GAME 57 at Atlanta, Game Thread

Very poised, good ballhandler, good leaper. Very funky shot, but him and Kmart could have a funky shot contest every night.

In any case, say what you want about Artest, (and you and I agree that he needs to go) but the guy's a competitor, and he's been playing really well over the past few weeks. In particular he seems to have cut down on the low percentage perimeter shooting by quite a lot, and that's always has been the most frustrating part of his game, in my opinion.

The other and by far the biggest problem with Ron obviously is his history as a ticking human time bomb, one you don't want to be holding onto if and when he goes off.  

If Petrie was clearly committed to keeping Ron Artest on the team as part of an overall rebuilding strategy, then yeah, I'd I've a problem with that and be griping about it at StR too. But the fact is that Petrie worked hard to deal Artest, and apparently made a calculated decision to not accept a low ball offer for him.

You obviously don't agree with that decision, Pookey, but as I've argued previously, that kind of criticism is a lot easier to make when

A) you don't have a thorough knowledge of what offers were or weren't on the table, and
B)  you're basically simply logging on to the Trade Machine in your spare time to play Junior GM (as most of us, including me, like to do around here), pretending to pull the trigger on big decisions to save the team.

In the real world Geoff Petrie isn't just thinking about a single deal or player. I think it's safe to assume he has a long-term game plan for the franchise in mind, and he has to deal with and sometimes outsmart opposing GM's year in year out, not just get the best deal he's offered at the 2008 deadline. These decisions are worth millions and millions of (real) dollars of his bosses money, and they will effect the franchise and his reputation and effectiveness as an NBA Executive for (actual) years to come.

 If GP starts to get a reputation as somebody who will blink in a showdown, who will make moves out of desperation and therefore who you can punk or deal garbage to, he'll continue to see low-ball offers. And that's not acceptable.  

So go ahead and point a finger at him if you want, but frankly, the criticism seems a little naive to me.

Bottom line: it's gonna get worse before it gets better around here in terms of wins and losses, so I wouldn't sweat what happens much between now and April 16th.