Re: Los Angeles Box Score

[opi@unesco.org]

It's kind of a Catch-22 for Fortson. If he continues playing 12 minutes per
game, at what point will he be in shape? Next training camp? In the middle of a
long season, I think it's hard for any player to get into condition unless he's
eventually allowed to play some consecutive minutes (like a Ewing or a Kobe).
It's not like team's hold many training camp style practices between games.

The next time we are blown out or winning by a very large margin, I would hope
to see Fortson out there even if it means tanking the game. Sure he's not a Kobe
or a Ewing, but he is the fourth leading NBA rebounder and we do need him out
there to control the boards in order for everything else to work much better.
Given that we were beaten by two teams with a combined 14-52 record or whatever,
it seemed to me like as good a time as any to look at Fortson instead of
progressively turning to Williams, Cheaney and even McCarty first.

----

Ken Kokubo wrote:

> RE: Fortson
> >a half years.  As he walked to the sidelines in the ensuing timeout, he
> >looked to me like he was going to puke.  He was probably only in there for
> >four or five minutes, tops.
>
> I was going to post the same thing. For those that don't watch games, I
> want to make sure it doesn't fuel unwarranted Pitino criticism (timeouts
> and rotations are another story ;^)
>
> When Fortson went down I told myself I would wait until after the all-star
> break to really judge the team. I figured they would need that much time to
> gel and get in sync.
>
> I still really, really, really want to see a few extended minutes of Kenny,
> Pierce, Walker, Fortson, and V on the floor at once...like I said I'll wait.
>
> k
>
> PS We are currently in 10th place in the east, the 6 teams immediately
> ahead of us have an average record of only .529. It's not a cakewalk, but
> certainly encouraging.