Well I have followed Sammy for well over a decade now(close to about 14 years counting Florida State) and I only met him once, and that was about in 97, it was before a Nets game and I had him sign the Slam with him Kendall Gill, Keith Van Horn on the cover. And he was cool about it, over the year I have seen Sammy's attuide turn toward fans simply because of how speratic they are with apperication toward his game. Iam definately not making excuses for Sammy. But if you continously have the fans go from praising 24/7 to hating 24/7, like what has happen in New Jersey, Milwuakee, and now even in Minny, Cassell goes from being the most loved to the most hated simply because of the critics that every fan wants to be against his style of play. So now Sam lives by the modo" he doesnt let the fans get him to high or to low". He has pretty much turned cold toward them, he even said it last year when he was at his peek. Its not an excuse for him to be a d**k but if you have followed Sam close enuff way before he got to Minny, you would understand a bit. This is years of hostile build up toward fans and critics. Sam has been on 6 teams that means 6 different cities, Dallas, Phoenix, New Jersey, Minny, Milwuakee, and of course Houston. And out of those 6, Houston is the only one that the fans showed him love and apperiation from beginning to end.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Henacy:</div><div class="quote_post">.....Cassell goes from being the most loved to the most hated simply because of the critics that every fan wants to be against his style of play. So now Sam lives by the modo" he doesnt let the fans get him to high or to low". He has pretty much turned cold toward them, he even said it last year when he was at his peek.</div> I believe that you can't be "all about the fans" and he shouldn't let the fans take him either too high or too low, but one thing that he as a person needs to look at is what his level of responsibility is in the situation. He sometimes takes shots that aren't the best....but we know to live with it because that's his game and we know he can really come through. But not showing up to practices is another level. But like my post about who I would keep on the roster, Sam is there because he's a big game player. At least we went down to the Lakers because we didn't have our points and used the highly faulty "Hack-a-Shaq" as opposed to a team that was in their prime and just gave the series away.
Henacy: Sammy brought this upon himself. If Sam plays hard every night and respects the game, fans will respect him for it. The least he can do is give the fans a thumbs up at least. I had no problem with Sam ignoring me since I expected it, but at least pretend to smile in front of the little kids at least. He basically told the kids to go piss off after the game. I thought the Nets fans were pretty good towards Sam yesterday and Nets fans have a soft spot for this guy. The fans know that he did a great job with the Nets so why be bitter at the Nets fans. As for what happened in the past, I don't know what happened, but I do know that he has been a total prick with the Wolves this year in whining about his contract and whining about Flip's offense. That can turn the Wolves fans out easily especially since he was one of the guys that called for Flip's firing. As for that Slam magazine you mentioned, I remembered it vividly. That magazine featured the whole Nets starters and the magazine talked about how the Nets were a team on the rise and how they would form a dynasty eventually. Unfortunately, that didn't worked out as Calipari was unfairly fired, Gill became a malcontent and a lousy player, Jayson Williams had that tragic injury in a collision with his own teammate in Marbury, Van Horn had one great year in his rookie year and then he became bad, and Kerry Kittles got hurt. That was a fun team to watch in 1998.
