Re: Thoughts on the Holley article

[KK <Kestutis.Kveraga@Dartmouth.EDU>]

Alex Wang wrote:
> 
> 
> > Please, PLEASE  don't "tinker" with Vitaly's game! He's way too promising for
> > that. Get yourself another one of these Schintzius- or Garnett-types whose
> > games you've been so successfully tinkering with.
> 
> The point of a coach is to "tinker" with players' games. <snip>

Yes, I know, and agree. The comment was made partly tongue-in-cheek. Still,
of the players he's been "tinkering with" the longest (Walker, Mercer,
McCarty), only Walker has recently shown any improvement - and arguably, it
was arguably due FleeceCenter crowd's and Andy Enfield's efforts. I'm
talking about Walker's more mature play and improved FT shooting, of
course.  
> 
> > OK, let's see: McCarty is here supposedly because of his defense, right?
> > Still, we knew he couldn't guard PFs because he's not strong enough, but now
> > it turns out he can't guard SFs either, because he's not quick enough?
> > According to his stats, he also can't shoot, score, pass, or rebound. So, wha
>  *t
> > is it that he CAN do, exactly, for his 2.5 mil/per?
> 
> Not being able to guard Grant Hill doesn't mean you can't defend SFs.

True enough. Nobody says Walter has to shut Hill down to be considered a
decent defender at SF. Still, I've been watching his alleged strength
(defense) closely, and he rarely seems to stop even the mediocre SFs, let
alone the Grant Hill-types, PFs or SGs. 

> I think McCarty is not supposed to be the ideal half court defender
> but rather a press defender. <snip>

Yeah, whatever that means. I guess if you can't guard anybody man-to-man,
you can still be a press defender-extraordinaire in Pitino's
smoke-and-mirrors defensive scheme.

> > Take Portland, for example: <snip>
> 
> Your analogy with Portland is interesting because before this year,
> Portland was considered by many to be a cluelessly assembled,
> underachieving group of misfits. Suddenly everything clicks and
> they are the model team. It's easy to be so critical with hindsight.

I don't know what Portland was considered by many, nor what they were saying
about it - it doesn't matter. 
The point was that Portland was able to fill its roster with real NBA talent
- misfit or not, while the Celtic swere busy filling half of their roster
with a bunch of CBAers and assorted NBA debris.

> > My question is, does the Portland front office not operate under the same
> > constraints as ours?
> 
> You've hit it exactly on the nose. Portland has an advantage of having a
> billionaire owner who can spend unlimited amounts of cash. 

There's a grain of truth to the "deep pockets" theory of NBA success, but
need I mention that Portland *still* has to abide by the salary cap rules,
just like the Celtics? They're not LA, after all.

> How many teams
> have an $80M backup PF/C (Wallace)? Cleveland traded Potapenko because they
> weren't willing to pay their backup center $30M. He's spent a huge amount
> on Stoudamire not even including the two years of Anderson's salary he
> picked up.

As we now know, Allen picked it up because: 1) Kenny was pretty much
untradeable otherwise; 2) he really wanted homeboy Stoudamire *now*, and for
a good reason. Thanksdad may have to do the same if RP wants to get rid of
Kenny, deep pockets or not.
 
> > how far are we going with *Pitino's* signees like Bowen
> > McCarty, Garnett, Schintzius, Riley & Jones? They may be great to "tinker"
> > with, but how many of these players would crack a contending team's roster,
> > let alone the main rotation?
> 
> Jeez, with the exception of McCarty, the rest are minimum salary, short
> term pickups to fill out the roster. 

Wasn't Dwayne signed with the 1 mil. exception, and wasn't it a 2-year
contract? I seem to recall something like that. 
Anyway, I guess I just resent this pap Pitinochio feeds us every time he
signs another piece of NBA debris. As if we're going to ever accomplish
anything with these people taking up half of our roster.

> You are really nitpicking here.
> In a few years, these roster spots will be filled with draft picks instead.

Oh, you mean those 2nd round picks he's been collecting? :-) Since,
according to Pitinochio, we're going to make the playoffs next year (or is
it in the 21st century? :-)), even the 1st round picks are not likely to
fetch us starter-quality players. Nor will they get us veteran presence, of
course. 

> For now, it makes no difference who's filling our injured list.

Right now it doesn't. But when our starters were either playing badly or
coming down with injuries earlier this season it certainly *would have
mattered very much* if we'd had more NBA-quality players on our bench.