Post Don’t Lie

No player’s game to game performance and attitude have ever elicited so many different emotions from me as Rasheed Wallace’s have. Being a level headed fan of many sports, I’ve come to grasp the concept of letting things—as in player/team performance, attitude, instinct—run their course, so to say. I have vehemently vowed to never become that guy on the radio or poster on a forum that is so reactive to each game that his opinion changes about a player or team on a daily basis. I really detest those kind of reactionary “fans”, they could get punched by Ron Artest and I wouldn’t feel bad at all.

So I say that knowing that when it comes down to watching Rasheed Wallace, I’m reactive and quite frankly, a damn flip-flopper. One instant I’ll be talking up Rasheed so nice you’d think he had won three championships in Detroit and always dominated Kevin Garnett, but then the next game I’ll be spouting off that he’s just as expendable as Malik Allen and should be in jail for stealing so much money from an organization. Of course, the true feelings of yours truly lie somewhere in the hairy middle.

Hell, when Rasheed showed up at Michael Curry’s introductory press conference prior to this season, I KNEW Rasheed would give better effort night in and night out considering he must have felt strongly toward his new coach or he wouldn’t have attended.

Duped.

Another telltale sign that I’m easily duped: When Sheed has a good all around game and was obviously immersed in the action and giving good effort, well, I always automatically assumed it was the start of a positive turning point in Sheed’s season. But just like how the other side of the pillow is always cooler, Sheed always disappoints time after time. I must be a slow learner, or just insanely optimistic, because I still expected big things out of Sheed at certain times this season, even when it was absolutely obvious Sheed was playing on one and a half legs and an empty tank. I usually persuaded myself that ‘competent and interested Sheed’ would overcome the ‘rundown and what am I doing here Sheed’.

The feeling I have had about Rasheed over the last few years is akin to much of the grief I encounter when checking my favorite blogs and seeing that they haven’t posted as regularly as they should. It can be quite frustrating. I simply expect a post within a certain time frame, but instead the blog sometimes give me nothing in return, or maybe just a half assed attempt at something that may or may not be a success. Of course sometimes it works out ok since I might peruse the web and find something worth my while elsewhere, but then again, sometimes all I want is just a post from a place I know and am comfortable with, and in all likelihood will be pleased with the result since I know what to expect. After all, obviously you spend time on the blog because you enjoy it to some degree, it can be your go to blog for a reason. So if the blog is successful at churning out good content and knows it’s good at it, then why doesn’t the blog post more often? I mean, just back the sucker down and use your skill, finesse, and length to shoot over him!

All Pistons fans love Rasheed from time to time, but dammit, we would all love to love him all of the time. And maybe that’s why it’s refreshing, for me at least, to know that I will never have to witness Rasheed in a Detroit uni again. The enigma, finally, is finished in Detroit and I think it’s safe to say that most Pistons fans will say goodbye with an emphatic and surely overdue,

“It was unbelievable while it lasted Sheed, but it lasted a season or two too long. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, champ.”

And I’ll miss the Carlton, for sure.