Travis Outlaw is Not Winning You a Championship
As expected, today has been filled with Travis Outlaw arguments, speeches, and soapboxes. Rather than jumping on board with that trend, we'll just cut to what really matters: Is Travis Outlaw a Championship caliber bench player? That answer is and always has been "no."
Here are the last five NBA Champions in order: Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, Heat and Spurs again. When you look at the rosters of all of them, you'll see one similarity, and that is no presence of a Travis Outlaw type of player. What I mean by that is a guy who's unbelievably inconsistent performances all stem from an incredibly low basketball IQ. Basically, championship killing attributes.
The Lakers had Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, and Trevor Ariza as their 4th, 5th and 6th options. The Celtics had Rondo, Eddie House and James Posey. The Spurs had Michael Finley, Bruce Bowen and Brent Barry. The Heat were filled with players like Antoine Walker, Gary Payton, Alonzo Morning and again, James Posey. We're talking model role players here. We're talking multiple championship role players here.
So when the Outlaw lovers stand up on their podium today preaching at how much he means to this team, please take a deep breath and then find your seat in the second row. It's time to relax a bit and let this all play out. I'm not saying that the loss of Outlaw is "great" for this team, but what I am saying is that this is our chance to finally see if his absence would make a difference. For years, we've been asking for his removal and now many of us finally have it.
Here are the last five NBA Champions in order: Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, Heat and Spurs again. When you look at the rosters of all of them, you'll see one similarity, and that is no presence of a Travis Outlaw type of player. What I mean by that is a guy who's unbelievably inconsistent performances all stem from an incredibly low basketball IQ. Basically, championship killing attributes.
The Lakers had Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, and Trevor Ariza as their 4th, 5th and 6th options. The Celtics had Rondo, Eddie House and James Posey. The Spurs had Michael Finley, Bruce Bowen and Brent Barry. The Heat were filled with players like Antoine Walker, Gary Payton, Alonzo Morning and again, James Posey. We're talking model role players here. We're talking multiple championship role players here.
So when the Outlaw lovers stand up on their podium today preaching at how much he means to this team, please take a deep breath and then find your seat in the second row. It's time to relax a bit and let this all play out. I'm not saying that the loss of Outlaw is "great" for this team, but what I am saying is that this is our chance to finally see if his absence would make a difference. For years, we've been asking for his removal and now many of us finally have it.
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2 comments:
Ouch.
I like Travis. And probably so does everyone else on the team.
Can't argue with your comment though. Sometimes the truth hurts.
He's a great locker room guy, but I'd much rather give a washed up Juwan Howard a shot at this point. You need consistency from bench players and Outlaw just doesn't provide enough of it.
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