Come on. How can you ignore the comparison?
Anyway, how could it have been his team when he was playing on one leg (upon his return in 2004?) He should have stopped thinking about himself. Or, as Gregg Popovich has said to me: he thought the Kings -- pre-Webber's return in spring, 2004 -- were the team he least wanted to see in the playoffs. He and Duncan discussed this, and he thought the Kings had incredible chemistry, ball movement, etc., etc., But then, he's only Pop, a guy with two titles...
all the best,
ailene
-----Original Message-----
From: Lippay, Michael
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 1:25 PM
To: Ailene Voisin
Subject:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/13073770p-13918992c.ht ml
Ailene,
Honestly what is the point of all this. What has Webber done to you? He is now left the team, he's left Sacramento and yet you still torment him. This isn't a sole view point, this is a view point of all Kings fans on kingsfans.com. Your constant bashing of Webber for no reason except to hate him is getting ridiculous. You act like he didn't play hurt this year. I guess we did struggle with him in the lineup, but if you don't forget, we struggled without him to. How viable is it to put a 17 million dollar player on the bench? I've read numerous articles and you say he dominated the ball, thing is Ailene, even if he dominated the ball, we still were what second in the league in scoring. Doesn't that tell you something. Yes defensively, his play has been less than stellar, but same can be said for all of our players. We do not have a good defensive mentality especially with the loss of Christie and Bobby's injuries.
You can go back to the glorious run we had the season before last while he was out. Do you honestly feel we would have won the title without him, without Bobby as well? I guess he could have come off of the bench. But who does that. Not even McDyess did that during his return to Denver in which he started his first 10 games back. A fact you fail to realize. It's a total different situation. McDyess was used to being the man in Denver, he returned to be the man. Denver realized he could no longer be the man, so after he missed the whole 2002-2003 season, they traded him, much like the Maloofs traded Webber. He played minor roles last year, but it wasn't his team any more. And this year it's not his team.
In contrast, it was Webber's team, it's always been his team when he was here, and when he returned, why would he expect anything different. I guess he could have sacrificed for the quote on quote betterment of the team. But answer these questions, with Webber we took Dallas out in 5 games and took Minnesota to 7 games in the playoffs. Yes we struggled with him in the regular season, but there were no major struggles in the playoffs. The team played pretty well on both sides of the ball. This year, with a similar situation, injured players returning after long breaks, the team struggled mightily against the Sonics, and were utterly embarrassed 4 games to 1, a result I was not surprised about. Yes Peja played better this year in the playoffs without Webber, but does that really matter? We were destroyed, now without Webber, Bibby has struggled a lot more than he has in the past during the playoffs, and the rest of the team didn't play very well. Even though Peja played well, his +/- for the series was -11.2, which is pretty disappointing. Peja, your favorite, and now the team's arguable Franchise player, does not make the players around him better, something that Webber and others on the team tended to do. Do you honestly see our future being that bright with Peja at the helm? Honestly I'm not sure, honestly I think it's a big question mark. We need defensive players, we need a post presence.
Well I know you won't take this to heart, but you honestly need to calm down with the Webber hating, he's gone from Sacramento and you NEED to get over this fact. There is no point in bashing him at every turn all it does it make those who had any inkling of liking him dislike you more than we already do.
Michael Lippay
Kings Fan and member of KingsFans.com
