With all the injuries we've had, it may be a little early to throw in the towel on this latest Sonic team, but at 4-7 it's certainly time to curb your enthusiasm. Before the season started, I told optimistic fans in the PI forum vying to see who could predict the most wins that I'd throw a keg party the likes of which few of them had seen if we won 58 games this year. While hardly tempting overseas fans, many out of state Sonics followers were only half facetiously making travel plans & counting/drinking their beers long before they were even poured. I don't think many of them are worried now about how they'll manage to get the time off from work.

I DO think, however, that many of us are starting to question whether or not we may have jumped the gun a bit by buying into Nate's wonderkind local reputation so readily. I've started to see a lot of comments questioning not only the usage of personnel, but play calling as well. When a team loses, this is really not so unusual. But it's a bit surprising to see these types of questioning attitudes so early on given Nate's sterling reputation; a reputation I've always suspected was based more on his nice guy personna than any coaching ability he may or may not have. After all,what do we really have to go on? The guy is essentially a rookie. After a fast start last year that was based more on the jettisoning of Westphal than anything, Nate really did (although he did about as well as anyone else could have done under the circumstances), I question whether those results were due to coaching ability, or the fact that the players liked playing for him, & thus played harder.Now some of you may say, "what's the difference"? And I'd answer -- LOTS!

Phil Jackson may be a zen goofball,but give him some talent & he's a proven winner. Why? Because he has enough respect owing to all his rings that players are willing to give his triangle offense a chance. That's more than many of the same players gave the two previous Laker coaches. Similarly, players may give Nate's one on one isolation offense a chance because they like him, but w/o results, the similarity ends there. Nate's going to have to come up with a more balanced offense that includes running plays for low post players (if we ever have any healthy ones) in addition to the two man game, & spacing everyone out around the arc for a wide open three. This offense really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone since, like it or not, Nate's main mentor was George Karl. One of the frequent criticisms of George was that he really didn't have much of a half court offense when he was with the Sonics because he had such an athletic team, he really didn't HAVE to. That is until we got into the playoffs. Then when the game slowed down because of the difference in officiating et.al., the Sonics were usually left holding the bag instead of opposing players. Nate seems to be coaching in the Karl mode as far as offense goes. On defense we're thankfully using less traps,but we're still relying far too much on team speed to get the job done instead of teaching fundamentals like boxing out & rebounding.

As much as I'd like to blame everything on Wally Walker for not having a clue about how to put together a basketball team, you've got to believe that Nate had some input into constructing this version of the Sonics. Look at the notable additions to the team this year & what stands out is that they're all fast athletic young players, many of whom are comfortable playing more than one role. Does this sound like a Karl team? The problem is there's no enforcer; there's no naturally tough banger. Instead we have guys being asked to fill these roles who, since they don't come by it naturally, don't know how to use their body to box out, have a tendency to run over people, & commit a lot of silly fouls trying to play a role they perhaps aren't suited for. Is this Wally's fault,or Nate's?

Wally seems to have a different plan every season for how to get it done. There really isn't a lot of continuity from year to year. There is no grand vision or overall scheme that gets tweaked from time to time as on the better teams. Instead it's more like well, plan "A" didn't work -- let's try plan "B". Nope,that's not gonna work; let's get rid of everyone & try plan "C". And so on & so forth. The last two off-seasons have seen about half of the players shipped elsewhere each year & a new, different styled lot brought in. Is it any wonder there's little continuity with this continual revamping? Three coaches in 4 years hasn't helped either. The only continuing presence is the architect of this madness -- Wally Walker. But having said all that, we can do better with what we have. Teach these guys some fundamentals & play good, hard nosed all around basketball. After all there IS a lot of talent on this team, it's just not cohesive. In the long run our only hope to dissuade the "master t(h)inker" from disassembling this group & starting out again on yet another ill advised rebuilding journey is to be successful NOW. Otherwise we'll just keep spinning our wheels for as long as Walker is here.

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