The most unfortunate part of all of this is that, even with the disaster that this season has become, there’s a way this could’ve gone where the fans don’t turn on JB.
Imagine that we still have this poorly-constructed roster, with pieces that don’t fit and not enough depth. But, JB is willing to:
- Experiment with new lineups, including those that may not have his kids playing 35+ every game without question
- Admit publicly that he’s made mistakes in roster construction and in-game decisions, and doesn’t pass all the blame to (selected) players
- Say that he knows there have been problems and promises to make changes on-court (maybe some real offensive sets?) and off-court (changes to coaching/staff or basketball operations processes?)
If he did these things, I really think that he’d get a lot more support from the fans. The vast, vast majority really want him to succeed, and a touch of humility and recognition that his decisions haven’t worked would buy a lot of goodwill. A lot more fans would give him a chance to pull out of the skid, because he’d be acknowledging that there’s a skid to pull out of.
But without any of these happening, what hope do fans have that anything will ever change? His obstinance and deflection just makes it seem like he doesn’t realize that there are real issues with this team, and that everything would be great if Jesse just covered the corner 3 better.
I have no doubt that JB still really wants to win basketball games. But it increasingly seems like he’s unwilling to push himself one iota outside of his comfort zone to do so.