Re: CBS Sportsline Article

[opi@unesco.org]

I found both of these articles by Browne and Fishler to be pretty
impressive. Maybe it's worth reading CBS-SL more often. They have good
player stats too.

One interesting 1999 statistical split somewhat confirms my suspicions
about the efficacity of "home crowd support" in Boston. As far as I
know, Toine at least doesn't get booed on the road.

Antoine Walker
home:     18.4ppg .394FG% .349 3PtFG%
road:      18.9ppg .429FG% .387  3PtFG%

I don't know what the answer is, but I do know the Celtics will have to
win a LOT at home in order to make the playoffs, plus they need to
(somehow) get out of the gates quickly with the nice early schedule and
with Patrick Ewing and Jayson Williams returning in January or so. If
Danny Boy and Potapenko can together average 19 or 20 rebounds per game
(they play the two thinnest positions in the Eastern Conference right
now), I'm pretty sure the Celts will be one of the early season NBA
surprise stories in terms of win-loss percentage, and that locals will
sneak back onto the bandwagon and then start really getting into the new
team makeup.

Joe

p.s. Just because the LA Lakers only retire the numbers of their marquee
la-la-land stars (hey, I view this as just a cultural mentality), that
doesn't mean that the Celtics organization should stop retiring the
numbers of key role players (including 6th men naturally) without whom
banners certainly could not have been won "Celtics style". Cedric
Maxwell not only earned the Playoffs MVP in 1981 for his clutch scoring
and defense in the Finals (his unbelievable defense and rebounding not
only set the tone in the Finals but throughout the playoffs guarding
everyone from Dr J to Moses Malone), but you could make a very strong
case that he deserved consideration again in 1984 (Max raised his game
once again, whereas Bird had some great individual performances but
slumped badly overall off his regular season shooting numbers). Max was
also the first NBA forward in history to shoot over 60% from the field
in a season. In other words, he'd give you around 16ppg over a 82 game
regular season while taking maybe only 10 shots a game. If he played
today, he could conservatively add 10 wins to most any team out there.

-----

Champ 17 wrote:

> Two articles on the C's.
>
> http://www.sportsline.com/u/ce/feature/0,1518,1412341_54,00.html
>
> http://www.sportsline.com/u/ce/multi/0,1329,1415792_54,00.html
>
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