I don’t think it’s fair to sit there and say “Gilbert messed this all up.” Lots of people messed this all up. We talk a ton about to which degree everyone messed up. Because this is a thread about Caron Butler, there tends to be a higher percentage of “how did Caron Butler mess this up” than anyone else.

The backlash you get a lot is because there are so many people in the NBA-fandom world who just point to Gilbert and say “It’s all his fault!” I think that’s probably what explains why, a lot of the time, there isn’t as much space to saying “Okay, Gilbert messed up in area a, b and c” as it would seem.

Personally, I think you make a good point about Gilbert switching into different modes. Offensively, that’s always been his biggest issue, and in Flip’s offense, it’s even more of a problem because the point guard is designed to be the oft-mentioned “coach on the floor” cliche. However, I’d also say that he was trending upward on that problem before the guns thing happened. Just my personal take and I think I have backed it up pretty well on here when it was happening (though obviously you’re all the judge of that).

Caron’s biggest problem in this offense was a combination of too much probing (not something non-PGs are supposed to do much of in Flip’s offense), too little aggression in terms of fighting for his position and too little aggressiveness driving to the basket. In other words, he spent all year settling in an offense where the only guy that in theory is supposed to “settle” when necessary is the point guard. From my vantage point, I didn’t see Caron make any real upward mobility to any sort of positive place on those problems. That’s where my frustration comes in, as well as a lot of others. Then, you throw in the reality that this angle is ignored by so many in exchange for playing the whole “it’s all Gilbert’s fault” card … and you can see why this becomes a hot-button issue.

Anyway, I’m just trying to explain where I’m coming from. I don’t mean to be a jerk, and I think there are a lot of us who understand that we can be a bit dogmatic and are trying to work on that, but this is the kind of environment you’re getting yourself into.

I don’t “like” Gilbert the person all too much; he’s too much of a diva for my tastes, and immature to boot— but he is a hell of a basketball talent, and one of the top five or six point guards in the league THIS YEAR (if you look at it objectively by his overall statistics). It amazes me that a guy who’s been out of the game for two years can come back (yes, it had been a rocky comeback) and still average 23 PPG, 7 APG, 4.5 RPG— and he was rapidly improving before his suspension. I “like” Gilbert as a basketball player, and I think if he returns to this team with the right frame of mind and under the right conditions (for example, playing shooting guard instead of point guard), he could contribute greatly to the basketball product we pay for out there on the floor (or at least what I pay for, having been a season ticket holder for 4 years).

that has very similar complaints about Arenas as the poster above.