I understand we have to give Ty more time to sink or swim only playing the old guys. It just seems like adding the youth of Bones and Kobe into the equation could give us the energy teams need to form a more competitive team.

At this point, Ty and his staff have a well earned reputation for refusing to play young talent. I doubt he even would have played Bones as much as he did if Bones did not already have the experience playing for the Nuggets. Bones would probably have less than 100 minutes of cumulative NBA experience right now had he been initially drafted by a Ty Lue team.

Consequently, the Harden trade has so far ended up being two steps forward and three steps backward because 1) we got older and slower, 2) we lost Bones’ playmaking and explosiveness, and 3) and we haven’t replaced the losses at power forward with an all-around glue player like Kobe Brown.

What’s most frustrating is that these problems are not the result of losing Bones and Kobe to a trade or serious injury; they’re the result of having a coaching staff with a stubborn refusal to give young, unproven talent an opportunity at significant playing time. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot, and the nihilistic side of me questions whether that’s a philosophy for team building with a high likelihood of winning a championship.