The Road is Long

It's harder to be a fan of a mediocre team than one of a really really bad one. At least when your team wins when they're bad, you have something to get excited about. There are no expectations. When you know your team SHOULD win, watching them lose ... is even harder. And as hard as it is for the fans, it is even harder for the players.

I hate to harp back to the injuries at the beginning of the season, but really, it's one of the many, many, many reasons we're struggling right now. The teams with injuries now have learned to play together already this season. We're just now playing together as a team and after a season of hell, I think maybe the Jazz are out of steam. I just don't think it's in them this year. They'll make the playoffs. They may even, by a miracle, make the second round. But what could have been their year fell away under the pressure of injuries, low morale because of injuries, and the disappointment of seeing what could have been great fall away to what has become.

We're better than we should have been facing the 11 players with injuries we faced this year. But we're not the team we are. Yet, we are the team we are.

To the fans it's just a game. To the players, it's a dream. To the players, stepping out on that hardwood is everything they dreamed of their entire lives. To the players, the swoop of the net and the sound of the ball bouncing against the floor is as important to them as the word is to the writer, as the rush of the campaign trail is to a politician, as the success of a child is to the teacher. And my tears, my anger, right now come not from my pain as a fan but moreso from the pain I see on the faces of these men. Deron William's eyes, Carlos Boozer's shoulders, and the lack of a strut in Ronnie Brewer's step. These young men are watching their dreams slip away and watching a division exploding in a way we haven't seen in forever. It's good for us they thrive on competition, but I think right now, they are just tired. So very tired. And for them, it should be the beginning of the season and instead, it's the end.

The road is long. For Utah, it seems never ending.