Re: Celtics Center preseason preview

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

My predictions: I don't believe in Sophomore setbacks, and the Celts won't
have to do much pressing this season. 

At 11:23 AM 9/14/99 -0700, you wrote:
>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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