Effect of preparation on record

[opi@unesco.org]

Alex wrote:
I'm also hoping that Pierce gets his act together. When I watched
the Cleveland game, it seemed like he was shooting about 60% when
he would catch and shoot in the offense, and about 20% when he
would go one-on-one. He seems to be going to the line more, though.
Since he's been back, his FG line has looked like: 6-17, 3-13, 5-11,
7-21, 6-17, for a total of 34% (21% on threes).

------

Yes but in certain ways Paul Pierce has demonstrated he is now the best
all-around player on the Celtics, something I normally would only very
grudgingly concede.

Although he also has been uneven in his post-injury non-scoring
contributions, he's definitely showing up in these categories with games
of 7 assists, 6 assists, 3 steals (twice), 8 boards, three games with 12
or more visits to the line etc.

Overall, he's averaged 3.6 assists, 2.0 steals and 6.0 rebounds since
his return - which puts him right in the mix with a healthy Griffin and
a hot Walker. I'm a tad worried about his .432 shooting though. His
career .437 shooting is okay (he's only 22) but pretty far from future
Dream Team consideration.

The Celts obviously don't have any Larry Bird-type players anymore.
Aside from Danny Fortson they don't have anyone who even projects as an
eventual double-double player, although they do have three young
starters who can do a little of everything in Walker, Pierce and
Griffin.

Joe

p.s. to Kevin Lok, FYI Singapore withdrew from UNESCO 15 years ago at
the same time that Reagan and Thatcher pulled their countries out in
protest toward UNESCO's Cold War policies plus evidence of management
inefficiency and nepotism. Since that time, Great Britain has re-joined
UNESCO's 188 States while the US continues to fund only certain projects
"A La Carte" without paying full membership dues (notably for protecting
threatened world monuments, restitution of stolen art objects, ocean
sciences, biosphere reserves, also basic education and literacy
programmes to some extent). I don't know what's happening in Singapore
at the moment, but I assume they will follow the US lead.