I thought my Dad was one of the most pessimistic dudes I'd ever met. I would accuse him of that every time he went into one of his long diatribes about how awful a particular situation was. His reply: "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist." My father's words were echoing in my head as I read the StarTrib's accounting of the Lynx game last night, especially how optimistic everyone associated with the team was in beating a top flight team who sat their starters. Reading through my blog posts, it's clear my pessimism was predominant for the entire season. Am I merely a buzz killer, or a realist, when it comes to the Lynx, or the Taylor basketball organization for that matter? Probably a bit of both.
No doubt the Lynx have something to work with next year; but as with the men's side, the people that have created two consecutive disastrous seasons are still at the helm. They want a premier frontcourt player they tell us, but that's what they said before the season started when they suddenly reversed course and made a play for Harding. Zierden talks about the last 13 games where a couple of breaks either way could have resulted in a winning stretch of games and mentions the Washington game in particular. He forgets to say how big of a lead they had in that game, how incompetent he was in protecting the lead, and the inability of Noelle Quinn to break a press. For each positive the team touts, there's a pessimistic item that can be added.
Since I am not quite my father, I will simply say that this club hasn't demonstrated yet that they can assemble a solid winning team. There is hope, but it's fair and realistic to say that the proof is not in their hype, but in the execution of a solid organizational plan. We can pray for yet another ping-pong ball lottery to go our way, but would a third straight league number one reverse our fortunes? We'll just have to wait and see.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
Good to see another Wolves blog. I posted a response at my site.
Here's a comment from canishoopus, on his blog canishoops.com:
Hoop Springs Eternal: Blogs, Boards and Broadcasters. Peter Weinhold goes off on Wolves coverage this summer, especially laying in to Stephen Litel. I agree that the boards (I'm more of a RealGM than MN Sports Fan poster) haven't been very good and Litel's not perfect, but I'm not sure what Peter Weinhold is adding to the Wolves Internet scene.
He rips Jim Peterson for backing the trade of KG, but I don't see an alternative proposition anywhere.
We HAD to trade KG. And yes, it was because the organization biffed so hard previously. But, after not snagging AI (remember when reports came out that AI to Minny was done? sigh...) trading KG became the best option.
I was talking to Skyner's brother-in-law last night and he's in the "don't really care about the Wolves now, but I'll watch the Celtics" crowd. I obviously disagree, but I can't blame him. The Wolves have done a terrible job of running the organization despite having one of best on-court/off-court stars in the league. Starting over is the only option they had. And I believe the trade with Boston was really the best one out there. There's been talk of a better offer last year from the Bulls (Chandler, Deng, picks) but the Wolves didn't do it.
And to the point about people in the organization admitting they were wrong: I agree, it would be almost as refreshing as if politicians did it. But the thing is, if they admitted they were wrong, the vast majority of fans/consituents would scream for their ouster louder rather than pat them on the back.
Post a Comment