ballocks

truly horrific injury to watch, who knows if he'll ever come back, but for the purposes of this team, who cares how horrific it was? i think everyone wishes garbajosa a successful recovery but... does it really matter that he busted his ankle on the court instead of, i don't know, suffering a season-ending accidental concussion at home while playing with his dog? the fact that this professional outfit has to focus on is that they have more games to play. injuries happen- horrific, accidental, whatever. you say it; now believe it.

imo, they have to get out of this bad habit of putting more value on players than is justified. i mean, we're hearing it now for the fifth time in the month- we can't win without parker; we can't win without calderon; we can't win without bargnani; we can't win without bosh; now, we can't win without garbajosa. if juan dixon had been acquired sooner, it might've been the same story last night, who knows.

my point is that it's impossible for all of these players to be seen as critical pieces. impossible. the leadership on this team should probably understand that by now and not allow themselves to, for example, get swallowed outright by a milwaukee bucks team because "anthony parker is injured. he's the glue."

i mean, the proof came on friday vs denver. no parker, no bargnani, no problem. the team out there on that night would've abused any team in the league, imo. what's more, the perimeter defense was being called upon to stop arguably the most potent offensive outside attack in basketball... without its primary glue-piece, anthony parker. and it did so. easily. i guess anthony parker isn't quite the linchpin he was being made out to be in order to justify our half-hearted efforts against new york, memphis, milwaukee, houston, etc. and that's fine. we should remember that...

because we can't do it again. i don't know why more attention isn't being pointed toward this issue, but i couldn't stand for us to do it again. garbajosa is a bona fide contributor to this team- he is not the "make or break" cornerstone we want to believe. the longer we choose to believe it, the longer we'll slide, simple as that. inevitably someone will realize that the team is not entirely decimated by that one injury, that the team can overcome the loss quite easily, in fact, but how long do we have to wait until that happens? where is the leadership? step up, now. are you pros or are you pros? step up- now.

the easy argument to raise at this juncture is that with garbajosa- with garbajosa- the team yet again failed to show up for work last night. anyone see a problem? how many can you have in one month (i'm not talking injuries, i'm talking bombs)? i'd suggest this is a mighty concern, concealed somewhat by an awfully easy schedule in the year of kevin durant & greg oden. i don't know who's to blame, they're probably all to blame, but my goodness, this is not the sign of a team that understands its goal very well- and that's with garbajosa in the fold.

as it continues to search for excuses in order to justify future blowouts, it is my opinion that they simply cannot cite jorge garbajosa's absence in that effort. jorge's been around for the duration, the team has not been playing at a consistently professional level of late- at all- and he's been an equal force in the problem. we'll want to use him for an excuse because we can, but it would be foolish and highly revealing of this team's character for us to do so.

there are a handful of players who i feel comfortable with on a daily basis right now. the majority seem to have been picking their spots in a position where they don't have that luxury. the habit of this team is becoming progressively more well-formed, imo, and i'm crying to not hear about how "jorge garbajosa is irreplaceable", for example. the team needs to smarten up (media too), while the leadership of the team needs to step up in order to make it happen.

the upcoming week is critical, not garbajosa, not parker, not bargnani, not bosh, not calderon- not anyone.

peace