First off, I'd like to open this column by visiting a comment I made about a week ago in my coumn at BskBALL.com. To quote myself (is that weird or what?):

"One thing that has seemed apparent over the pre-season is that the Sonics will probably be a pretty streaky team this season. This, of course, is relative -- all NBA basketball is by its definition streaky -- but the Sonics seem particularly apt to playing well one half and then stinking up the joint the next. It's my guess that this is a natural result of the Sonics' perimeter-based style. The old cliche, 'live by the three, die by the three', if extended to jumper, fits the Sonics well. The trapping defensive style also lends itself to streakiness. When the Sonics are good, they can be really good. But they can also be really bad."

Replace the word 'half' with 'game' in the second sentence, and you have an explanation for the difference between the Sonics team that showed up Thursday night, and the one that the Jazz wiped the floor with Monday night. Neither is probably representative of the true ability of the Sonics, which lies somewhere in between.

I didn't see much of the game Saturday night, but from what I did, Andrei Kirilenko looks like a real player.

Speaking of jumping to conclusions on young players (wow, what a segue), in his column last week, SonicJoe took himself, me, and SFS to task for sending young players to the Hall of Fame or to the Waiver wire far before they deserved it.

I agree completely with Joe, but I'm going to go a bit further in the discussion of judging players.

With veterans, the fact is that my basic assumption is always that what I've seen in the past will continue unless there is conclusive evidence to the contrary. Take Gary Payton. Yes, with the exception of his fabulous fourth quarter against San Antonio, Payton has been shooting the ball terribly. Does that mean I think Payton has lost his shooting ability? Of course not. Such a notion is preposterous. His eight years of stardom far outweigh three off nights.

What would I consider conclusive evidence? Probably about a month. Three nights? Of course not.

So what, then, of young players, with whom we do not have a large sample of play to draw from?

With a young player who is not a rookie, like Desmond Mason, the assumption of static play should not be as great. I expect young players to improve, so I need to see less improvement before calling a young player improved. Rookies are a slightly different case. Though some conclusions can be drawn from a player's college (or foreign) career and their draft position, these facts guarantee neither success nor failure. So, for rookies, I think again a period of about a month is appropriate before seriously drawing any conclusions.

Now, perhaps equally important, how should rookies be evaluated? I'm usually quick to use statistics to judge players as opposed to subjective analysis. In the case of rookies, however, I must admit to going on 'feel' quite a bit. Take the case of my favorite basketball player, ex-Sonic Eric Snow. Was there much of anything in his statistics from his rookie season (or, for that matter, any of his time in Seattle) that indicated that he would grow into an extremely capable starter? Not really. However, I saw something in Snow that just seemed to make it clear to me that, given the change, Snow would get the job done, as he has in Philadelphia.

Now this can't go too far. Certainly it's okay to make comments about young players. Just don't, as Joe rightfully concluded, write them off or 'on' until giving them a fair and complete shake.