Celtics Center preseason preview

[Josh Ozersky <josh_ozersky@yahoo.com>]

For Bskball.com -- not much here most of you haven't
heard....still, a good enough overview in these slow
days.  This is part one.

Celtics Pre-Preseason Preview


Most previews are released in October, but the
painfully slow news month of September necessitated my
writing this preview now.  That, and the appearance of
so much uninformed, facile commentary by sports
savants:  taken together, these factors were enough to
make me take pen in hand, and give my predictions for
how I expect our team and players to perform this
season.  I will say upfront that I expect us to make
the playoffs; but whether this comes as an
underachieving, backwards limp won on the last day vs.
the Nets, or in the resplendent finery of the NBA
arriviste, depends on how the following players
perform.  This is the first of two parts.

THE STARTERS

Kenny Anderson:  far and away the team's biggest
questionmark, KA has been held to be the key to the
season by most Celtics observers.  When playing well,
as he did after coming over from the Blazers two
seasons ago, the team blew out its oppents, and scored
well over 100 points with ease, or would have had the
scrubs not come on in the fourth quarter.  Last
season, the player of whom Rick Pitino had said "you
don't get any better than Kenny Anderson for point
guard skills" turned himself into an overdribbling,
overdriving, underpassing Adrian Dantley wanna be. 
Whether this was the result of his trying to put the
team on his shoulders, or a byproduct of his divorce
and other personal pathologies, the world may never
know.  The question remains, can and will Kenny get in
shape to run and run, and release the ball early in
the break, to throw overhanded baseball passes
downcourt, to penetrate with an eye toward passing, to
run pick and rolls with Antoine Walker and Paul
Pierce?  Or will he call his own number again and
again?  If he does, expect to see Wayne Turner getting
a lot of minutes and eventually starting.  Turner is
an unflashy, underrated player who might be the
perfect point guard for this team.  ideally, though,
he should get groomed in a successful atmosphere.

Paul Pierce:  everyone is expecting Paul Pierce to be
a world-beater this semester, and his move to shooting
guard should allow him to beat the hell out of smaller
players.  But I suspect that a sophomore slump may
greet Pierce this season, despite all his working out,
and it may last several months into the campaign.  I
saw a lot of Pierce last season, and his game is not
at world-beater status yet.  He still depends far too
much on hanging out at the three point line, and
calling for the ball on the left side of the basket
for a baseline spin.  The former move will never go
out of style, but it stagnates the offense and wastes
Pierce's passing and foul-attraction skills.  The
latter move displays two things that are bad:  a lack
of quickness (Pierce seldom got around defenders who
knew the move was coming) and worse, a stubborn desire
to stay in a comfort zone, even when it hurt his game.
 I think Pierce has a great first step and he knows
how to react to what the defense gives him, but he has
to assert himself and at the same time have that
happen within the context of the team.  Getting rid of
Ron Mercer was a good step in that direction, but I
would like to see Pierce score more in transition, and
in the halfcourt set I would like to see him post up
smaller players for turnaround jumpers, spins to both
directions, and a variety of hooks and drop steps.  On
bigger players, that first step should get him by, and
open up another player for an easy two.  That's the
way Larry Bird did it, and Bird should be Pierce's
model.  (His game resembles Larry's far more than
Antoine's does.)  Which brings up

