Kenny Anderson

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

I think that the most common complaint about Kenny Anderson isn't
justified. Almost everyone derides him as a "shoot first" point guard.
The guy simply did not take that many shots. He only scored 12 ppg, 
which was fourth on the team. He shot a better percentage than any of 
the other top scorers, went to the line more often (per FG) than Walker 
or Mercer - twice as much as Mercer did. He and Barros were very 
similar in this department.

If you do want to complain, there are plenty of other things. His
defense is the most important one to me. The second thing is that he
wasn't conditioned properly and didn't push up the pace. The third 
thing is that he tended to think that his contribution to the play
was over once he made the pass, when Pitino wanted him to move without
the ball in search for an open shot. Yes, if he had done things right,
he'd have shot the ball more, probably.

Some good things: he doesn't throw dumb passes. Just watch Jason
Williams throw some crazy 40 foot cross court bounce pass for no 
reason and you'll appreciate this. Speaking of Jason Wiliams, everyone
seems to rave about him, but he also has this hideous habit of putting
up three pointers with 20 seconds on the shot clock. What is he doing
when he has Webber and Divac down low?

Anderson also gets to the hole for decent percentage shots or trips
to the line. In fact it seems he doesn't get some foul calls that he
should when he does this. Definitely, he should look to pass during
his drives, but this only works if you force them to respect the drive
in the first place. He doesn't turn it over much during drives either,
unlike Walker, for instance.

I think you'll see his defense and pace improve if he works on his 
conditioning. Also, better team rebounding from replacing Mercer (who 
averaged the same number of rebounds per minute as Anderson!) with 
Fortson will allow the Celtics to send Anderson and Pierce up the court 
for fast breaks. Last year, everyone had to hit the defensive boards 
to prevent the team from getting mauled. We also won't see so many plays
where Anderson is dribbling while waiting for Mercer to come off his
screens for his 43% jump shot. Finally, when Antoine was getting back 
into form, he got some nice assists from Anderson by getting good post 
position on his defender. I'm pretty impressed by Anderson's court vision.
Now that he has the tag team wrestling team of Vitaly and Danny working
inside, along with Walker and Pierce, he should get more of an opportunity
to make passes inside rather than to the high post or perimeter.

Alex