Re:KarateKid analogy

[Dan Forant <dforant1@nycap.rr.com>]

This Championship thinking is a dream that won't happen if we gamble and
just hang on to Walker to see if he's going to mature into a 20-10-5 player
which I don't believe he can. Problem is his equals are improving and he is
not and doesn't seem interested enough to try. Walker doesn't seem
interested in making the Celtic team better or he would have done it this
season. He seems comfortable watching Pierce and a CBA product Griffin take
over the team. Defenses know his limited game and coaches know how to deny
him. His bag of limited tricks are used up. The only player we have with a
complete game and his defense needs some work is Pierce. I say build the
game around him and let Walker fetch us what we need this season or next,
while there is still enough interest in him for a 2 for 1 deal, draft or
whatever. Someone mentioned him not even dunking, he had 1 I guess. Pitino
didn't help his case playing him out so far either, but it did expose his
real weaknesses. We now have a Marquee player Paul Pierce. 

>
>That's actually an excellent and humorous "villain" analogy. Where all the
funny
>lines comes from, I'll never know.
>
>To the degree that this touches a bit on the "what if Toine were white"
issue, I
>seriously do believe that a white Antoine (we'll call him "Tony") would
also be
>heckled and booed for his buffoon-like and childish on-court behavior
(which BTW
>he seems to have toned down much more than the Fleet Center fans have been
>dishing out on him). But there are also those who might make a folk hero
out of
>him in light of his youth and furious play in his former All Star
incarnation:
>namely one of only five players with a 20-10, second overall in the NBA in
>double-doubles behind Tim Duncan, 49 points on Webber in the heat of the
All Star
>race, considerably over twice as many rebounds as his closest Celts
teammate, led
>the Celts in total assists and steals etc. It's a hard call to make, but I do
>feel it is deeply disengenuous to say that Antoine's "ethnic" and "cultural"
>mannerisms don't play some part in the degree of our hatred for him.
>
>I've noted in the past that Ted Williams was also a total buffoon at that
age and
>that Bird and Orr were antisocial misanthrope geek-types who'd diss the
public
>and think nothing of it. I also believe Bird put his foot in his mouth far
more
>routinely than Antoine, but the fraternity of sportswriters still usually
covered
>up for him (not because he was white but because he was GREAT). If you
follow the
>Boston Globe, you'd sense that they actually seem to plot ways to trip up
Antoine
>and make him look bad, just to prove some sort of point.
>
> Numbah Four Bobby Orr, Teddy Ballgame and Da Bird (along with the entire 80s
>Celts compared to previous teams) are in a pantheon realistically well beyond
>Bill Russell or anyone else's reach in terms of popularity. You know what
I say
>about that? So freaking what!  This emphatically does not  in any way "prove"
>Boston is "racist".  It so happens that I instinctively root for any US
sports
>athlete who is more or less of my ethnicity (Zhi Zhi Wang, anyone?). I
don't see
>a problem with that. People on this Celts e-mail list may paint me into a
corner
>as a "blame whitey" rabble-rouser type smug person. I don't think that's
at all
>right or accurate.
>
>There are two simple reasons I've stuck up for Antoine in the past:
>
>1) It's unfair how he's being treated, period. New England is full of
people who
>grasp the concept of fairness, so we'll stick up for him and try to convey
that
>at least some of us hope he eventually succeeds in Boston, even against
our own
>doubts. Hence Tommy Heinsohn's instinctive and unconditional support for
Antoine
>(he sees a nice kid and he understands the hustle and energy it takes to
go after
>and get big rebounds all those years, even if he's "lazy" and "out of
shape").
>Ditto the BSG "Antoine Project", which many of us still support. To me this
>demonstrates one side of what being from Boston is all about. Unfair is
unfair
>and you have to draw the line. There's no justification for that mob
attitude.
>It's nauseating.
>
>2) The point of being a Celtics fan is our championship tradition. We're
not in
>this to have a "nice" team or a "fan friendly" team. We need players. I
honestly
>don't believe we will compete for a championship even if we do trade for a
rock
>solid scorer or great role-player in exchange for Antoine Walker,
regardless of
>how much the fans finally rally around and support our team once he's
gone. I've
>argued that the Celts will be a 45-48 win team from now until eternity if
we give
>up on Antoine's upside (which right now is blowing up in all our faces
what with
>his 14 straight non-double-double games and counting, but this could be
due at
>least a little to hometown "support" and getting used to playing smart and
>aggressive at the same time on a winning team).
>
>Pierce is my favorite ballplayer period but I'm realistic about how we
should try
>to project his eventual best-case scenario talent, in light of where
Antoine and
>other (superior) players actually were at after 70 or so NBA games. You
don't win
>basketball championships without having or grooming a franchise-quality
