Re: A comment about Mercer

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

RSMALL@clarku.edu wrote:

> >Keep Mercer, A.W., and Pierce.  Build around those pieces.
> >
> Here is another year we all hope Walker finally matures into the leader and
> player so many think he can become.

Have no fear, I'll be the first to stop making excuses for Walker if he doesn't
shoot a minimum 45%FG and 70%FT next year. Like you, I believe there is no way
around the fact that Antoine Walker is the team's biggest question mark. He's
allowed too many of his peers to overtake him and become more productive and
efficient players (Webber, McDyess, Kevin Garnett).

Those guys all accomplished their goals IMO by working very hard to polish (and
presumably later build on) two major bread & butter skills: whether it be
rebounding and inside shooting efficiency (Webber) or rebounding and perimeter
scoring/passing efficiency (Garnett). One issue that slows the development of
young talents like Antoine Walker is that they have too broad an innate rangeof
skills to improve on at once. On a lottery team like the Celtics, Walker is by
far the best inside scorer (not saying mucho) and rebounder. He also is by far
the best overall perimeter triple threat and transition passer (sadly, including
Kenny last year).

Here's an analogy. If in a pickup game, one of us focuses and works on dribbling
to score, we can make it look reasonably good. If  instead we focus on dribbling
to make a nifty pass, we can also look reasonably good. But if we focus on doing
both these things, we might very well end up making a poorly-timed pass or
missing a makeable layup (and in general looking less polished). Obviously, I'm
only talking here about over-the-hill guys who never had any game to begin with
(namely "moi").

Given the options on Antoine, I just think we have no alternative but to be
patient and risk whatever must come, trusting in his competitiveness (a factor I
believe you can confidently bank on far more than raw potential when projecting
the future upside of a player that age). Dumping Antoine at this stage would be
akin IMO to selling off all your growth stocks the day after a major market
crash. After all, he's still younger than some of the 1999 lottery seniors.

I know there are also reasons to believe Walker might not improve. The thing I
find funny is that if he suddenly learned to affect a quiet, humble attitude
like Ron Mercer, I'd wager Antoine would NOT have to improve his game one iota
next season for Boston fans to start appreciating him and showing greater
patience regarding his youth and rate of development. You'd hear dumb comments
on this list like "you know, I think he FINALLY gets it" alongside the solemn
recitation of such illustrative statistics as the fact Antoine led our "big
three" this past season in assists, scoring and rebounding. Well, maybe that
wouldn't happen on this list ("judging a book by its cover"), but I could
imagine it coming from the likes of Peter May, Bob Ryan or Will McDonutshop.

I know, I know...you're all entitled to mutter "can you shut up already, Joe!?"
Well, I just ask that you offer a more credible reason why Antoine Walker needed
to endure what he did (think how nauseating his "hate mail" must have sounded
like) while we spared Paul Pierce (games of 2-11, 1-10, 3-15, 0-11, 3-11, 5-18
FG...) and simply had a love-fest with Ron "The Saint" Mercer (4-16, 5-17, 5-18,
6-20 etc. and the three 0 assist games and two 0 rebound games)? This is what
I've called a "double standard". You could call it something uglier.

Give the kid a break.

Joe


N.B. Whenever the Boston fans fully stand behind their great team (like in the
Miami Heat game), look at what a difference it made in the Celts' fourth quarter
energy, confidence and play. This is precisely what Antoine told Willie Maye in
the post game Miami interview (he credited the fans). One of these days, I'll
transcribe word-for-word what Antoine actually said in those seconds following
his "redemption game" against Miami (he was incredibly modest and un-slick,
despite having been booed enthusiastically the game before by the same kind of
crackers who made sure Bill Russell didn't get too uppity). This was of course
the Antoine Walker that people much more in the know (Tommy Heinsohn and Rick
Pitino) unabashedly admire. That interview is also what prompted me to write on
this list back then that: "Antoine hopefully just might be dumb/naive enough to
believe Boston fans actually WANT to see him succeed."

I believe (I still do) that some people secretly hope for Antoine to get
arrested on a drug charge, just to prove we were "right all along in our hunch
about his kind". While it is certainly poor breeding that makes me raise the
moot and self-righteous topic of race on this discussion list, it is also
staggeringly disingenous IMHO to suggest that race (or how we expect
"acceptable" black athletes to behave) is not an issue in Boston that prevents
us from evaluating players more intelligently.

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