Jack's response is interesting:
"Who knows what's going on through Coach's mind?" said Jackson, who sat out the second period. "Whatever's going on through his mind, I respect it. I respect everything he says, everything he does. Coach makes the decisions, and we ride with them totally. We're behind him 100 percent."
The first line (his gut response) is telling. He SHOULD know what's going through coaches mind when a player (Baron or Jack) has two consecutive weeks of general malaise and sucktitude. It shouldn't be a big mystery to a player for a coach to recognize the need to sit guys who don't have it. Jack is Nellie's most loyal soldier, and he's saying all the stuff he's supposed to say in the second half of the response. But his knee jerk reaction, and the sum total of both parts of that response sounds more like he was trying to convince himself rather than convince his audience. I don't think Jack understands discipline at all - he wants to respect it, but you can't legitimately respect something you don't understand.
Baron?
He's still got that cancer inside of him. He still has way too much negativity and cynicism ready to rear it's ugly head when he loses faith. I know that this had to be a tremendously dissapointing result for one of his best season's in his career. No All Star appearance, no playoffs, (not a lot of contract leverage.) Losing that denver game had to be absolutely crushing for him, and everyone here pretty much saw last night as a "lost cause" game, but you still play with pride. You still leave it on the floor, you still come up with something else to finish what you started with dignity.
I'm dissapointed in Baron's choice of how to end the meaningful component of his season. It doesn't erase 40mpg for 80 games and 60 some strong performances. But it puts a damper on things. How you finish things in life matters. Baron is a guy I would still "like to" want to take into battle, but I think he needs a more positive alpha presence to control and carry him when the chips look down. Jack did that for a lot of the last 2 years, but when Jack's game is off, even he can't control Bad Baron. He's just too succeptible to his own personality trap.
At 17mil, we can't afford to retain talent and aquire a larger personality (with game credibility) to bouy him. I wouldn't want a Baron Davis ANYWHERE NEAR a bad team again. The gamble Mullin took paid off only because of the wholesale changes made surround him with people he can't second guess. It wasn't just about changing the talent, it was about putting personalities around him that could keep him out of the tank. I don't think that could be replicated in 100 tries. The question is if all those guys peronalities aren't enough, then how do we get talented enough around a very expensive Baron to protect him from himself? Can we be good enough in the west to control a playoff spot (not the 8th) all season long to keep him from going negative? The salary issues make it a difficult proposition.
I want to resist the temptation to make too much out of this episode last night. We have to be one of the best 5 deep teams to ever take the court in this league. We have a winning record and we improved from last season. We get a lotto pick, and we get to be more mad at the crappy easter conference and dumb playoff format than at our roster. But, this flash of "New Orleans Baron" is troubling.
The offseason will be interesting.
