Duhon said in informal discussions among players there was this consensus: "If your excuse why you were not playing well was Scott, there's no more excuses. If you want to be the team we expected to be and know we can be, nobody has an excuse. You have to go out and play. Don't have any more excuses. If you're supposed to be a $60 million man, go out and prove it." Du laid some serious wood on Big Ben. Say what you want about Duhon, but he's always played (not insofar as he's great, but he typically busts his balls) and acted like a leader of this team.
thats awesome. good for him. this team lacks leaders like that. Noah tried to speak up and people told him stfu because he's a rookie. now a vet is doing it.
Like I said during training camp. This team made a stupid decision not making Gordon a captain. I think that extends to Duhon too (who actually was a captain all of his years here I believe). Hinrich and Deng aren't leaders. Gordon has always been the guy who the other players looked to on the court for leadership. When things got rocky, they'd look to Gordon, and he'd calm the storm, and win us the games. Now, we don't look to Gordon for leadership when the going gets tough in the fourth. We throw it to him in desperation late in the fourth, but we don't do what we used to. Too many fourth quarters this year have been Deng/Hinrich taking a lot of bad shots, just ignoring Gordon, losing us the game. Its a myth that Gordon lost his fourth quarter ability, its just that he doesn't get the ball this season. It got to the point where Skiles stopped playing him, while Hinrich/Deng led us to futility. Then in the last 2 minutes, when we're down double figures, we expect Gordon to make some miracle and get us the win? He used to do his miracle work over the course of a fourth quarter, not in the last two minutes. When he had to do it in the last 2 minutes, he had a sidekick in Pargo. Last year we didn't go down to the fourth all too often like that. But this is something this team lacks. We don't have that second clutch scorer (Nocioni takes the clutch shot, but I don't think he's ever hit it). We don't have that Tyson Chandler that got us the stops. Our leadership is piss poor, and it goes back to when the team chose the captains.
San Antonio stuck Bruce Bowen on Gordon in Q4 and Gordon was basically denied the ball and good looks at the basket when he did get the ball. When he used picks to try to get free, Bowen was there with him and Duncan would step out to negate the screen. It left Hinrich so open that he was able to get good looks and he finally started hitting shots at the end. Duhon used his open looks to go 5-6.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ Dec 27 2007, 01:22 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Duhon said in informal discussions among players there was this consensus: "If your excuse why you were not playing well was Scott, there's no more excuses. If you want to be the team we expected to be and know we can be, nobody has an excuse. You have to go out and play. Don't have any more excuses. If you're supposed to be a $60 million man, go out and prove it." Du laid some serious wood on Big Ben. Say what you want about Duhon, but he's always played (not insofar as he's great, but he typically busts his balls) and acted like a leader of this team.</div> I don't think thats a shot at Wallace, but one at Gordon and Deng -- his boys. Nothing to see here really.
Either way, it proves that the problem isn't Scott Skiles lulz! IT IS the team itself. Like I was saying in the "Scott Skiles fired" thread, these guys just aren't bringing it to the table, there is no excuse as to why their record is 9 - 17. Bring it or be benched until you can. I am glad you see the truth, Duh. Paxson made a mistake and fired Skiles, it wasn't his fault.
