RE: Walker trade

["Noah P. Evans" <ishbak@conknet.com>]

> What if you just make the evaluation of Walker playing at the 4 spot vs
> Rasheed Wallace playing the 4 spot?  I think Wallace overall may
> be better at the 4 spot; better defense, rebounding and shotblocking.

Shotblocking is the only obvious skill that Wallace has over Walker. While
Wallace might be a better defender *now*, it is only because Wallace doesn't
have nearly the role on the team that Walker does. Wallace provides decent
skills in most areas, he's a modest rebounder, a decent midrange jumpshooter
etc... he doesn't have to expend nearly the effort that Walker does during a
game even though both play nearly the same number of minutes. Walker is
pretty much the only celtic that could create his own shot consistantly last
year; Wallace has Sabonis, Stoudamire/Anderson, Rider and Grant to fall back
on. All of those players have decent offensive games to say the least.
Walker doesn't have that benefit. When Walker's rested, he's twice the
defender Wallace is due to his bulk, desire and relative speed(compared to
most men his size).

> Does Walker's offensive firepower make up for the fact that he is not that
good of a
> rebounder or shotblocker when matched up with the typical NBA
> power forward?

Again I agree with your assertion of Walker's comparitive weakness in
shotblocking, but to call Walker a poor rebounder is a pretty bold
statement. If Walker has one saving grace other than his hotheadedness it is
his rebounding(although the two probably have a lot to do with each other).
For someone with as little lift as Walker, Walker finds himself in the right
place to corral a ball almost as often as other masters, like Malone and
Dudley, do. Put Wallace on a team without any other big boys to box out the
other teams big men and I would expect his rebounding effectiveness to
decrease rather than go up. See our very own Travis as an example. Travis
was a steller rebounder when he had Campbell and Shaq to bang around for
him. All Travis had to was swoop in and steal the ball off the rim.

> I think a Wallace + Cato trade for Walker and capbusters is definitely
worth
> some consideration. For those of who say that Walker is going to
> be one of the best players in the league and we can't trade him because of
it,
> please send me your crystal ball so I can make some stock picks...

It's not a matter of a crystal ball, just a matter of extrapolation. Given
Walker's meteoric rise  in his first two years in terms of skill(his
entirely new post game) and shooting(note how much better his form is now),
it's pretty easy to expect the same sort of improvement next year.
Especially given Walker's stellar performance when he played with
Kenny(especially Toine's 50% shooting).
	In fact I would say those who taut Wallace for his supposed merits invest
in a crystal ball themselves. When Wallace proves that he can carry a team
nearly as well as Antoine, perhaps then we might consider investing in him.

> BTW, Wallace makes a pretty good salary right now so we would
> have to throw in
> some serious capbusters...

That might help, or at least mitagate, the loss of Walker, but salary cap
room is useless unless players actually want to play in your city. Given
Boston's and especially the Celtics treatment of their players(the debacle
with Pitino and Antoine, Pitino's jettisoning of veterans, not showing
loyalty to Wesley and Fox, Boston's racism[according to perception]), we
should worry about attracting players first before we get any sort of cap
room. We would feel pretty silly trading Antoine and then finding ourselves
with lots of money with noone to spend it on.

Noah