I was critical of Portland's energy and focus or San Antonio's? I don't think I've ever said Portland played their best. Not many teams play their best and lose a series. Nobody needs me to recite all the "excuses" for why Portland may have not played their best, but I think the only thing I've been critical of are people who think Portland's lack of success was specifically because of Nate, LMA, or any one particular person. Your KP vs Kerr argument would be the most compelling thing I've read, but I hesitate to give Kerr all the credit because I believe Nash, Amare, and Grant Hill were all on the roster when he took over. Having said that, he's done a masterful job in my opinion of putting together role players to surround the style of their all-star talent. I'm not sure if KP has done the best job of putting together a group of players that excel in the same style of play.
This does raise an interesting question. If a team has a group of good players, and the coach can't seem to get the best out of them, who is at fault? Is it all on the players? Is at least part of it on the coach for being inflexible? Is it the fault of the GM for getting good players as opposed to players who fit a certain mold? Dumping all the blame on one party strikes me as too simplistic. Letting one party off scott free also seems silly. I'm no longer sure what needs to be done to get this team back on track.
The best way to attack Phoenix is to attack Frye when he is on defense. Blair would have done that. We all know Frye is a pussy in the post. He would have only had to be in long enough to log 3 fouls on Frye.
Maybe he was out of the rotation because he called the Blazers' front office and was scared off by reports of his knees? Ed O.
just think--we got lucky not wasting the 31 or 33 pick on a guy who can't even get on the court in the 2nd round b/c his knees have no ACLs. Between Blair and TurkeyGlue, we really lucked out this summer
