Friday, September 7, 2018

Chemistry Ignored

Chemistry Ignored

Since my last post,  I have learned not to ignore major transits when talking about future performance. The addition of Isaiah Thomas showed that a compatible chart does not mean that the individuals will be compatible.  Having just experienced the transit of Neptune myself, it is hard to believe that I did not catch that aspect and its predictable effect on Thomas.  One of the features of a Pieces moon is to insecure about how you think you are being treated. Individuals who overcome this in their lives usually focus on being notably good at something, and this becomes what reassures them when the normal uncertainty of the moon position bothers them.

Often this 'overcoming behavior' is accompanied by a constant self-talk about how good they are at their chosen skill.  In most cases this is not something others are aware of because it makes others realize how insecure they feel about themselves, and normally it is a good thing that just helps them stay up and confident.

I guess I am saying this because I did not point out that he was having a Neptune transit of the moon, a transit that makes people acutely focused on their goals and ideals, to an extent that has them over reacting to any threat to their achievement.  For this reason his attitude was overly competitive with his teammates, and his constant self talk about how good he is and that he should be starting fueled a major disturbance to the teams cohesiveness, causing the established starters to feel awkward with his presence. Team chemistry took a nose dive.

A lot of the trouble can be attributed to having Bledsoe gaming his contract negotiations, a situation which led Isaiah to believe that Bled would not be there and the PG role would be his.

The effort by the Coach to live up to the assurances to Thomas that he would have equal time at the point meant that Goran Dragic did not get enough time to get into a rhythm with his game and be the leader he felt that he should be.

The three point guard rotation failed because the point guard position is more than a player, it is the position of the team leader, and the concept of dividing time between three points doomed the team to be leaderless, with Dragic quietly seething as the season wore on. Dragic understood his role as a team leader, while Bledsoe and Thomas wanted numbers to demonstrate their prowess, something that actually undermined their leadership of the team.

The three point guard concept may have worked if it was a talented rookie sharing with Bledsoe and Dragic, but the addition of Thomas was a big mistake, because he wanted to be the star and openly claimed he was better and more deserving of playing time. Although he has a great tool set, he completely missed the part of leading the team, and his Aquarius Sun made him come off as remote and too heady in comparison to Dragic, whose Taurus Sun kept his focus on the issue of effort and dedication, things that had elevated his game and earned him the respect of his team mates.

Bledsoe continued to develop his skills and athletic abilities, but did not connect with the other members of the team or exhibit the floor general skills of Dragic. More than that, his Sun was "unaspected', meaning that the rest of his chart did not communicate with his will, and this created a lack of natural floor vision, since he needed to use his will to drive all his actions. In effect Bled had to think about everything all the time in order to be effective. This actually slows his play.

The most effective moon sign for a point guard is Aries. In fact four of the point guards on the team have this moon sign, most importantly is Goran Dragic.  Ish Smith, Tyler Ulis and Bogdan Bogdanovich are Aires moon signs as well.  Dragic's leadership was the reason the team had over achieved the year before, but the coach and general manager did not appreciate that or understand it. The presence of so many fire signs and particularly players with strong Aries influences made Dragic's competitiveness contagious, and the team played with a drive and fire that surprised other teams.

Team chemistry is understandable, but coaches and general managers cannot embrace Astrology to actually employ it with their teams. The Suns of 2013-14 were an accident owing to the fact that they started from scratch assembling a team based on the coach's intuition and feelings about the players that were available. The next year, the GM int al statistical and over thought the roster instead of building on what had worked, and investing the effort to understand why it had worked.

I think they thought it was an accident, that could not be repeated. So they did not try.

Too bad.

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