Surely this season there been at the very least an indirect relationship between W’s players playing out position and getting hurt so much. The problem: Nelson would rather lose his way, going small, than availing himself of the talent we have, namely a team that led the league in blocked shots last year. Thus, he should have gone big this year: play at once AB, Turiaf, AND Randolph (who’s really a small forward, a taller Tayshaun Prince, but with Lamar Odom ballhandling skills), let shot blocks and their threat generate fast breaks, and model the team after the albeit more talented Denver Nuggests team of three years ago with Camby & Andre Miller. Having established that you can take out or slow down the other team from what the opposition wants to do, THEN bring in your little guys and go nuts, change the tempo, play small ball.

Nothing revealed the holes in Nelson’s model then the Dubs’ losses to the woeful but talented Worst Teams in the league last year: Memphis, Oak City, Minnesota. Wanna play non-structured ball? Wanna play small? They love it–because they can out-athlete you.

Don Nelson=castles in the air. It’s all about his “creativity”, his reputation as an “innovator.”

Good post, Feltbot. Again you explained things I didn’t see, especially on defense.

I know we’re all tired of this, but it is still somewhat interesting that in spite of all the shortcomings you list, they still got close. What I remember most the third quarter are a half dozen really bad turnovers that led to a dozen quick points. If the team just executes well for four quarters—

Team identity problems?

But standing back, it is hard to believe that ANY team could win ANY game with 2 or three ‘D’ leaguers in the rotation. Maybe this team is destined (doomed) for a top 4 pick no matter what.

On an aside, I notice 6’10″ Mareese Speights is languishing on the bench in Philadelphia. Any chance the ‘W’s have noticed and are working the phones?