re:AW and RP

[Jo Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

>When you win by playing good basketball, you
> don't need to showboat.  Winning says it all.
> Dorine

I guess I'm a little surprised RP himself doesn't lay down the law on
showboating, as he did with AW's glaring at officials etc.  Maybe RP
knows something about AW that we don't quite trust ourselves to believe,
namely that he is a good, young leader of a team which likes and looks
up to him (enough to dish him the ball nearly every time down the
court). Personally, the way I've rationalized AW's trash talking is:

1) AW is way younger than Larry Bird was as a rookie. Granted AW may not
be unusually mature for a 21-year-old, but there really is no defensible
reason to assume he won't mature with age. Look at how well Celts like
Larry Legend (ex-hick) and Bill Walton (ex-suburban butthead) speak and
act in public now, compared to when they first entered the league. At
the moment, AW is having a dream-come-true season (didn't he average
12.7 ppg at Kentucky?) and getting invited to All Star parties by the
Puff Daddies and Snoopy Dogs of our world. I think we should let him
enjoy being young and tolerate the miscellaneous, immature things all
people occasionally do at that age (provided these actions are
harmless).

2) RP-coached teams have never had individual trouble-makers to my
knowledge, despite the fact that he loves to recruit and coach
ultra-slick, inner city athletes that other white coaches would avoid.
Most of us would make fools of ourselves trying to come up with
interesting small talk in the company of a typical RP player (Antoine,
Kenny, Mark Jackson, Mash etc.) when they were fresh out of highschool.
These are not African-American people we typically know at work or from
college, who talk with that geeky Tiger Woods accent and whose parents
always kinda look like Colin and Mrs Powell. I assume, therefore, that
RP is a fairly good judge of (and/or builder of) true character, since
he is recruiting exactly the same type of athletes who superficially
resemble those coveted by Tark the Shark or at Barry Switzerland - kids
you never see wearing Duke jerseys.

Anyway, I'm sure AW's agent will eventually advise him to tone down the
showboat act, simply as an easy p.r. gesture directed to the white
gentlemen who write his checks and buy most every Celtics ticket. Once
that happens, I suppose we'll immediately regard him again as the
kelly-green apple of our eye (that is, until he asks for 25 million per
year...).

Joe Hironaka
Paris