Antoine Walker:  I expect Antoine to have a really big
year this year.  I think he knows that he lost a lot
of hard-earned respect around the league last year,
and I think that he is ready for his breakout season. 
Expect Antoine to shoot better from the line, to keep
up his amazing (for a star forward) 3point shooting,
to lose a rebound or two from his statistics with his
move away from the basket, and to improve
significantly in defense and passing.  Antoine is not
going to have the disciplined, Oscar Roberts-type game
Pitino wants at this stage in his career – he’s too
emotional a player, and too good not to be delighted
with the in-your-face magic he can perform on lesser
men to not go for 25 or more every night, sometimes at
the expense of a wiser gameplan.  Nonetheless, if he
can develop any kind of passing synergy with Paul
Pierce, the Celtics will have a nigh-unstoppable
scoring machine on their hands.  (Better than Dale
Davis, no?  Holy Cow, will the celtics rue the day
they considered trading him for that mediocrity.)  The
main flaw with Antoine’s game last year was defense,
and that will be remedied by physical commitment, and
his getting burned in early games by quicker players. 
Antoine will never have the physical tools on defense
of Scottie Pippen or for that matter Tony Battie, but
he knows where he is supposed to be, and when he digs
in, can shut down most players using the same
aggressiveness and consciencelessness that he shows on
offense.  The highlight of last year was watching
Antoine shut down Tim Hardaway on an isolation,
barking at the crossover king to bring it, and then
slapping the ball out of his hands en route to sinking
a three pointer of his own.  (After which, you may
remember, he won the game in the last second on a
three point bank-in.)  

Antoine can flat out play, and last season should be
thrown out entirely.  I think you will see something
this season more along the lines of the Kentucky
Antoine, working within a team context far more
smoothly, and blossomly more individually as a result.

Danny Fortson:  I have received no small amount of
criticism from my peers in geekdom about my
inflexible, adamantine stance on this issue, but I
stick with it:  if you would prefer Ron Mercer on the
Celtics to Danny Fortson, you are not all there.  (and
that’s not even counting Eric Williams, Eric
Washington, and a sure lottery pick).  Fortson is the
Paul Silas/Dennis Rodman we have desperately needed on
this team, and if he does for us what he did for
Denver – cleaning up the boards, doing the dirty work
down low, and not asking for the ball, the Celtics
will have the most desirable combination in all of
team sports:  tough, blue collar, gritty power where
you need it AND flashy, talented, highlight reel
finesse where you need that.  Fortson will give us, I
would guess, 10-12 points a night on putbacks, dunks,
and, as the season wears on, open jump shots make
available by double teams of Paul and Antoine, and
hopefully Kenny.  (his PPG may rise as the season
wears on)  But what he will do to other power players
– the Oakleys and Willeses who have abused us for so
long, will be a joy to behold.  And his defensive
rebounding will help us to grind teams like Miami into
the earth, which depend on multiple possessions for
every win.

Vitaly Potapenko:  Vitaly can be a standout player in
the NBA if he is used right.  If Pitino tries to make
him set picks up high, run pick and rolls, etc. he
will look bad.  He doesn’t have good hands, and when
he gets the ball while he is moving around on the
perimeter he holds it as if it is a screeching wildcat
instead of an inanimate rubber sphere.  But if the
coaching staff gets wise to his monumental physical
presence, basketball fundamentals, and surprising
passing touch, they may find out how effective V can
be when you run the offense through him down low 
where he belongs.  Potapenko on offense can sink the
15 footer, but  he shouldn’t be out there.  He should
be exploiting the three quarters of the centers in the
league whom he clearly outclasses, and demanding
respect from his betters, so as to pass inside-out
when we play against them.  On defense, he will make
every center from Shaquille O’Neal on down work to
score and get rebounds.  He can single team Shaq,
double team Duncan, and make those caliber players
defend him so they can’t just hang around waiting to
block our shots.  VP is to my mind the third most
valuable acquisition the team has made in the last ten
years, but if he is to have a great year on offense,
he has to be used right.  On D, you can pencil in his
contribution unless he gets fat or injured.  And under
Pitino he won’t be getting fat.  

The only question with this group of starters is
whether they can play the press.  I think you have to
fairly say the answer is that they can’t.  When out
there as such, these five will rely on man to man D,
and occasional pressure to disrupt offenses.  But all
these players can and will play the press as part of
larger substitution patterns.  Potapenko is really the
only one that isn’t equipped to press, and so he
probably won’t.  The rest will do their part and, in
the case of Kenny, Antoine, and Fortson, appear to be
better defenders then they are.  You can make a case
for the Kings, but this is far and away the most
exciting young starting unit in the NBA right now to
my way of thinking.  But don’t expect them to play
together as a unit for very many minutes.

NEXT WEEK:  the all-important bench 


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