Re: Boos for AW

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

Josh Ozersky wrote:

> The whole night should be expunged from memory.
> Antoine presumably was speaking from his emotions.  He
> is the cornerstone of the team.

Josh, I also view this as a bunch of sound and fury (signifying zero).
As long as Pitino coaches in Boston, I just can't picture him agreeing
to any agent trade demands no matter how vocal. You never know, but I
don't see it happening. I think he views Antoine's lousy season as an
aberration (as would I). I also think/hope Antoine might be naive enough
to believe that the fans who booed him actually want him to eventually
do well, rather than hope to run his kind out of town.

In the end, I think some Boston fans see Antoine Walker as a 20ppg ball
hog with a mediocre FG% on a pathetic lottery team  and think "big deal,
he's just another Cedric Ceballos, Jim Jackson, Ron Harper, Mark Aguirre
talent." These include intelligent and educated Boston Celtics fans. On
top of this, some find Antoine's habitual mannerisms and ways of
expressing emotion to be "foreign" (I've learned not to bring race into
it). I think these might be two reasons why our team's best scorer,
rebounder and passer would be made into such a singular scapegoat on
this team.

This made me think about the (only slightly exaggerated) truism that a
true franchise center only enters the NBA once every decade. On
evidence, you could more broadly and accurately make this same claim
about 20ppg and 10 rpg players in the NBA. For example, there were only
four such players in the NBA last year of which Antoine Walker happened
to be the youngest (he was 21 years old). Stop. Think about it. That's
four players on 29 NBA teams. The short answer is: "Gee, I think this
kid has potential."

Antoine Walker finished second overall in the NBA in double doubles at
the age of 21. I just don't believe you can accomplish that unless you
work really hard (maniacally hard) and love the game. Face it, there are
so many power forwards out there (not to mention centers) in the NBA who
are taller, have longer arms, and jump higher than Antoine Walker.
Granted, there are other NBA stars besides Toine who can do these two
things (rebound and score). But the last player who could do both these
things well and also pass, hit long bombs, and create shots off the
dribble entered the league not one but two long decades ago (1979).

Some Boston fans don't appreciate how statistically lucky we seem to
have gotten (lightning strikes twice) just because Antoine Walker is
younger and clearly so different in style (but not temperament) from the
small town  "Hick from French Lick".  How else can you explain what's
going on? You have a young home team that had won 4 of 5 games, was 5
games out of the playoff race, was hanging desperately in the game
despite struggling offensively (Mookie and Dikimbe after all are two of
the most dominant defensive players in the NBA), and therefore REALLY
needed a boost of support to turn things around. I'm just so disgusted
by these idiot fans. There is no forgiving them.

Some of these people figure if we trade Walker for some unproven,
one-dimensional, chunky kid who's too short and can't dribble (can
anyone honestly dispute the last two facts about Elton Brand?), well at
least we can make up for this likely blunder by finding another
Walker-calibre championship building block through the draft in another
decade or so (assuming we're the lucky team among all the 29 out there).

Joe