RE: Some thoughts from the left corner.

[Kim Malo <kmalo19@idt.net>]

At 05:41 PM 1/11/98 -0800, John Lyall wrote:
<snip>

>It should be a concern that Walker is having to play 40+ minutes and carry 
>the load at 21.  Remember the physical beating that wore Radja down quickly 
>? Eventually A.W could choose to leave for a team where he would have 
>better support.

OK, the first statement in the above paragraph might be a valid concern, but
comparing the situation with Dino??!! Puh-lease. Dino came to the Cs after
playing year round for years in Europe, between professional and national
teams. He was used to the less physically demanding European hoops. He was
not in good shape and still smoking, and once Ford was gone, had no one
pushing him much at all to do anything about it. And what did he do in the
Cs offseason? Continued to play year round basketball for his national team,
rather than making sure he was ready to play for the ones who paid him. In
other words, there was already a lot of mileage on him when we got him and
he wasn't in condition to handle the load he was given, making little effort
to alleviate that problem and still doing things detrimental to even
maintaining the status quo. I agree that he got worn down playing center
-especially against bigger, stronger types- but the cases are hardly
comparable. 

Walker's going to be likely to look for two things -the money and a place
that lets him be The Man. Plus, he and the other Kentucky players know
better than anyone that Pitino's style may be rough on you, especially at
the beginning, but it works in the end. Pitino's already shown that he's
willing to let Walker be The Man, so if they come up with the money, I
expect he'll stay. To his credit, he's at least saying the right things on
the round of TV interviews he had Sun night. Doubt if he'd bother to be so
careful if he was all that discontented with his current situation.

-Kim
Kim Malo
kmalo19@idt.net