<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dumpy @ Mar 1 2008, 09:37 AM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>To a certain extent you have to ask yourself why you root for this team. I remember that classic "Simpsons" episode where Burns hires a collection of ringers to play on the company softball team--there was Wade Boggs, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Ken Griffey, Jr., Don Mattingly, Steve Sax, Mike Scioscia, Ozzie Smith, and Darryl Strawberry--and the regulars like Homer and Karl had to ride the bench for the big game. Do you just root for the uniform at that point? I want to see the young players develop into a cohesive unit. Replacing all the Nets with new players, especially if they are veterans, would be kind of disappointing to me, even if they are all-stars. Obviously, there is gradual change on all professional teams, but the key word is "gradual," with each player living a life akin to a character arc on a tv show. Right now, I'm getting used to a core of Devin, Marcus, RJ, Vince, Boone, and Sean (with possible extended cameos by ancillary parts Diop, Krstic, and Hassell), with the expectation that probably one of them will be gone within a year.
Again, a complete revamping of the team is distasteful to me. Ask yourself this: if you could exchange the entire roster with the roster of, say, Phoenix or San Antonio or Boston, would you do it? Why are you rooting for the team at that point?
Anyway, like I said, I prefer to build a team through balance and depth instead of with a few superstars surrounded by mediocre talent to fill out the roster. The Nets have tried it that second way and failed, and I don't want to go back to that.</div>
That's a great post. And I really agree with pretty much everything you said, which is why my ideas in this thread have always been posed more as questions than as answers. I'm much less about winning a championship than I am about coming to bond with the personalities on a team and seeing their efforts to mesh all those personalities together, hopefully in a way that makes the whole greater than the proverbial sum of the parts. I love it when the guys on the inactive roster are standing and yelling in a close game and when the players coming off the floor make sure to acknowledge those guys just as much as the guys in the rotation. I love it when everybody that comes on the floor finds that minute or two to stamp the game with their own particular talent.
I also love knowing that my starting point guard is not the kind of guy that punches his girlfriend/wife in the face or beats a woman up at a frat party or gropes a woman and then threatens to beat her up in a nightclub. With Kidd gone, I am so much more committed to rooting for this
team than I was before, even though it's no secret that Vince is my favorite player and the reason I started watching the Nets closely.
Which brings me to the point that trades are sometimes important catalysts to improved team chemistry. It's an intangible, yet everyone who's watched the Nets since February 19th can tell that their chemistry is much improved and that the efforts of Diop and Hassell have been highly valued by their new teammates. You could see what Marcus Williams' performances did to keep guys like Carter and RJ believing in the team. And as of last Thursday night, team chemistry took a quantuum leap forward.
So, like you, I would hate to give up RJ and two other important pieces of the team. But it's also true that even great team chemistry has a short shelf life if it doesn't produce enough wins or if the ceiling is obvious. And the opportunity to score a guy like Elton Brand may not be an option in the summer of 09. Thus the reason I started this thread.
