Kandi-Man Revisited

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

Hi:

I don't have a specific opinion about Michael Olowokandi since I haven't
watched him play, but I did notice that his FT% this season was only
.486 (107-220). That's unusually bad for someone who's played the game a
few seasons. IMO, most of our Moms could better that FT rate if they
practiced a few years. I'm not sure we should blame a deficiency of that
magnitude on low-level coaching or Kandi-Man's inexperience.

In general, I hope and trust that Pitino will never draft a center-type
player out of necessity (read: "desperation"), as many NBA general
managers tend to do. The list of so-so big guys picked ahead of better,
smaller guys does not begin or end with the infamous Sam Bowie-Michael
Jordan thing in 1984. For example, remember LaRue Martin, Will Bedford,
Stipanovic, Koncak, Yinka, Camby etc? (leaving our guy Pervis out of
this)

IMO, Pitino had every excuse last year to draft a big guy but wisely
passed, despite the fact that the Celts were desperately in need of a
shot blocker (e.g. Tony Battie or Adonal Foyle) and had relatively no
shortage of "proven" NBA guards.

JoeHironaka

N.B. As a list subscriber, I join in urging people to condense or delete
the original message(s) they are replying to, so we don't have to read
the string over and over again.