Re: The Boston Celtics Mailing List Digest V7 #413

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

    One of the Boston papers (both had excellent coverage today and great quotes
IMO) noted in passing that Eric Williams was one of the guys assigned to guard
Stackhouse, who was held I think to only 6 points in the half. I'm with Mark in
terms of not being a huge Eric Williams fan, but 15 minutes of PT is probably
reasonable especially if he is evolving into a defensive asset. I don't know
because I didn't see the game.

    Sure Williams had zero points and zero rebounds from the critical starting
small forward slot, but other players who equally share the key to the 82-game
success of this team had disastrous opening nights (Moiso, Blount, Potapenko,
Brown and Griffin combined for 2-10 shooting, no blocks and one assist) yet we
aren't writing any of them off as busts anymore than we are getting ready to
raise Antoine Walker's #8 to the rafters.

    I guess I favor Stith (or maybe eventually Moiso) as the starting swingman,
since Griffin does many of the same things Walker does in terms of being a point
forward with a nose for rebounds.

    BTW, if only Blount can make Potapenko's role almost redundant, I bet you'll
discover we can get a much higher return on him via a trade than many on this
list might expect. On the demand side of the equation, you look at Eastern teams
that have only Montross or worse at center or the Western teams that have to
face Shaq five times a year. On the supply side, this is not quite a normal year
for serviceable NBA centers (all the great centers of the Dream Team generation
either have forks sticking out of their backs or are injured). But my point is
that even in a normal NBA year a Montross can sometimes land you an Antoine
Walker, a Rick Robey can bring you a Dennis Johnson, a Vitaly Potapenko can get
you a Andre Miller, while the rights to a Joe Barry Carroll can get you two NBA
Hall of Famers. Imagine what the Clippers could have gotten for Kandi-girl if
they had made a draft day trade?

    VP is only valuable to the Boston Celtics if we get past the Eastern
Conference and need an enforcer who can deny position to the Shaqs and Sabonis'
of the world and draw them out with the 18-footer. But that's just not going to
happen. Back when we used to have to face Ewing and Smits so regularly, Vitaly
was clearly a difference maker compared to DeClerq. He might also be a factor on
Friday against Toronto and Saturday against Cleveland. We'll see.

    But if Batbrain can keep it up against all kinds of opponents and not just
the Montross' of the world, then like I said we'll have ourselves a really
dangerous, athletic team that is going to be fun to watch.

Joe

p.s. In addition to the article from Private Ryan, I'm still in shock over the
excellent Peter May article about Walker that made it sound like May was finally
listening to and taking down what Antoine had to say as a man, instead of the
usual condescension and twisting of his words. I know that if Toine has a good
season this year, the consensus will be that "he FINALLY gets it", but in terms
of how he speaks during broadcast interviews he's shown for years a soft-spoken
intellegence and a coaches level of concrete insight to reporters questions.
Despite his past antics, I would really welcome it if May and Ryan start to
treat Walker with an open-mindedness and fairness, since I personally think the
whole team and fans will profit from it. The past can be past, he's now Bird's
rookie age, and he's potentially a true talent and a pleasure to go watch
because of his competitiveness and skills. He shares characteristics that make
certain players like Bird so easy to relate to and emulate in playground
fantasies (compared to most of us, he doesn't seem to jump or run THAT much
better yet he wills himself to be successful at the game because he is
recklessly courageous, relentlessly competitive and he covers every aspect of
basketball from point guard play and long range shooting to big man moves).
Frankly, most of us can't exactly go out to an empty gym and practice our Vince
Carter dunks or Kevin Garnett alley-oop finishes. We pretend we are Larry Bird.
Considering how much worse it could be, we are lucky to have two young captains
like Antoine and "the Package". It could be that we are only one great defensive
difference-maker away from overthrowing the East and joining the Flakers in the
finals. One miracle center draft away. Or even a new heart transplant away for
both Bat-brain and Jerome Moiso-don't-worry-be-happy, both of whom could be
double-double impact players if they chose the gym over nightclubbing like
Vitaly P.

Since someone on the list recently mentioned Keon Clark, I'd point out my fear
of deja-vu-all-over-again concerning Moiso with back when Poultrino was set to
draft Keon Clark, until the Package was delivered into our laps (without any
question in my mind, Keon Clark was the same type of player that Poultrino would
hype as "a Pierce level talent, one of the best, juiciest, moistest, headless
chicken athletes I've ever seen in 20 years of coaching etc."). A lot of people
spoke about Clark the summer after he was drafted as a jaw-dropping talent,
based on what he did behind closed doors in scrimmages. In fact he had a better
summer than Moiso had.

No doubt Chauncey Billups also looked as much like Gary Payton in his private
workouts as Moiso may have looked like Bill Russell. But too bad our VCR-freak
coach didn't watch a little the college game video with a more critical eye. In
fact, Boston probably would have very happily drafted Keon Clark if only Jason
Williams hadn't gone five places higher than anyone expected. That was a gutsy
move by Sacramento, since they had gotten burned before by drafting another
undersized, defense-challenged point guard (Bobby Hurley) far too high at #7. It
also changed history for Boston, even though now it kind of seems to be
repeating itself.

Don't worry, all my Moiso-bashing will no doubt provoke an in-my-face highlight
reel game as Moiso "unleashes the poodle" on the asses of Charles Oakley and
friends on Friday. Reverse psychology never fails me. I remember last year
ranting about (Marie) Antoinette "Let-me-eat-cake" Walker for being only third
on the team in rebounds 1/3rd of the way into last season (even though Fortson
had yet to play a game). He proved me wrong as usual after that and ended the
year as the teams leading rebounder for the fourth straight year. He had that
big game against Karl Malone.

Go Celts!

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"Berry, Mark S" wrote:

> That's fine, but start either Griffin or Stith and use the other as your
> sixth man. Get Williams (or Carr, if you prefer) to the injured list as soon
> as Herren is eligible to come off.