Disappointing end to the Rainmen's regular season

Well, we lost to the Atlanta Vision, 131-126. We joined the ranks of the Georgia Gwizzlies and the Bahama Pro Show as the only teams that Atlanta has beaten this season.

Last night’s game reminded me of how our team played at the start of the season: letting themselves get boxed out when a few simple drives to the hoop would shut that mess down fast. It was almost as if a different team played this game, compared to Friday’s game as well as the last few games.

Coach Lewis must have found the single-offensive-play coach’s manual that he used before March. I wish whoever hid it on him would have burned it, instead.

Leaving the 2 ABA All-Stars on the bench for the final part of the game is senseless. Giving the ball to the player with a 21.9% 3-point ratio — the lowest on the team except for Dipp, but I won’t drag him into this — when you are down by 10 and need three-pointers is ridiculous. How about Brian, who is on fire the last couple of games and is 39.4% on the season for 3-pointers? How about Akeem the Dream? He is only shooting 55.6% from beyond the 3-point line, so I can see why we wouldn’t feed him the ball. Come on!

Speaking of Dipp, I feel sorry for the opportunity that was wasted in having a young local player being left to rot on the bench, even behind the 13th player in some games. The humiliation of that is still sour in my mouth, I can’t imagine how Dipp and his parents feel. I suggest we look back in the news story archives from last autumn, when Dipp was signed. The photos and stories were filled with so much hope for the future. Now I suspect Dipp has more regret than hoop dreams because of this season. It is really too bad that he wasn’t given the game time to learn how to play at this level, especially when we were playing games that weren’t close, either winning or losing. That is when you give your learning players their playing time, not 60 or 90-second shifts at the end of the game. I would be surprised if Dipp returns next year. It would be really sad to see Dipp on another team who plays against us next year, as a reminder of what could have been. Maybe Dipp won’t make it to the NBA, but his potential was not touched this year.

If it is true that some key players won’t return if Rick Lewis is the coach next year, I think the decision of who to keep is a fairly easy one. There are plenty of ex-players in Halifax who could easily coach this team. I mean, we only have some of the best university teams in the country here in Nova Scotia. We saw some of the opposition’s player-coaches out-coach Rick Lewis in home games this year. There aren’t any university alumni who could use their actual playing experience on a high-level basketball team to help the Rainmen next year? How about Shannon and Daniel? I wish I knew how much input they had this year. I’ll bet it wasn’t as much as it could or maybe should have been.

Anyway, enough venting. Let’s give the Rainmen a standing “O” for the season and the efforts of the team as well as the front office. Best of luck in Quebec, I wish I could be there to cheer you on.