Here comes the “look on the bright side” fans. The “we haven’t even seen the team with all healthy players” fans. The “it’s still early in the season fans”
I lost that naive optimism 4 games ago. We’ve lost 9 in a row now…
At a certain point you just kind of start wondering, “is our team cursed?”.
Arguably our most impactful player is Duren. He was dominant - like a young Dwight Howard dominant - in the first few games. He was getting national attention for his start. Then he got hurt and has been in and out of the lineup, and when he’s played he’s been a shadow of his healthy self.
Cade lives and breathes lobs and finding the roll man. His rookie improvement came after they landed Bagley. At the beginning of the year, he and Duren were feasting - and Duren gives Cade spacing on the interior like no other player on the team.
Every good young team has veteran role players. Every single one of ours has been out for either the entire season, or for part of the season.
Monty has his head in his ass about Ivey.
Point is: this team isn’t good, but they’re not nearly as bad as they’ve been playing. Hell, just make turnovers or free throws equal and they’d have won 3 or so games in this losing stretch.
This isn’t an optimistic take. It’s a realistic take. The unrealistic take is that this sort of play is going to continue when they get guys back and settled into roles.