Re: Kenny, my keen opinions.

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

Josh Ozersky wrote:

> Thanks for agreeing with me so much!  I agree pretty
> much with your take, except for three things:
>
> 1)  I think Kenny is what he is, but I think if he was
> in shape you would see him playing more of an uptempo
> style, and releasing the ball earlier.  Pitino would
> like to trade him, but no one will take him.  Kenny
> will get with the program and you will see more games
> like last years (1998).  Someone will have to cover
> for him on D.

All you can ask of Kenny is that he gets serious about stopping leaks
through dribble penetration. I frankly could care less if some opponents
like Mark Jackson post up on his wispy butt. I say let these freaking
point guards beat us that way. You can't run a fluid offense anyway with
your point guard operating that far down low. Now that he is so
knee-jerkedly maligned, Kenny has reached the stage where he is slightly
underated for his defensive effort IMHO (Because I actually see effort
on his part). Kenny will never be a shut down defender not because he is
dogging it but because he is too light to leverage his body on someone.
All you can ask of him is to contain leaks on the perimeter, which he
should be able to do.

As far as offense, the main thing is that Kenny must give up the ball
earlier on transition, whenever this is clearly called for. All Pitino
teams stress dribbling from all five positions. You ruin the benefit of
causing turnovers if the ball ends up too long in one guy's hands.
Second, Kenny should obviously try throwing an entry lob into the post
for once in his life, although I've never really felt it was the role of
the point guard alone to learn how to feed the post. I'll admit however
that John Stockton has always "padded" his assist totals by insisting on
this duty (not that this is a sin).