I was indeed. And I am STILL not eager to dump him for nothing more than expirings unless its absolutely the last resort (and by the way I highly doubt it is -- its a question of how much extra candy we can extract, not "if" -- Kevin is better than all that).
But this has been considerably worse than even I anticipated, and I have been watching a good thing we had going here kick and scream and die from an intense dose of self-administered poison. That has been painful, and it just makes everything just that much harder going forward. The fanbase, already filled with doubt about our emergence this year, now just has one more reason next year to say yeah yeah, they won for a while last year too and it didn't lead anywhere. Meanwhile Donte's contract ends after next season, so does Westphal's, Sergio and Brockman are up after this season, Cisco is about to return, Noc's and Beno's lack of minutes and production could rapidly make their big deals unmoveable, season ticket renewals are coming up, there is an arena being talked about that willneed some level of public enthusiasm to fill if not build, and the owneres are now talking about financial armageddon and a long potentially disastrous lockout after next year. Being young means that you should have a long window, but it doesn't mean that time isn't running against you. I could tell you exactly what the team we had here a month ago needed in order to take the next step into being a playoff team/team to be contended with. I can't make the same claim wiht this current crew because we have lost key attributes that we had filled. We aren't scoring anymore, our chemistry is fractured, nobody knows or likes their roles, its a mess. Hell, I've even had to break otu the themese again as the fanbase filters abck away bored wiht nightly beatings. That's before we get to the effects on the morale of these kids who were so willing to fight anyone and everyone just a month or two ago, or the impression such a depressing place leaves on possible free agents. The longer this goes on, the longer it sets us back.
And making it worse is that Kevin himself is eroding his value in the process. I saw a lot (but as I have mentioned in other threads, not all) of this coming, and so I wanted us to be proactive and make a move before the rest of the league got a look at this ugliness. Instead not only has his return appeared to torpedo our chemistry, but he himself is going down with the ship. People say yeah his value will rebound. Are you sure? And by how much? And at what cost to guys who are going to be around in the future? Even if we start playing a little better, if we finish up with 25 wins after the start we got off to, do you really think people are not going to conenct the dots and question why this happened? What happens if he gets hurt again -- this a guy who has suffered significant injuries each of the last 3 years? I don't want any other team interested in Kevin to be reading this, and I am all for Geoff playing the cool cucumber to try to convince teams that they have to up their bids for Kevin. But I am open to everything at this point, including things I would not have been a month ago. I'll be quite disappointed if we have to settle for just an ender. But more disappointed if we sell out a good young group who promised goood things for our future just for the sake of sentiment and inertia. Sometimes things just do not work, and you have to have courage, bite the bullet, and make a change. Our guys were doing qute well on their own, given everything. They'll be ok. Better even. And frankly Kevin will be better off too, especially if he ends up going someplace like Boston where he might even have an outside shot at a title, or at least a deep playoff run.
) and then he's a restricted free agent the summer of 2012.
