Re: Walker's merits (was Walker vs Pierce; my 2 cents)

[David A Wickerham <aw623@freenet.buffalo.edu>]

If Walker played for Riley.  He'd be a dominant all-star by now (sad, but
true).  He is a unique talent, and if we lose him, I believe he'll come
back to haunt us.  He now has back to back games of 20+ points and 15+
rebounds. Why are so amny Celtic fans so anxious to run him out of town?

****dave


On Thu, 21 Dec 2000, Alexander Wang wrote:

> At 06:02 AM 12/21/00 -0800, Thomas Murphy wrote:
> >Thanks for the kind words of welcome Josh and Alex (and Joe too previously).
> >
> >I'll restrict my comments to the point touched on by both of your
> >statements - the value of Walker's ball-handling and passing skills. You
> >both make a set of cogent points, the value of which is not lost on me.
> >
> >Given that however, I believe that the question remains: does Walker's
> >merits as a passer outweigh his debits as a defender? This is most likely a
> >judgment call where reasonable people can disagree. You two seem to feel
> >that Walker's passing abilities translate into a much more efficient
> >offense - so much more efficient that it negates whatever defensive
> >liabilities he may have. I see it the other way 'round.'
> 
> Good post Tom. The main discrepancy I see in your argument is that you use
> backward-looking measures to evaluate Walker's potential on offense against
> forward-looking measures to evaluate Pierce. That is, you say that the
> offense has been mediocre in the past 4 years, which means that Antoine's
> passing doesn't help the offense. But then you essentially absolve Pierce
> of his defensive shortcomings because you can visualize him becoming a
> better defender in the future. 
> 
> I believe that Josh and I are evaluating Walker (and Pierce) in a
> forward-looking manner when we're comparing them. Walker has not been a
> consistently great playmaker in the past four years. Similarly, Pierce has
> not been a consistently good defender so far in his career. However, when I
> am evaluating Walker's merits as a passer, I am projecting forward based on
> the talent that you see when he's playing smart. In the same way I agree
> that we can project forward based on limited stretches where Pierce has
> shown the potential to be an excellent defender.
> 
> Walker goes through stretches where his passing stats are unreal for a
> power forward. Just subjectively, I think the offense usually looks quite
> good when Walker is passing well. Now you are right that his assists come
> at the expense of the point guard to some degree. But having everything
> come in one package -- the scoring, rebounding, and assists -- is far more
> valuable than having them come in three one-dimensional players. For
> instance, if we really rely on Walker to run the offense instead of
> Anderson, we can now play Randy Brown to defend the opposing point guard.
> Of course Randy Brown is truly a backup level talent so this isn't the real
> extent of the gain. But basically you can now play a defensive oriented
> shooter instead of a point guard, like Chicago used to do when Pippen ran
> the offense, which improves the team defense. 
> 
> I think one key aspect is whether you believe that Walker can improve his
> body or not. There's a reason that Pitino harps on that, because it could
> make him a dominant player on offense, and drastically improve his defense
> also. If he can do that, the skills that he has in a 6'9" body would make
> him a top 5 player in the league.
> 
> You can still go both ways on this because I do think that they both have
> the potential to be exceptional players. I have a harder time to imagine
> Pierce dominating from the shooting guard position the way I think that
> Antoine can -- Pierce is just not a Jordan level talent by any stretch. But
> he's a multitalented player. He can score from inside and out, gets to the
> line, rebounds well for his position, is improving as a passer, and has the
> potential to be an excellent defender.
> 
> Alex  
> 
> 

-----------------------------------------------------------------
	  Dave Wickerham
	  aw623@freenet.buffalo.edu
	  Saratoga Springs, NY