big game
>talent, even a guy without all his marbles like Antoine. It is myopic to
assume
>that other equally prosaic NBA teams don't have one or more Paul Pierce
caliber
>players on their roster. Look around, they do. For example, if we
miraculously
>acquired Grant Hill in exchange for Antoine (yeah, right), the Celts would
>basically have identical talent to the middling Detroit Pistons. Their Paul
>Pierce-equivalent guy - Jerry Stackhouse - is having an All Star type year
while
>Jerome Williams is averaging 9.7 rebounds and leads the NBA in field goal
>percentage.
>
>Paul Pierce has solid career averages (to date it's .445FG%, .717FT%, 17.2
ppg,
>6.3 rebounds, 2.6apg, 2.4to's) and we all sense it will get better because
of his
>work ethic, but how in our right minds could this possibly project into
>double-double talent? There are dozens of young players in the league who
have
>put up Pierce-like numbers in their first few seasons and at the same age,
some
>have faded some have become All Stars. A few months ago I posted a list of
young
>players who will compete with Paul Pierce to beat him and the more than 24
>incumbent or former All Stars (Duncan, Mourning etc) for their very FIRST
trip to
>an All Star game. This list surprisingly includes Allen Iverson, Ray Allen,
>Stephon Marbury, Allan Houston, Michael Finley, Rod Strickland (career 4.1
rpg,
>8.0 apg), Damon Stoudamire (career 4.0 rpg, 8.3 apg), Vince Carter, Lamar
Odom,
>Shareef Abdur Rahim, Antonio McDyess (believe it or not), Keith Van Horn,
Jason
>Williams, Glenn Robinson, Anthony Mason, PJ Brown, Theo Ratliff, Jerry
>Stackhouse, Ron Mercer.
>
>I believe the Celtics can win championships in today's NBA only with a
franchise
>20-10-5 player, which is why I say we should keep rolling the dice on the
>23-year-old Antoine. It's totally a hit or miss deal with Toine (it looks
more
>and more like a "miss"), but the point is that we're trying to win
championships,
>not be a decent and likeable team. He was the youngest by far of five
players on
>29 teams to pull a 20-10 in the last full NBA season. As flawed as he was and
>still is, I'd argue this made him one of the ten most valuable "franchise"
>players of that season and potentially one of the five best players in the
game.
>A lot (I mean A LOT) of the young players he used to make a point of
humiliating
>have long since passed him by (Chris Webber notably), but how many NBA 20-10
>caliber players have Antoine's perimeter game or open court dribbling and
vision?
>
>The x-ingredient is that Antoine is hyper-competitive enough (or thick headed
>enough) to show true fearlessness in the final two minutes of a close game,
>regardless of how poorly his game is going that night. All the great young
stars
>talk the talk, but honestly not all of them have the character to play at
a 100%
>even keel with everything at stake. Would you honestly put the ball in the
hands
>of Grant Hill, Shareef or McDyess in the last seconds of a game? Gimmeabreak.
>
>The problem is those guys are probably too smart and too well-adjusted as
young
>people. I think you need to have a pathology verging on psychosis to
thrive at
>the absolute center of the action in the closing seconds of a public game.
In his
>best moments Antoine's eyes freeze into a trance-like demonic state (as in
the
>frenetic closing minutes of the Miami game immediately following the big
booing
>incident of last year). Antoine's body literally seems to disconnect from the
>part of his brain that controls judgement, fear of odds, or fear of further
>humiliation (some would say his body disconnects COMPLETELY from his brain,
>judging by how totally different he acts off the court). He's got a split
>personality.
>
>Say what you want but that guy has shown a knack for making big plays and
showing
>up for big games, which bodes well for the Celts down the road when more
>meaningful games are at stake. Plus he seems to care about the outcome, or at
>least he used to. He takes losing as personally as we do, judging by how I've
>seen him look after games.
>
>To his credit, our other bookend, Paul Pierce, has also shown fans that
his blood
>won't freeze up in close games either, but while he's had some big fourth
>quarters he has yet to have made that many huge plays in the final two
minutes of
>a game (the first win of last season in Cleveland was one exception that I
>recall, in which he tipped in a missed freethrow to cap an awesome overall
4Q and
>stave off the Cavs). Not to hold it against Pierce, but this is partly why
Kansas
>never got past the early rounds of the NCAA tournament even with two AP first
>team All Americans. They didn't get blown out by totally inferior teams, they
>actually blew some pretty close ones. Nobody stepped up.
>
>The day I give up on Antoine is the day his teammates and others who actually
>know him can no longer like him. Don't hold your breath, because I haven't
seen
>this happening at all.  I don't care one bit if Fleet Center fans hate
him, other
>than that it puts a lot more unnecessary distractions on the kid's
shoulders and
>must be painful for his mother, father and sisters to hear.
>
>Joe
>
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