Re: Bill Reynolds: Trade Walker?

["John Lyell" <johnlyell@hotmail.com>]

With Iverson pissed at LB anyone for an AW for Iverson deal ? Iverson is a
scoring machine that draws fans but without a good supporting cast I don't
know if he can win a championship, but someone who can put the ball in the
hoop and get you 40 when you need it.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Way Of The Ray" <wayray@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sports.basketball.nba.boston-celtics
To: "Celtics" <Celtics@igtc.com>
Sent: Monday, April 24, 2000 1:35 AM
Subject: Bill Reynolds: Trade Walker?


> Thanks to BSG for mentioning this...
>
> 4.23.2000 00:02:20
> BILL REYNOLDS
> Providence Journal
>
> Too much too soon, but too much talent to give up?
>
> Want to know eveything that's wrong with the NBA?
>
> I give you Antoine Walker.
>
> He is 23, makes more money than some Third World countries have, seems
> to have an exaggerated sense of his own importance, and has never won
> anything as a pro.
>
> Welcome to the NBA in the new millennium, right?
>
> He's also become the symbol of fan discontent with the Celtics, courtesy
> of his ill-advised 3-pointers, and the sense that he is supposed to be
> the leader of this team, even if it's become obvious that he's not
> suited to this role. He's become the guy who teases you one night, then
> breaks your heart the next.
>
> But he's also not the problem with the Celtics. Not in the classic
> sense, anyway.
>
> On a roster that's simply not talented enough, Walker is supremely
> talented. Which is not to say he doesn't have deficiencies. He doesn't
> guard anyone, he loves to jack up 3-pointers, can be too stats
> conscious, and is a funny size, not quite big enough to guard the good
> power forwards, not quick enough to guard the good small forwards on the
> perimeter.
>
> But he has talent.
>
> Not Vince Carter talent. Not Allen Iverson talent. Not Kevin Garnett
> talent. Maybe not talent to justify the size of his contract. But talent
> nontheless. No small commodity in a talent league.
>
> His problem is maturity. Or lack of it.
>
> In a sense he's become the prototype of the young NBA superstar, someone
> who makes too much money too early, and whose view of the world and his
> place in it is irrevocably altered by that.
>
> Even so, Walker has done little to help himself in Boston. He's not
> particularly likeable, at least not in any public sense. He seems to
> show little regard for the game's past, or have any sense of history.
> There is an arrogance about him, best exemplifed by his infamous quote
> where he referred to himself as a ``veteran superstar,'' even though
> he'd only been in the league two years. In short, he's a product of the
> system that's created him.
>
> Not that anyone should be surprised.
>
> Walker left Kentucky after his sophomore year, against the advice of
> many who considered him too young, too immature. He was one of the
> forerunners of the new trend in the NBA, young players drafted on
> potential more than accomplishment. Even at Kentucky, on a team that won
> a national championship his last year, he was just one of many talented
> players, not the sole centerpiece.
>
> He also had to be comforted by his coach, Rick Pitino, in the locker
> room shortly after the championship game. Walker had not played
> particularly well, and was clearly down, even though his team had just
> won.
>
> This was a kid emotionally ready for the NBA?
>
> No matter.
>
> He was a lottery pick in the '96 draft, joining a Celtics team that was
> in a free fall, one that eventually won only 15 games. The coach was
> M.L. Carr, whose sole strategy seemed to be to let the players do
> whatever they wanted, even a rookie who should have been a junior in
> college.
>
> In retrospect, it was the worst possible situation for Walker. Instead
> of being on a veteran team with assigned roles, a team on which he would
> have had to pay some dues, Walker essentially was given free rein. He
> took a lot of shots. He put up numbers. He treated defense as if it were
> a bug crawling across his dinner plate. And he got paid a lot of money.
>
> The NBA was easy, right?
>
> It's also become apparent that Walker is also a victim of the Celtics'
> past. We expect the great Celtics' players to be leaders, to know their
> place in Celtics' history, to realize that, in the best of times, the
> Celtics are bigger than the individual parts, one big, long green line
> that began back there in the '50's. Instead, there was Antoine, with his
> foolish wiggle, his lack of perspective, his unwillingness to work on
> his body in the off-season, his coming of age as a professional player
> the basketball equivalent of an awkward adolescence. There was Antoine,
> poster child for the NBA and all its ills.
>
> I suspect that's been at the brunt of a lot of the fan dissatisfaction
> with Walker the past couple of years. Celtics' stars are not supposed to
> be like that. At least the stars of Celtics' past that we now tend to
> romanticize.
>
> So here is Walker, at the end of his fourth season, and the question for
> Pitino and the Celtics is: what do you do with him?
>
> Do you trade him? Or do you wait for him to mature, to become the leader
> the Celtics so clearly want him to be? Do you wait for him to grow out
> of his flaws, or do you recognize that it's never really going to happen
> for Walker here, that the landscape already is too poisoned? Is he part
> of the solution, or part of the problem?
>
> This is the Celtics' big decision.
>
> It's also one that comes in the context of Walker's history with Pitino.
> They've been together for five years now, and there must be times when
> it seems like a bad marriage, too many years, too much history, too much
> emotion that got all tangled up a long time ago. All further complicated
> by the fact that Walker no longer is the kid whom Pitino once recruited
> to come to Kentucky. He is now someone with a $70-million contract, the
> kind of money that brings expectations with it.
>
> I also suspect the Celtics will try to move him this summer, to trade
> him for someone else's problem. One rumor that's been floating out there
> for a while now is Walker for Keith Van Horn, the young Nets star who's
> supposedly somewhat discontented in New Jersey. The latest is Walker for
> Dikembe Mutombo, as the Hawks were a disaster this year.
>
> Walker also may be better off being out of Boston, going to some new
> place with a chance to start over, some place where he's not expected to
> be the leader, but rather just another young player who's never won
> anything. Some place where the storied past isn't always sitting on his
> shoulders.
>
> But the Celtics should think long and hard about trading Walker, even if
> he never consistently becomes the kind of player he's shown flashes of
> being. Even if he, at times, seems like a poster child for everything
> that's wrong with today's NBA.
>
> For he is only 23, so very young, with so many years ahead of him.
>
> And there's no substitute for talent.
>
> Even if it occasionally breaks your heart.
>
>