Re: Walker over Mercer

[Andy Shaw <shaw@transmeta.com>]

|   Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 11:09:16 +1000
|   From: Warwick <giants@eisa.net.au>
|   
|   MH348@aol.com wrote:
|   > Ron Mercer will never be a better player then Antoine Walker. He wasn't in
|   > college and won't be in the pros. Instead of trading the "ALL STAR" on the
|   > team maybe they should trade Mercer while he is still a hot commodity.
|   
|   Mercer has a bigger brain and less ego than Walker. if they traded Mercer,
|   they could kiss goodbye to any championship aspirations this team ever had.

_I_ have a bigger brain and less ego than Walker, but I have zero
impact on the Celtics' "championship aspirations", other than my own
warm feelings towards the team.

Mercer is a nice player, very smooth, and if we're lucky, he'll become
a TOP 5 shooting guard, kind of with the same potential as Kerry
Kittles or Ray Allen.  But he's a shooting guard, and besides Michael
Jordan, when has a shooting guard led his team to the championship?
There's no way Ron is at the same level as Jordan.

If we're very, very lucky, he'll become as good as Clyde Drexler or
Mitch Richmond, neither of whom I think has the stuff to _lead_ his
team to a championship.  Even then, there's a huge gap between what
Mercer and his fellow young 2-guards are now, and where they have to
go to get to that level.

Here are last season's stats:

   Player           Pos  G M/Gm  FGm  FGa  PCT  3m  3a  PCT  FTm  FTA  PCT  AVG
 1 drexler,clyde     SG 70 35.3  452 1059 .427 106 334 .317  277  346 .801 18.4
 1 richmond,mitch    SG 70 36.8  543 1220 .445 130 334 .389  407  471 .864 23.2
 3 kittles,kerry     SG 77 36.5  508 1154 .440 110 263 .418  202  250 .808 17.2
 2 allen,ray         SG 82 40.1  563 1316 .428 134 367 .365  342  391 .875 19.5
 2 mercer,ron        SF 80 33.3  515 1145 .450   3  28 .107  188  224 .839 15.3

   Player             AS AS/g  ST ST/G  TO TO/g  BK BK/g  TND  OR OR/g  TR TR/g
 1 drexler,clyde     382  5.5 126  1.8 189  2.7  42  0.6 19.0 105 1.5  346  4.9
 1 richmond,mitch    279  4.0  88  1.3 181  2.6  15  0.2 18.7  50 0.7  229  3.3
 3 kittles,kerry     176  2.3 132  1.7 106  1.4  37  0.5 16.0 132 1.7  362  4.7
 2 allen,ray         355  4.3 110  1.3 262  3.2  12  0.1 16.7 127 1.5  404  4.9
 2 mercer,ron        176  2.2 125  1.6 132  1.6  17  0.2 12.2 109 1.4  280  3.5

Note that Ron doesn't really rebound at the same level as Kittles or
Allen, nor does he shoot the 3.  In addition, he's not really a
ball-handler, nor does he really take it to the hole enough.

Ron is a nice kid, has potential, but he's probably the 2nd or 3rd
piece of the puzzle.  Walker is The Man.

-Andy