcourts in the NBA... and I think it's becoming more and more apparent that it is Nate McMillan. James is gone... and maybe his absence contributes a little to the sudden weakness in the paint, but we still have Reggie Evans who was compared to freakin' Dennis Rodman last year, we have Nick Collison who did EVERYTHING at least solid last year, we still have an edgy bruiser in Danny Fortson, and like you said Odde.. Vitaly wasn't very good and he still isn't. I'm thinking it had to be a mentality that Nate instilled in these guys or his specific matchup assignments or something. Because Weiss just isn't getting them to perform and as we've seen in the past... no matter how skilled our perimeter players are, if we don't have bigs then we will not win no matter what.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Iron Shiek:</div><div class="quote_post">Watching Kobe dominate the game yesterday proved to me that as much as Ray wants to take the role of the leader, when push comes to shove his bark is bigger than his bite. Ray Allen is a second tier star that wants the responsibility and the cloudt of league superstar. Kobe took the challenge of not only carrying the offensive burden but guarding Ray full court and making every field goal attempt a marathon possession. After watching that game I'm convinced that Kobe is the best player in the league and that Ray Allen isn't competitive enough to make an impact if his jump shot is not falling.</div> Pretty much agree. I was disappointed the way Ray responded to Kobe's onslaught both offfensively and defensively. I think we saw the difference between 'star' and 'superstar'. <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Shard:</div><div class="quote_post">Vitaly wasn't very good and he still isn't.</div> Vitaly's been absolutely awful, if anything it seems he's lost a step from last year. And last year he was a step behind.
