Sorry. But anyone who ignores the possibility that a great number of factors are affecting Hakeem's performance on the court (including the psychlogical effect of a dwindling career), should pull his head out of the sand and re-examine his own intelligence quotient.
i have to agree with popeye about this last point. i'm not saying that hakeem problems aren't physical in nature. in fact i believe they are in large part physical. however having said that, i do beleive that in some part his "fire" has been cooled this year. it may be in part due to him realizing the impending end of a great career that is not exactly finishing how he would like. in addition the fact that he is not recovering from his injuries in the same manner that he has in the past i'm sure in frustrating enough to affect his game. that is not to say that once he starts to recover from whatever is causing him to lose his breath so quickly that his psyche won't dramatically improve again. by the way, popeye, i read your medical post in great detail and i think most of what you said is true and the difference in our posts is mostly semantics. however, i still think that the A-fib is very unlikely a significant cause of his recent problems (i'm sure with hakeem's history, the rocks would have gotten at least one EKG during this past few weeks).
Look, I'm not saying Hakeem is playing with the same fire...etc. I've read his book six times (I did my high school senior thesis on "Living the Dream") and I can categorically prove that he doesn't really care if he wins or loses. What I am talking about is this situation he's dealing with today. He, of course, wants to be up to form and I think that anyone who thinks he's sulking, or psychologically hurt by Cato starting, or angry that he's not getting minutes at the end of games, or mad that Carlos Rogers took his seat on the bus, or what ever the hell else you silly people have come up with, is stupid. He can't breath, and he wants to be able to. End of story. He's not a child. [This message has been edited by fromobile (edited March 01, 2000).]
Agreed Bronx Man. But in my earlier post, way back there somewhere, I think I was attempting to point out that there a lot of factors influencing his play of late. Although the a-fib dx. was listed first, I think the most telling reason is he is disappointed in the general turn of his career. He is not the first offensive option. All of us here can point out the reasons why he should be, or conversly why he should not be, but in fact he presently is NOT the first option anymore. He has had a number of physical setbacks starting with his long-overdue surgery last year.His"cold-water"induced a-fib diagnosis. His anemia scare. His reoccurring fatique. To me it keeps pointing to him maybe leaning toward hanguping the Spalding this summer.
