sounds like glen taylor is a strong believer in the words of dan wilson: it\’s all about chemistry. i, myself, am more in the camp of modern philosopher / orioles DH jay gibbons, who says that it\’s winning that causes good chemistry, not the other way around.
i was at the timberwolves-suns tilt on friday night, and agree with mr. taylor in his assessment that team chemistry (whatever that is) seemed flat. there were a lot of slumped shoulders holding up wolves jerseys, not a lot of high-fives between teammates, and a general lack of energy on the court. Perhaps this was because the team knew it wasn\’t going to repeat its stunning defeat of the high-flying suns last month. perhaps it was because KG\’s jumper wasn\’t falling and, often, as the ticket\’s jumper goes, so goes the game. perhaps it was, in fact, because the team doesn\’t feel a connectedness, that there are players going more for individual accolades instead of playing for the team.
or, perhaps, these guys aren\’t a very good team and they know it.
KG is KG. enough said. your second-best player is ricky davis, who has shown he can take over a game when he wants to but rarely feels the motivation to do so; he\’s the third or fourth option on a good team. mark blount has improved this year and has a decent jumper, but is unable to do what this team desperately needs: play a hard-nosed low post. trenton hassell\’s one hit (defense) is great, but– it\’s one hit. randy foye is a shooting guard pretending to be a point guard, and not doing a very good job at it.
this team is actually overperforming at its current record, and blaming struggles on chemistry is the coward\’s way out. the blame should, in fact, be laid directly at the (i\’m guessing) huge feet of a former celtic great at 600 1st ave, who is looking more and more like he\’s following the isaiah thomas methodology for general management. but let\’s continue to delude ourselves and say that all this team needs is a few more trips to the bowling alley and dinners at ruth\’s chris steak house. and the target center crowd will continue to get more excited about crunch\’s birthday party and its associated events than anything else on the court, as i witnessed on friday night.
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