I for my part, am not phased by any of this because I FOR MY PART, have acce3pted the reality of this team in that
this team is NOT a championship contender! if we're actually being honest with ourselves for those who are actually willing to accept the reality of the situation, this team is a "playoff pretender" more than anything else for the very reasons that i've repeatedly outlined throughout the season. Far too much deluding ourselves from the fanbase around our legitimatw trajectory with this roster.As I said early on:
1- This team is just a play in team at best with mayyyybbbeee a possible 1st round upset IF they somehow catch lightning in a bottle and somehow upset the other team in the first round.
2- This predominantly falls on our inept GM and low tier front office! There's simply no more money/spending insulatory excuses with Saver gone! We've (as a franchise) gone multiple years knowing exactly what our biggest weaknesses were, and we still haven't properly addressed any of those positional or prsonnel weaknesses such as a true point guard facilitating table setting floor general, and an athletic
physical, long, mobile shotblocking
4/5. We only had one short weak azz effort to address both of those Paul at guard, but got him as usual far too late and in the twilight/decline of his career after knowing for years that we've desperately needed both. And then we offloaded him for some irrational redundency trying to make scoring guards with no true playmaking/ passing background play a completely different role than they ever have in their careers.
And we've never actually properly addressed our need for athletic, physical rim protecting 4/5 outside of a very brief 1-2 season experiment with an aged declining McGee, and then stix whom we didn't even develop at all! and quickly cut so we could overpay Shamet who was inconcievavbly terrible for us. Any of these things should've been fireable offenses for a GM even aside from our GM NOT doing anything in free agency for multiple years. But then sidestepping the draft for multiple years and blatantly whiffing on so many of the players he did over the span of so many drafts is exessively indefensible! Our GM and front office are easily one of the work at multiple aspects of their job that it's laughably sad.
3- The whole "choir boy" nice guy culture under the direction of James Jones and further promoted by Monty Williams (both grifters now getting exposed post paul) have conditioned this team to be both mentally and physically soft whenever the pressure is on. Whenever anything gets tough or teams play them hard or physical, they go soft and shrink significantly. Our team is just soft and passive to be considered a legitimate contender. Then we go and give away our entire future to bring in KD who is every bit as passive and quiet and NEITHER BOOKER or KD are at all vocal leaders or even leaders in the sense of accountability. We'll never legitimately contend with such passivity and soft mentality. Again, It began being promoted back when Monty was hired, and Jones was promoting positive team image for optics to counter Savers' endless azzhattery! But in ignoring the draft for years, we've become an unathletic, soft, physically aversed, mentally fragile yet arrogantly deluded team that believes we can just coast to wins on virtue of name rwcognition of our big three!
4- This team lacks any semblance of professionalism, sense of urgency or even the necessary energy and hunger that is essential to pushing yourselves to achieve greatness. The misplaced arrogance from our big three repeatedly putting up a pathetic, lackluster, dogsh** effort throughout the entire season after we've legeraged so very much, thinking that just based on their talent and names on the roster, that they're somehow
guaranteed a win in each game and that teams will just simply roll over and give in to them handing over a win without any type of fight is ludricous!! They've been burnt countless times by this delusion and for an entire season have somehow still not learned this basic lesson. It clearly goes back to my 3rd point as to an irrational arrogance, weak rationalizations, and deflective copout style comments. We have no true leaders and accountability. There
WILL BE DRASTIC CHANGES COMING this offseason.
Just as I've previously mentioned (ad naseum) this is a "play in" team at best as currently constructed. And would finish around 46-36. And lastly, after a first round exit or at best a 1st round upset and 2nd round beat down as our ceiling outcome
IF SOMEHOW LUCKY we'll have to make some very tough roster decisions by the start of the trade deadline next season. And IF we don't explore those options and pivot, KDs' value will significantly decrease and will ultimately put us in a rapidly deteriorating situation with Durants' value depreciating along the lines of the chris Paul situation. Ultimately our front office has to learn how to be proactive rather than reactive.
