Pels Appreciation and the blame game

I haven't seen much of the discourse here but Pels Twitter is unbearable and I'm hoping it's more sane here. Every fan is calling for rotation changes, which is fine, but the accusatory way that they're doing it is crazy!

Mostly I see the same pattern of "We lost, who/what is to blame". I hope Pels fans can take a step back for a second. This Suns team is amazing. Before round one they were the title favorites. They finished with the vest record for a reason. Since the bubble they're extremely elite. We're competing with them and winning every other game as the 9th seed. That is AMAZING! The very fabric of the Pelicans has changed in the last year or so. If this were the AD Pels and we were down by 12 after the 1st quarter I knew I could just turn the game off and spare myself the misery but this Pels team is different. They carry themselves with pride and they fought back the entire game. Every shot they took seemed difficult, nothing was working, the Suns were a buzzsaw on offense and a wall on defense and the Pels still made it interesting late into the 4th.

The need to point fingers at where something went wrong makes sense. We want to know what could be done to improve. But calling out Willie Green is insane to me. Sure, rotations could have been different. But the criticism I see seems to be so angry at him and seems to presume that somewhere there is the right combination of buttons to press and levers to pull to win that game. In the end it's as easy as, the Pels didn't play well and the Suns did.

As soon as we start the snowball down the hill for blaming coaching decisions, it will avalanche into another "Fire Monty" fiasco. It will dominate all conversations and hurt the team. Willie isn't above critique but let's be realistic and let's be pragmatic and cool-headed instead of lashing out.

I'm proud to be a Pels fan for the first time since CP3 left and it's awesome. Let's be very proud of this organization at this time. They addressed deep-lying issues that I didn't think would be solved nearly as quickly as they did and they deserve our respect.

I disagree with your premise that twitter yammering will impact the "feel good" story that is the 2022 Pelicans. Everyone loves Willie. Everyone knows Willie is a rookie coach who will make mistakes. No one expects him to be perfect. It seems to most of us that Willie needs to play less Jax and Devante and more Trey and Nance. If Willie doesn't adjust accordingly, I will still certainly still love him and support him.

Chill dude.

This logic does not work. Prime example, Atlanta Hawks going from ECf to 1st round exit.

This is professional basketball and if people want to critique and make apparently clear who is the weakest link. It's 100% valid. Nobody is asking for Willie to get fired. We just want him to react faster sand see his bad decisions as they happen instead of us losing games and for him to figure it out then.

People calling out bad players is what it is. So, when the offseason come here. It's clear that the Pelicans have work to do with this roster.

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Originally Posted by Jabberwalker

This Suns team is amazing. Before round one they were the title favorites. They finished with the vest record for a reason. Since the bubble they're extremely elite.

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Not without Booker they aren’t. Suns rely more on Booker than Pels do on Zion or even Ingram. More than any other team relies on their star.

I said this before in another thread and I’ll say it agin, without Booker for a full season Suns wouldn’t even make the playoffs much less be the #1 seed.

This is a very rare opportunity for the Pelicans to do something special by winning a playoff series against a team that they are currently better than talent and productivity wise in light of the Booker injury. Sure Mavs may sweep in the next round but at least the young guys will have experience of what it’s like to not only make playoffs but also win a series.

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Originally Posted by HoustonRox

Not without Booker they aren’t. Suns rely more on Booker than Pels do on Zion or even Ingram. More than any other team relies on their star.

I said this before in another thread and I’ll say it agin, without Booker for a full season Suns wouldn’t even make the playoffs much less be the #1 seed.

This is a very rare opportunity for the Pelicans to do something special by winning a playoff series against a team that they are currently better than talent and productivity wise in light of the Booker injury. Sure Mavs may sweep in the next round but at least the young guys will have experience of what it’s like to not only make playoffs but also win a series.

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The Suns are loaded with smart and talented veterans. They would absolutely still be a playoff team without Book.

Welcome back Jabber!

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Originally Posted by RUFshreve

The Suns are loaded with smart and talented veterans. They would absolutely still be a playoff team without Book.

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Yeah absolutely.

In fact, Booker missed 14 games this year in the regular season. The Suns went 8-6 in those games, and the 6 losses weren't even bad losses; four of them were to Golden State, Milwaukee, and the Clippers (x2), and the other two were right at the end of the year when the Suns didn't play CP3 or Ayton either.

They wouldn't have been a 1 seed without Booker sure, but saying that they wouldn't have been a playoff team is essentially saying that they'd be about as good as our RS record, since we got a play-in spot with 36 wins. Dropping from 64 wins to 36? That's 28 wins lost. If you think Booker is worth 28 wins in a season then you better have him as your MVP and a top 3 player, Jesus Christ.

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Originally Posted by HoustonRox

Not without Booker they aren’t. Suns rely more on Booker than Pels do on Zion or even Ingram. More than any other team relies on their star.

I said this before in another thread and I’ll say it agin, without Booker for a full season Suns wouldn’t even make the playoffs much less be the #1 seed.

This is a very rare opportunity for the Pelicans to do something special by winning a playoff series against a team that they are currently better than talent and productivity wise in light of the Booker injury. Sure Mavs may sweep in the next round but at least the young guys will have experience of what it’s like to not only make playoffs but also win a series.

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Without Booker the Suns are top 4. How you can think anything else is disturbing.

They definitely got my hopes up after game 2 and I still think we have a good 33% chance to oust the Suns but even if we don't, this season will go down as the perfect step up to the next level before becoming contenders.

The way outsiders talk about NOLA basketball has changed in the span of two weeks. I don't think we'll be huge players in FA but I do think the extraordinary culture change will bare fruit and we will actually see players wanting to come here.

Also, I'd like to point the finger at 13-3.







For no reason.

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Originally Posted by msusousaphone

Also, I'd like to point the finger at 13-3.







For no reason.

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I never called out Willie! The tweets I posted were from Shamit Dua!

I called out Willie on twitter and that was only because 1. it was a winnable game 2. I'm looking for things that will affect this team 2-5 years from now if/when were competing for a title. Willie's reluctance to sit vets is concerning. I'm not gonna lambast the guy for it but it was one of the main reasons we lost Game 5.

That said, he's an amazing coach and I hope he learns from it. He's been an assistant on consistent winners and I'm confident he can build one here. Pels Twitter has sucked lately though, you'd think we shot 50% from the line if you looked at Pels twitter only. We can criticize the issues we see and love how well this season has gone.

You think the Pels Twitter is bad? The social media home and birthplace of The 12? Might want to avoid Facebook forever.

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Originally Posted by Upper Decker

I disagree with your premise that twitter yammering will impact the "feel good" story that is the 2022 Pelicans. Everyone loves Willie. Everyone knows Willie is a rookie coach who will make mistakes. No one expects him to be perfect. It seems to most of us that Willie needs to play less Jax and Devante and more Trey and Nance. If Willie doesn't adjust accordingly, I will still certainly still love him and support him.

Chill dude.

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I guess I'm saying that if our expectations are low and literally any adversity is already making fans critical of him, I worry that we're going to get to #FireWillie much faster the more we are critical. I'm just saying we as a fanbase need to pump the brakes on needing to find somewhere to put the blame and instead focus on the fun we have watching our team since our team is now decent and plays with pride.