Half full, half empty ...

[Ryan W]

It's amazing how a 13-game losing streak fries
everyone's brain to the point that we can't even
remember correctly what happened 6 weeks ago.  For the
record, Big Al emerged prior to Pierce's injury, with
his emergence coinciding with the AI rumors and our
now-gaudy 5 game winning streak.  Remember the stories
about how Paul was deferring to Al and looking for him
late in games?  They're there, go look 'em up.  

As for Tony, he emerged pretty much as soon as he got
into the starting lineup in early Dec., getting better
almost every game, and even going for 30 against
Denver in the very same game that Paul got the stress
reaction (he didn't go out of the lineup till 5 days
later).  These players, along with Pierce, were really
starting to come together (with Telfair at the point,
I hasten to remind everyone), and that's what makes
Pierce's injury, coupled with Tony's season-ender,
such a hard pill to swallow.  We were right on the
cusp and on our way to becoming at least a playoff
team, and perhaps a division winning team, with an
obscenely young team.  Unfortanely, what could have
been a great, uplifting season has turned it perhaps
the most depressing season I've ever watched (and I
watched every game of the 96-97 season).  And that's
saying something.

Ryan
--- Peter Delevett <pdelevett at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Clearly, I find myself in the camp with Egg, Eric,
> Sean et al. The reason I don't buy the "we'd be
> winning if Pierce weren't hurt" line is that I'm not
> convinced Al (or the pre-injury Tony Allen) would
> have
> emerged if Pierce were in there. And I'm not at all
> convinced that when Pierce returns, he won't fall
> back
> into the have-ball, see-basket mentality, and that
> the
> younger guys won't fall back into deferring to him.



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. 
Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.
http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html