Tis the season to see folly.
And so goes the current Sonics season. The Sonics dropped another game last night--that they typically won last season--when Baron Davis' prayer from somewhere near Aurora Avenue barely ruffled the net as it went through the hoop giving the Warriors their 11th win against sub.500 teams.
Last season, which was only 7 or 8 months ago but feels like 20 years removed, Vladi would have let the defender fly by in O.T., then calmly knocked down the open jumper enroute to victory. But not this jolly ole season. No, Vladi let's the guy go flying by, then takes off, to who knows where, but passes up about 2 or 3 easy looks at the rim to throw the ball out to Murray.
Murray does well getting to the rim, and his pass attempt to Collison can't even be faulted because it was close to a great play and the right play all wrapped up in one. The only problem with the play is that it didn't take about .6 of a second longer to fizzle out.
So Davis goes down, calmly hits a 30-footer and leaves .04 on the game clock. The problem there is that instead of Derek Fisher, the .04 wonder, being the guy we signed last year, he was actually on the Warriors so we get no help there. Well, Fisher was the opposite of help as he added 26 points to the Sonics woes last night himself.
Returning to the topic of surviving this Sonics season, the club is flying under the radar with the Seahawks basically owning Seattle's collective sports interest thus far. That's good. Last night was a wildly entertaining game, but if the Sonics defense is going to be this pourous all season, the results of last night's game is going to look like a Groundhog Day loop. In other words, the results are going to be coal in every Sonics fans' stockings.
How can the Sonics improve?
Well, maybe if coach Weiss gets kicked out later in the game, the following 10-0 run might work; but probably not.
The sad part from my viewpoint is that the defense they need is not found on their current squad. So unless Sund's Christmas list includes an Earl Watson, or what they truly need, a shot-blocker, we can expect to see more games like last night's.
The upside to the game last night is that it was good entertainment value, if your stomach can handle the loss. The effort was there, and if the Sonics shoot slightly better, they win the game.