1988-89: Into The Past - Compared to Now

[rabman_gold]

Well, we're in the dog days of the NBA season, so I thought I'd briefly bring back this discussion.

The way I see this past season, just like 1989, we underachieved pretty badly, akin to getting stomped in the first round. If history truly repeats itself over and over, I'm sure even if we were able to make it competitive, it wouldn't have changed anything. We were not ready to compete this past year.

But I also think the how it looks for the upcoming season, the 2023-24 team is going to look a thousand times better compared to the 1989-90 season.

1. No need to remove any bad influences. We still have our top 4 (and our "Ron Harper" to speak of).
2. We're still slightly top heavy, but more pieces to add to the mix.
   1. Daugherty, Nance, Price, Hot Rod, Ehlo was the 1989-90 top 5. Kerr, Brown, and Keys is a big drop-off.
   2. But we have Allen, Mobley, Mitchell, and Garland as our main core. Okoro and LeVert is still here. But would Strus, Niang, and Jerome be any worse that what we trotted 24 years ago?
3. The biggest issue would be health. But any team that can only play 4 guys more than 2000 minutes into a season is going to struggle.

Still, it took me nearly 3 months to recover from last season's thumping. But there's still hope. I feel this team has the same potential. But will it only be a couple years or turn into something more?

 

[rabman_gold]

Thought I'd circle back to this before the (unofficial) second half of the season starts.

1988-89 (to their All-Star break on February 12th, 1989): 35-11
1989-90 (to February 11th, 1990 All-Star game): 21-25
2022-23 (February 19th, 2023): 38-23
And finally, this season (February 18th, 2024): 36-17

The depth charts:

Seasons	2023-2024	2022-23 (last year)	1988-89	1989-90
Cs	J. Allen/T. Thompson/D. Jones	J. Allen/R. Lopez/M. Diakite	B. Daugherty/T. Rollins/C. Dudley	B. Daugherty/C. Dudley/T. Rollins
PFs	E. Mobley/D. Wade/G. Niang	E. Mobley/D. Wade/K. Love	L. Nance/H.R. Williams	L. Nance/H.R. Williams
SFs	M. Struss/I. Okoro	I. Okoro/C. Osman/L. Stevens	M. Sanders/R. Keys/P. Hubbard	W. Bennett/C. Brown/R. Williams
SGs	D. Mitchell/C. LeVert/S. Merrill	D. Mitchell/C. LeVert	R. Harper/C. Ehlo	C. Ehlo
PGs	D. Garland/C. Porter Jr.	D. Garland/R. Rubio/R. Neto	M. Price/D. Valentine	M. Price/S. Kerr

My takeaways:

1. Those late 80s teams sure we top-heavy. And it was further proven when Daugherty and Nance missed the first half of the '89-'90 team. They actually made up ground to a 42-40 record (but sputtered against Barkley's 76ers in the first round).
2. That's not to say these guys aren't also top-heavy (Allen/Mobley/Mitchell/Garland), but there is a silver lining: Even though Mobley and Garland couldn't play for 20-plus games, they managed to keep their progress going (18 in the 20 games before the break were wins).
3. But the biggest reason for this turnaround was because their back 5 had a pulse (particularly Struss/Okoro/Wade filling in for spot-starting minutes). And don't count out our 6th-of-the-year contender, LeVert. Niang wasn't too awful (aside from his shooting woes) either.
4. This team is built to surpass last year's team. We upgraded the end of the rotation and brought things they all can bring to the table. And injuries are always a possibility. So hopefully that depth can continue to bring good end results.

This year's team in comparison to last year's shows improvements that the '89-'90 couldn't reach after their historic '88-'89 team. Does history have a chance to take a turn for the better, or are they looking to sputter out. TBD