Re: what a shmuck Holley is

["Jim Meninno" <Jim_Meninno@hotmail.com>]

----- Original Message ----- From: Cecil Wright

> Y'all need to get a grip.  Holley writes his opinion columns to raise the
> ire of the readers who are faithful sportsfans.  His pieces are supposed
to
> infuriate you and get you to call in to shows like the Big Show and
> complain.  You're not gonna tell me that there is ANY Globe sportswriter
>who  everybody agrees with 100% of the time.  Ryan?  Shag?  Hardly.

You make an important point, Cecil.  Holley is a columnist, not a reporter,
and his columns are not supposed to be balanced.  Having said that, I think
this column was thrid rate toilet paper, but then I'm not a particular fan
of Holley's writing anyway.  Theresa's observation about his recent golf
writings was spot on.  I don't think I've read anything in a major sports
page written by someone who *seemed* to know less about the sport he was
covering.

Now, on to the subject matter of the column.  I really hope someone was
paying closer attention than I was to the WEEI Walker interview this
afternoon and posts a re-cap, because it was anything but a puff piece.
They asked him about a lot of the same issues that Holley discussed.  For
instance, Antoine doesn't have a conditioning problem.  You got that?  He
doesn't want to be told he's got to get muscular, like Karl Malone, or lean,
like Scottie Pippen.  He's Antoine Walker, and he's got his own physique and
his own way of working out.  I don't think you'll find a bigger supporter of
Antoine's on this list than me, but it really sounded like he was saying, "I
play a lot of pick-up ball all summer long, and that keeps me fit enough, so
mind your own damn business, thank you very much".  I can understand that.
Hell, I'm not sure I'd be any different.  I mean, he's been reasonably
successful so far in life.  He's won a national championship.  He's been an
NBA All-Star.  He's secured a 71 million dollar contract.  Why should he
need to do anything different than he is doing now?  Well, of course the
answer is that he hasn't been very successful in terms of winning
professional basketball games.  But, while he certainly didn't sound to be
trying to avoid taking a share of the blame for that, quite the opposite
actually, he also did not attribute that in any way to him not being in good
enough physical condition.  The impression I got was that Antoine is
absolutely, steadfastly convinced that the way he keeps himself in shape is
just fine, and he even came out and said that he didn't want to follow the
team's conditioning program.  Phew.  That wasn't good.  The only straw I
have to grasp at now is that maybe his early season problems last year were
because of the ankle, not because he was "out of shape".  At least I'll
sleep better if I believe that.

Antoine talked a lot about this problem of being mentoined in trade rumors
all the time.  He doesn't like it.  He wants Pitino to either trade him, or
just stop talking about it.  His preference is not to be traded, though.
All this trade talk is making him feel like he isn't "wanted".  He says "his
agent" has told him that Pitino has been "trying to trade him all summer".
While I can see his point, I can't understand how he thinks Pitino can stop
papers from writing these rumors.  I mean, every time a team makes an offer
for Antoine, it gets written as a rumor.  Other teams leak things to the
press you know, 'Toine.  What's Pitino supposed to do, slam the phone down
if Antoine's name is mentioned?  Actually, there was a lot of talk about
their relatinoship.  Antoine seems to really want to be Pitino's peer.  He
has started using Pitino's own motivational catch phrases on Pitino himself.
The best of which was that he thought Pitino was feeling "a lot of pressure"
because of his promises, which were "not smart" and the pressure will "make
a coward of anyone".  Actually, I kind of like the irony of this.

Let's see, what else.  Oh yeah.  Antoine is NOT a power forward.  He's a
"wing player".  Oh, he'll play any position they want him to to help the
team, but he doesn't think his strength is low post scoring.

He thinks the whole team, and the coaches need to come to camp ready to do
better.  He stressed the need to play better defense.  There was a lot more,
but I missed some of it.  I see Mark has written a summary.  Maybe that will
fill in some of the blanks...

Jim