Dan Forant's observations NOT

[DJessen33@aol.com]

Josh,
I wrote the observations. First, I am not necessairly advocating the exact 
trade of Walker for Davis. However, I am looking for a player like him and am 
willing to trade Walker and our no.1 to get him. Hopefully, we could get more 
out of the deal. Second, fastbreaking is a mentality. It is taught in junior 
high basketball so overall, it isn't that complicated. The biggest key is for 
players to fill lanes and get the court as fast as possible. On our team, 
players either don't feel it is worth it because the ball isn't going to be 
passed to them or they just don't want to put out the energy. If you want to 
see a "new" fastbreaking team, watch the Pistons. They are breaking all over 
the place and they were never known as a breaking team before. They are 
breaking out of necessity since they have no inside players. We have a 
couple, but still should fast break some. One of the greatest halfcourt teams 
of all, the 80's Celtics, fast breaked 10 times more than us now...

DJessen33


<< Dan has made some good points, but I would take issue with three of them.
 
 1)  He seems to be saying that we should trade Antoine Walker for Dale Davis.
 This is not acceptable.  Antoine may not be what we need, but his value as a
 commodity is very high.  We can not except an unfair return on his talent.  
You
 don't get that many assets to build a great team with; if you deal away a 
marquee
 talent for a merely good and dependable veteran, who deserve to lose.  (See 
the
 76ers trades of Charles Barkley for Jeff Hornacek or Moses Malone for Jeff 
Ruland
 or Brad Daugherty for Roy Hinson for good examples).  Your strategy has to 
follow talent
 which is where I agree with Dan about us needing to fastbreak more.
 
 2) what I disagree with, however, is his allocation of blame.  Pitino 
deserves some guilt
 no doubt, but none of the players seem to understand fastbreak basketball 
except
 Danny Fortson and (sometimes) Dana Barros.  Kenny is essentially a fast 
plodder (see
 my other post); Antoine doesn't seem to have any clue as to how to run the 
break, 
 except to score himself or throw a flashy pass; and Paul Pierce as often as 
not calls
 his own number, possibly to get back at Antoine.  The point guard is the one 
who
 has to set the example; that's why we need a guy like J Kidd, and there are 
very few
 like him.  (I don't know if I can think of another, for that matter.) >>