Re: Pierce at Fila summer pro league

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

    Pierce sounds a bit different from last off-season, when he won much praise
as the "Anti-Toine". I hope Pierce gets serious about defense and conditioning
well before training camp starts. I doubt a Vince Carter would even show up at
any Summer game out of shape. Guys like that have too much pride in their
reputations.

    I don't want to make a big deal out of it though, since it is still
mid-July.  Hopefully 2000-01 can be Pierce's first All Star season, and
Antoine's second.

    BTW, I'm thrilled to hear Mark Blount is 250 pounds. He sounds like a big
upgrade over Pervis Ellison or Eric Riley.

    Pitino seems to have added two athletic big men to the roster, which isn't
bad considering the draft position. Now Boston can focus on adding a backup
guard with the 2.25 slot, which generally should be easier to do than finding a
big forward or center.

    My one remaining wish is that the Celtics can discover a deadly perimeter
shooter this summer. I doubt Sesar will come in and win a roster spot in
training camp. Everyone else on the Shaw roster sounds more like a slasher than
a shooter. Cheaney wasn't half the midrange shooter we hoped he could be, and
that's also Griffin's biggest weakness. Anyway, thanks Art for that report on
Pierce.

---------
Art Silva wrote:

> I went to watch some summer league games on Monday and to my surprise I
> caught a game between a team called the NBA pros and the Golden State
> Warriors entry. Paul was playing for the NBA Pros team. I would say overall
> he didn't look too good. But he was still the best player out there. First
> off he showed up late. It was either at the end of the first or early in the
> second when I first saw him stretching out by the bench. The coach put him
> in not too long after and he never left the game. His game was way rusty.
> The jumper wasn't there but he managed to score 21 or 23 mostly from the
> line. Although he did have a few nice assists on fast breaks. His team was
> getting pounded inside by Rick Hughes and was down by 10 or 12 for the first
> part of the game. But once he got in the lead eroded little by little. The
> pros eventually won. He looked very winded down the stretch and too me he
> looked like he's been hitting King Taco a little too much. The warriors
> tried just about everybody on their team to stop him but nobody really
> could. They tried Mark Davis and Schea Cotton mostly. Rick Hughes gave it a
> shot as did Bill Curley. Curley did his best to get under Pierce's skin and
> did manage to evoke double technicals by the officials for the two of them.
> Defensively he displayed his old bad habits. He cheated off of his man only
> to have him get the rebound for and easy put back more than a few times. But
> he did hold his own off the boards. Hopefully I can get down to the pyramid
> again and see him play again before the end of the games. If I do I'll send
> in another report.