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Ron Harper Disses Antoine
"He's got to learn to play with the guys he has out there."
Ron Harper on Antoine Walker
[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]
[Boston Globe Online / Sports]
ON BASKETBALL
Bull's-eye on Walker
Celtic hear it from fans, and Harper
By Peter May, Globe Staff, 03/22/99
His last shot was supposed to miss.
But like almost everything else
Antoine Walker threw up yesterday, the
ball didn't go where it was supposed to
go.
Rick Pitino called for his captain to miss
a free throw and then go for the rebound
and maybe a final, tying 3-pointer. (Given
the way Walker shoots freebies, Pitino
probably should have told him not to
change a thing.) Walker complied, to a
fault. He missed the free throw, but in so
doing he also missed the rim. There was no
rebound. There was no chance for a miracle
basket to extend the game to another
overtime. It was, unfortunately for
Walker, a fitting end to an eminently
forgettable afternoon.
The closing seconds of the 95-92 loss
ticked away, but Walker's misery did not
come to an end. As he left the floor, he
heard boos, a lot of them. As Pitino said,
''I think there's a lot of negativity in
the air.''
And then he looked up to see summertime
playmate Ron Harper giving him the choke
sign.
Before the game, Harper talked about how
the young players coming into the league
care more about stats and ''SportsCenter''
than winning. After the game, he was asked
about the choke sign.
''He's from Chicago, and we play a lot out
there in the summer,'' Harper said of
Walker. ''He's always telling us in these
games how good he is, how he's going to
beat us and stuff like that. Well, he just
got a little bit of that stuff that he's
always talking about.
''He knows the truth. All his boys got to
see the game. They saw what happened. He's
got to learn to play with the guys he has
out there. If he does, they have a chance
to be a very good team in a few years.''
Walker said he wasn't sure why Harper
singled him out.
''I'm going to find out,'' he said. ''I've
never had any problem with him. He lives
in Chicago. I don't think it was
good-natured. We'll see next time. We play
them two more times.''
You might have to go back a while, maybe
to pre-school, to find a game in which
Walker had more trouble putting the ball
in the basket. He was 2 of 15 from the
field, 1 of 4 from the line, and his 6
points is his third lowest output as a
professional, lowest in two years.
He was 0 for 11 in the first half and made
his first basket with 3:46 left in the
third, a 3-pointer. His other hoop came on
a shot-put from the lane with 4:14 to
play. Walker's day was so brutal it almost
made you wish to see more of Derek
Skawanski, the fan from Brighton who came
close to winning a Ford Explorer with an
underhand shot from halfcourt.
No one has to tell Walker that he's not
performing up to par. He knows it. He's
zeroing in on being a 40/40 guy, shooting
40 percent from the field and from the
line. That just doesn't happen in the NBA.
Yesterday, in additon to his woeful
shooting, he had 10 rebounds, 0 assists, 3
steals, and 5 turnovers.
For the season, he's shooting 41.9 percent
from the field and 47.1 percent from the
line. He has 63 turnovers in 23 games. His
scoring is down from last year. His
rebounds are down from last year. His
assists are down from last year. By Year
3, we're supposed to see progress, not
regression. His whole game is down from
last year. His team is down from last year
as well, now standing at the unseemly mark
of 8-15. The Celtics have not beaten a
decent team in almost a month.
''I'm not producing well enough, under my
standards,'' Walker said. ''I take a lot
of pride in my game and I want to
produce.''
And, yes, he heard the boos. How could he
have not? On this day, they were deserved.
''I don't mind. It don't bother me at
all,'' Walker said. ''If you want to boo
me, go right ahead. I'm bigger than that.
My family is my team. As long as they have
confidence in me, and as long as they're
not booing me and down on me, I'm going to
continue to roll.''
He went on, ''It was a bad shooting night.
I'm not making excuses. I shot the ball
bad. There are 27 games to go. I might
have two or three more bad shooting
nights. It comes with the territory. [But]
to boo your home team, especially someone
like us who's trying to fight and earn
respect, we need our fans. We need them
badly. To boo us, that's bad for us. We
don't need that. We need support.''
Walker is an inviting and obvious target.
Much has been expected of him since he
arrived here and his employer has rewarded
him for what he may become one day. He's
the captain. He's the go-to guy. He's the
possessor of the $71 million contract.
Good or bad, fair or unfair, Walker
embodies what the Celtics are today:
Young, temperamental, inconsistent,
promising, maddening. That's not going to
change anytime soon.
This story ran on page D01 of the Boston
Globe on 03/22/99.
© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.