How do you find anything good in a week where the Sonics manage a single win in four tries, and that one win earned by the seat of their shorts? I tend to be an optimist, but even I struggled with this one.
Luke saved that one game with a timely three and a clutch runner at the buzzer, but does that earn him a nod? Given that the runner was required after Luke left the game open by missing two clutch free throws on the previous possession, his subpar performance against Orlando and his failure to have better than an average game all week, I just can't look to him.
Rashard Lewis has been the season's most consistent player for the Sonics, is 21st in the league for eFG% and is the best low post player on the team, but he choked in games agains San Antonio and Orlando, doubling his number of poor games this season in a single week before returning to his average performance.
Ray Allen is shooting like he is Flip Murray. Ok, maybe not that bad, but the man is struggling compared to his career averages in terms of efficiency, though is totals are around the same. Unfortunately, this team needs Ray at top efficiency to ensure that the extra shots are available for the role players to have a greater impact. He had two subpar games (San Antonio and Indiana) and failed to have a spectacular game despite his brilliant fourth quarter in Utah.
Nick Collison gave us a single game glimpse at what could be against Indiana, but then failed to follow it up the next night in Utah.
The rest of the bench has failed to assert itself enough to earn any praise other than that heaped on Gelabale in today's press, which essentially amounts to praise for failing to screw things up when he plays, at least up to this point.
The surprise for me as I look through the numbers, has been Chris Wilcox. He is not delivering the scoring we hoped for, need desparately, or expected, yet he has been remarkably consistent when you look at his overall contribution to games. He has had only two miserable games all season, the sequential games against Golden State and the Nets. He has had two spectacular games this season, the sequential games against Atlanta and New Jersey on the road. Outside of that he has been balancing out poor scoring nights with other contributions, like sold rebounding against Orlando (6), Indiana (7) and Utah (7), and finding the open man in games against San Antonio (5) and Orlando (3).
With everyone else running the gamut from poor to middling, I will award Wheezy with this past weeks DUBIOUS Player of the Week nod, with the caveat that I hope not to see his name in this column again without leading the team in some other category outside of consistently least detrimental.
Chris' Week in Review
Here is one fan looking forward to some player in the green and gold to step forward and ASSERTIVELY claim this title for next week. There are some wins available if someone is willing to reach out and grab them.