This is old, but I'm still dismayed by it.
Jordan was asked about his plans for a playing rotation and he responded by saying that after his starting five, everything is up in the air.
"I don't really know yet," Jordan said. "Sometimes it's the game that dictates where you go and the rotation you have. I'm not really set on the six, seventh, eighth guys. I don't know."
Oy. Look, the team didn't play very well in the preseason, granted. But you cannot, under any circumstances, not have a rotation set by this point. History tells us that when Eddie says stuff like "sometimes, it's the game that dictates where you go and the rotation you have," it means "look, here's an excuse for playing Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison 40 minutes a night."
That's not going to stand. Andray Blatche played badly, sure, but he needs to be a part of the rotation. He's proven enough on an NBA level to not lose his spot because he struggled in preseason. Benching him to prove a point may work for one game, but it's not going to work in the regular season. He's accomplished too much for this team last year for Eddie to forget it all because of a bad preseason. Besides, Darius Songaila was equally sucky against Cleveland, but he never got yanked. Don't make Blatche be the whipping boy.
Also, Nick Young needs minutes. He's already better than Juan Dixon and Dee Brown and he's the youngest of the bunch. If you want to use Juan and Dee to leverage Nick, then don't be so stubborn to keep Nick off the court like you did down the stretch last season.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into that quote, but I'm petrified that we're going to go through the first month with Caron, Antawn and DeShawn playing 40 minutes a night, with Songaila as the first big off the bench, with Blatche playing 10 minutes a night, with Juan chucking shots left and right for 20 minutes a night while Nick sits and with McGee permanently stashed on the inactive list. That may be good enough to allow Eddie to blame fate for the inevitable injuries that suffer. It may even be good enough to go .500. But it won't do anything to really help this team grow for the long-term. With all the injuries we've suffered, long-term should be the focus.
Besides, Eddie's coming back in 09/10 either way. What job security does he have to worry about?