Post#8 » by TASTIC » Fri Sep 6, 2013 1:00 pm
The Thunder were awful until Westbrook was slotted next to Durant, and even then they only won 23 games his rookie year - BUT they were exciting and that excitement built up as they accumulated pieces. The fanbase was drawn in when they were dunking/running and they stayed after they started winning the year after.
We're not going to win 40 games, or 30 for that matter. But throwing a bunch of young guys together you can go two ways - the first is poor in both visual and basketball results, ie the Bobcats, so no wins and not good to watch. Or you can do what we're doing, which I suspect is admit in-house they're going to be awful/tank, but try and keep putting bums on seats by putting something out there with high character guys who WANT to be there, and be entertaining in doing that.
McD's brought in high octane athletes who make 'wow' plays to keep fickle fans from totally abandoning the team before we get through the dark and 'rise again' for want of a better phrase. Plumlee, Green, Bledsoe and Brown were all brought in/kept because they can fly/dunk (among other things...for Bledsoe at least).
Green and Plumlee are playing to stay in the league, so you at least know they'll play hard, even if their talent dictates that they're not NBA rotation guys. Tucker has overcome his physical limitations and lack of any sort of consistent outside shot to carve out a niche - much like Thabo or Andre Miller for two different types of player.
Vets like Tucker, Dragic, Gortat and Frye (ie vets) just need to be seen playing hard to dispel casual fans from saying 'tank'...even though everyone essentially knows it.
I think they're going to be very watchable and honestly I don't care what the record is as long as they play hard and stick to their development plan as a franchise - and it seems to be working.
Last year was awful because of the ridiculous Beasley signing (I DID support the signing, like many others I was lured by the Beasley siren), as well as the smart Scola addition - basically these buoys brought in to keep us afloat on an at best 40 win season. We were in a patched up dinghy and everyone else had jetboats or battleships.
This year we know we're out of our depth but McD knows Rome wasn't built in a day...