Cooper: Thoughts On Fortson

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

Bill Cooper wrote:

>         (Fortson) also made big strides in controlling his fouling.
> Over the
> first half of the season, he committed .182 fouls per minutes of
> playing time (DeClerq territory), but by the second half, he had
> dropped that number to just .126 (still too high, though).  And he
> fouled out 7 times in the first half (despite only playing 24
> minutes), but cut that to just 2 in the second half.  He seems to have
> accomplished this mostly by being less aggressive on the offensive
> board, as he went from .161 OR/min. to .139 (still a very good
> figure).

Hi:

The man who IMO blows away anything I've ever contributed to this
discussion list has finally spoken, and that's as good a sign as any that
we are nearing a promising new Celtics' season.

IMO, certain categories of hustle players eventually earn the respect of
referees once they've been in the league a few years. I believe Fortson
could be one of those players. I believe Fortson was born to wear a
Celtics uniform, and he will earn the benefit of doubt from refs just as
Cowens did.

When Fortson entered the league, I think it is was pretty obvious that Dan
Issel had invested far higher hopes on the kid drafted ahead of him (6-11
Tony Battie). In some ways, I think Battie's "El Busto" tag grew from
Issel's genuine surprise & disapointment that Battie was getting outplayed
and outhustled to caroms in practice every single day by a 6-6 player.
Fortson had won the right to start for his team, but Issel interpreted the
evidence differently.

At the first practice-session the next year, Fortson gets introduced to
three 6-11 guys (Antonio McDyess, Keon Clark and Raef LaFrentz) brought in
by Issel to make "shorty" a spare part. All three guys are not only
natural power forwards but they can score and hop out of the gym.  Picture
the last time you guarded any athletic player 5 inches taller than
yourself (that's a lot). It's like the difference between a parent and a
child. For Fortson, it must have been like: "cripes, who are these
guys!?!"

This is called adversity. I'm guessing this was the moment Fortson looked
in the mirror and said: "I'm not intimidated and I'm still going to find a
way to contribute to this team", because it was then that he proceeded to
turn his body into a '6-6 Whoop-Ass-can-delivery-device'. I mean he
basically went out the next day for practice and said: "Which one of you
three new guys ordered the 'Whoop-Ass Special' with extra cheese?" (sorry
folks, this is just my favorite American expression at the moment... I'll
get over it).

The compelling thing about Fortson is that he has adopted his game a lot
in order to carve this niche in the NBA as an unselfish,
rebounder/hustler. Bear in mind that he made the AP first team All
American as an underclassman primarily as a scorer who pumped in over
20ppg for two straight seasons on a powerhouse team. In his final
collegiate year, he scored all those points while shooting an Elton
Brand-like .620 from the field and .773 from the line. Despite entering
the NBA draft early, he finished as the second leading scorer in
Cincinatti's history behind Oscar Robertson. These days, Fortson lets all
the other "stars" do the scoring while he handles the dirty work.

Once this kid gets on a competitive team in a major market, I think he's
suddenly going to be one of the biggest stories in basketball. Should he
again average as many as 11.6 rebounds per game next year, he'll be the
Green (Whoop-Ass) Machine of Beantown. I believe that if adding a second
legitimate double-figure rebounder to your roster doesn't lead to a marked
improvement in team performance, then everything I thought I knew about
winning basketball is false.

I say don't worry about what the Boston papers are saying today, just go
out and do your thing next year and we'll all be singing Danny Boy. Part
of the reason behind the lukewarm reaction is that they may have been
vaguely hoping Antoine would go instead of Ron. Right now it makes far
less sense than before to trade Antoine for an 8.0 ppg, 30-year-old
forward (Dale Davis) or an 11.1 ppg shooting guard replacement in Jalen
Rose (a career low .403 FG% last season with 1.9 apg).

Joe

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