Re: Walker won't work here... sigh

[Joe Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

"Berry, Mark S" wrote:

> But if Pitino and Toine spend the season together, it could get ugly. Toine
> clearly is going to show up out of shape. Pitino clearly will be fed up if
> that happens. A lackluster Toine will mean another 35-win debacle, a good
> bye to Pitino and a rebuilding effort (probably without Toine). No, the best
> option for everyone is to do the deal now. Maybe Toine will turn into Chris
> Webber in a different environment. Or maybe Juwan Howard or Derrick Coleman.
> None of us really know, but it's clear it isn't going to work out in Boston.

    My last wordy post this morning seems to have disappeared into the ether, so
at the risk of often repeating myself, I'll try to rephrase what I wrote:

1) What happened over the weekend to me is simply NOT news. Everything will be
resolved if it already hasn't been, to the degree that what Walker said is what
you'd expect a frustrated young person to say. He vented badly, but he notably
did not burn any bridges. Everyone is interpreting his words in exactly the same
way (the worst way) but I would suggest that Antoine's words sprang not from
being offended by the notion of working out all year, or even following the
coaches regimen. Those words could have arisen just as easily as a result of his
being offended/betrayed by the stereotype (in his mind fueled by Pitino's camp
comments) that he has done nothing all summer but flip pancakes into his mouth
and do danceaerobics. He feels this is a one-sided portrayal of his work
committment and reacted defensively/immaturely to it. It was catharsis.

2) Just as Walker didn't burn any bridges, neither did Pitino. I always thought
his reported comments at the youth camp were actually constructive and positive
(if the same words were spoken about my work, I'd take it as a complement). The
media including Holley drove a wedge between Pitino and Walker by reporting it
as the greatest diss of all time. As noted above, Walker may have felt he was
following Pitino's regime faithfully up to that time and didn't need to hear
this stuff reported in the papers. He felt it was one-sided, so he stewed and
then rashly, idioticallly chose talk radio to give his side. But these two are
one phone call away from patching things up this time, because frankly they can
call things even now, and more importantly neither guy really said anything that
bad about the other. Pitino will NOT trade Walker for less than what he
perceives as equal value, and it is obvious that he regards that as a franchise
caliber player. If he gets offered that, he'll trade him. Otherwise no. So say
bedtime for Bonzi. Dream on about that. The WEEI non-incident won't make that
come true.

3) Fans routinely blame Antoine's off-season conditioning for Pitino's
considerably below .500 record over the past three seasons. Despite this, the
Celts started 7-4 last season with big wins over conference finalists the Knicks
and Pacers. Similarly, the year before they were a solid 6-5 in the opening
month of the otherwise disastrous 98-99 season (19 wins total was it?).  Sure
Boston might have won more than the 7 games  last March if Antoine had produced
rebounds and shot the ball effectively (I think he shot at or just under 40% in
March).

But move from the small picture to the big picture, and the sobering fact is
that the Poultrino outbreak eventually ran out of gas for reasons unrelated to
what kind of shape Antoine Walker was in early on, or how committed, hard
working or talented the other young Boston players stayed last year. As the
season wore on, the teams we surprised early on (we also whupped Miami and
Toronto early) plausibly caught on how to shoot over 50% against us, plus we
tired ourselves out running the system over 82 games. Hey, look at the Pitino
record on back-to-backs. Look at the overall seasonal pattern of the past two
seasons. And remember that Pitino called last years training camp team one of
the best conditioned teams he ever had.

Now all things depend on how you interpret the facts. My worry is that the
easiest answers ("Antoine is out of shape" or the equally popular "Potapenko's
22 minutes per game have actually been killing us!") don't alway gibe with the
facts. That's why I can't support a drastic solution based on said easy answers.
I see just as much evidence, for example, that dumping Spintino offers as good a
chance for improving the club as would dumping either our best rounded or
hardest working player for Jermaine O'Neil. I'm convinced many people base their
summer-of-hype on having seen O'Neil play all of ten minutes, or a couple of
benchwarming playoff games tops. So I'd rather take my chances on Moiso (1/4th
of O'Neil preposterous salary, plus no personal baggage or work ethic concerns).
And I view one or the other as a redundant part anyway if they were both on the
same roster (even without Battie in the mix).