FOMW
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- Sep 23, 2007
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Rest assured the Nets are best in the league at something, and I think I know what it is: illustrating how fine the line can be between looking horrible and looking great, between looking like losers and looking like winners. A cortisone shot here, a trade audition there, one young big man developing a nose for the ball, another showing the first tentative steps toward rehabilitation, and still another growing literally by leaps and bounds. All of a sudden guys start defending harder, running harder, believing in each other and their coach more, and getting good results, which in turn fuels better concentration, confidence, and chemistry.
Winning in pro sports sometimes seems to me that it must be every bit as delicate a balance to achieve and maintain as the balance of forces that hold the universe together at both the macro and micro levels. One wrong thing can lead to consistent losing but one right thing, by itself, is never enough to produce consistent winning. Rather a whole host of interdependent things that have to go right. And when they do converge, the inertia of winning is every bit as fierce as the inertia of losing, every bit as real as the inertia of a mack truck. It's hard to get it moving at a swift pace, but once it gets there, it's just as hard to stop it.
Others have stated for several seasons that the Nets needed to "blow up the team", usually after enduring one of the Nets' frequent spells of confoundingly bad, lethargic basketball. I was very late to that party. Only this season, before it was 100% clear that Carter's diminished offensive aggressiveness and prowess was injury-related, did I believe that the Nets as constituted at their core were incapable of somehow finding the magic balance that could lead to consistent winning.
I had begun to regain hope after the Miami game and had even maintained that hope through the Laker game. The Dallas game revives my belief that this group -- if they can avoid more major injuries -- can still be very competitive in the playoffs. One big reason is because the Carter of the last several games is the Carter that the Nets have come to expect and the one they resigned in the summer. It's no coincidence that, since getting a cortisone shot a couple of weeks ago, he looks physically like an entirely different player. All of a sudden he's cutting harder on offense, dunking, getting into the lane, getting lift on his long jumpers, running out on the break, and doing a terrific job defending the likes of Wade, Bryant, and Jason Richardson in consecutive games. If the effects of the cortisone shot are more than temporary (and the upcoming all star break should only help), then the Nets' outlook for the rest of this season is a lot better than it seemed a very short time ago.
And the other reason is that I have no doubt that if Kidd is not traded, we can expect far more games like the last two than like the majority of the previous 10-15. If he's here beyond the deadline, he will stop pouting, his natural competitiveness will take over, and he will do his best to help this team win. And his morale will be markedly better after realizing that his backcourt mate is still physically and mentally capable of taking over a game. Put that together with the blossoming of Boone and Williams, the re-emergence of Krstic, and the possibility that Swift can come in and do with some regularity what we saw him do at the end of the Dallas game, and you have a team that could easily start to gain some confidence, win a few games, gain some more confidence, win some more, feel good about their chemistry, win some more, and so on. Before you know it, there's a brand new season called the playoffs in which none of their meandering failures and squabbles the past 6 months will matter except insofar as it makes them feel fortunate and motivated to have managed to still be playing.
Boston killers they are not. They need at least one really good shooter before they could even think about that. (I agree with those who are pushing for Mike Miller since Memphis seems to be holding yard sales lately.) But if they could get a guy like Miller before the deadline and stay healthy into the playoffs, I still think this team is dangerous.
Winning in pro sports sometimes seems to me that it must be every bit as delicate a balance to achieve and maintain as the balance of forces that hold the universe together at both the macro and micro levels. One wrong thing can lead to consistent losing but one right thing, by itself, is never enough to produce consistent winning. Rather a whole host of interdependent things that have to go right. And when they do converge, the inertia of winning is every bit as fierce as the inertia of losing, every bit as real as the inertia of a mack truck. It's hard to get it moving at a swift pace, but once it gets there, it's just as hard to stop it.
Others have stated for several seasons that the Nets needed to "blow up the team", usually after enduring one of the Nets' frequent spells of confoundingly bad, lethargic basketball. I was very late to that party. Only this season, before it was 100% clear that Carter's diminished offensive aggressiveness and prowess was injury-related, did I believe that the Nets as constituted at their core were incapable of somehow finding the magic balance that could lead to consistent winning.
I had begun to regain hope after the Miami game and had even maintained that hope through the Laker game. The Dallas game revives my belief that this group -- if they can avoid more major injuries -- can still be very competitive in the playoffs. One big reason is because the Carter of the last several games is the Carter that the Nets have come to expect and the one they resigned in the summer. It's no coincidence that, since getting a cortisone shot a couple of weeks ago, he looks physically like an entirely different player. All of a sudden he's cutting harder on offense, dunking, getting into the lane, getting lift on his long jumpers, running out on the break, and doing a terrific job defending the likes of Wade, Bryant, and Jason Richardson in consecutive games. If the effects of the cortisone shot are more than temporary (and the upcoming all star break should only help), then the Nets' outlook for the rest of this season is a lot better than it seemed a very short time ago.
And the other reason is that I have no doubt that if Kidd is not traded, we can expect far more games like the last two than like the majority of the previous 10-15. If he's here beyond the deadline, he will stop pouting, his natural competitiveness will take over, and he will do his best to help this team win. And his morale will be markedly better after realizing that his backcourt mate is still physically and mentally capable of taking over a game. Put that together with the blossoming of Boone and Williams, the re-emergence of Krstic, and the possibility that Swift can come in and do with some regularity what we saw him do at the end of the Dallas game, and you have a team that could easily start to gain some confidence, win a few games, gain some more confidence, win some more, feel good about their chemistry, win some more, and so on. Before you know it, there's a brand new season called the playoffs in which none of their meandering failures and squabbles the past 6 months will matter except insofar as it makes them feel fortunate and motivated to have managed to still be playing.
Boston killers they are not. They need at least one really good shooter before they could even think about that. (I agree with those who are pushing for Mike Miller since Memphis seems to be holding yard sales lately.) But if they could get a guy like Miller before the deadline and stay healthy into the playoffs, I still think this team is dangerous.
