Just for the record, I did not want the Blazers to win the last game. But since I am more like BG in that I find it hard to watch a game hoping a team I like loses, I choose not to watch the game and hope I see a losing score. All die hard Blazer fans cope with the Blazers in different ways when they sucked as bad as they did at the end of the season. Don't know why some have such a problem with different schools of thought, but maybe it is their way to deal with "Balzer stress." But what is important is we are all Blazer fans and when they are winning or going to the playoffs, we can all celebrate together.
Totally agreed. But it's like anything in this world - some people feel there's only one view/perspective and they have to be right.
Not to shiet on this view, and not to keep repeating "YOU CAN'T SEE THE BIG PICTURE" over and over (lol), but I do wonder if a lot of fans of all teams across sports have the right end goal in mind. These teams play to win championships, not to make a feel good one and done playoff appearance. Not to garner as many worthless individual rookie awards as possible. After a certain point in the season, PDX had two paths it could go down: 1) continue to go for it 100% even though 100% clearly wasn't even good enough to make the playoffs like many fans were telling themselves early in the year. 2) Admit the team wasn't good enough and tank to put themselves in position to get as good a draft pick as possible and thus improve the quality of their assets in this most pivotal of offseasons. In my opinion, one path is clearly a proactive step toward the ultimate goal of putting the team in the best position to win a championship. It might challenge ones ethics and may not produce any cute but ultimately worthless feel-good moments. But it positions the team to be better able to make a blockbuster move. Its fine if you don't agree, but I have a hard time taking any argument seriously that winning games down the stretch is going to help the team win rings.
I understand that. I just think you shouldn't root for your team to lose and I think you shouldn't intentionally tank. Part of that stems from being a firm believer in karma. If you truly understand karma (like really understand and have studied it and the related thought processes), you'd better understand my beliefs. It's not a knock on you, we just have different personalities/education/perspectives/whatever. But I understand why people do root for losses and why teams do tank. Sometimes it works, sometime it doesn't. There's enough failure when teams don't tank, so then it opens up the door for a lot of "what ifs?"
Pretty much exactly how I feel. I don't ever want to go into a season with the goal to lose in mind. Some years you do lose a lot but thats usually with Rookie laden teams. I don't buy into the whole "you have to get a superstar to win and the only way to do that is tank tank tank until you get the lucky player and then hope he stays uninjured/happy with the team and you can put a team around him then you can compete". If we have a team that sucks we have a team that sucks but I want to see them go out there and try their hardest. I don't' want them to be content with sucking and I sure as hell don't want to see the Organization okay with sucking as long as we get a top pick.
It's called strategy. Like sacrificing a piece in chess. Or tanking a pot or two to set up a bluff in poker. Popovich is a god around here, but he's tanked more games to position his team for greater success than I can recount. I won't judge some of you who seem to want to turn winning a random game of basketball into some kind of morality play, but as a fan I'm perfectly content with taking one step back to take two steps forward. To each their own. The only thing that does bother me is when someone insists their way is the only way, their opinion is the only truth, and I'm supposed to follow them lock step. Fuck that.
Get a clue. Nobody here is talking about the players. We're talking about the coach, and apparently the organization, that chose to take Aldridge out of the game so we could lose.
Don't bring Pop into this. Dude is a rad coach and knows what the hell he's doing. Even that game where he rested everyone of quality, they barely lost in Miami. I get what you're saying. But you're example is crap. Pop is an outlier. Dunno if it's him, his players, or his system. But at the end of the day, it's an outlier.
Don't tell him that. That being said, I was surprised they even played LA that last game. And the stats. I was there. Had no idea his numbers what they were. And then they sat him.... And it was further downhill from there.
You really like to pick and choose which posts you respond to. When people find holes in your opinions, you ignore the posts. And you twist what's said (or perhaps you don't comprehend?). You'd make a great politician. The point was people were saying that Pop was giving games away to rest his players. And I disagreed because Pop is a great coach and that team just finds ways to compete, with or without their top players. So, I disagree with the assertion that he's sacrificing wins to rest his players.
So how is that different from what Stotts did? This is the point I disagree with. SA competed in some of those games and they got blown out in some. (the season before last in Portland rings a bell) But they played to win regardless who was on the floor. Portland did the same. You mention that the Blazer players competed (Which is true) but the Coaches (and GM) did not by not putting LMA back in the game late in the 4th. They still busted their asses with the guys that played.
