Re: ESPN on Jordan's comeback, Walker briefly mentioned

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

At 00:28 03/08/01 -0400, you wrote:
>http://espn.go.com/magazine/telander_20010802.html
>
>The author, Rick Telander, apparantly watched some of the secret summer
>workout games hosted by Jordan.  I really, really hope that he's
>exagerrating things a bit, particularly the part about Walker losing
>over and over again.

Hir Francis:

Trying to find some additional consolation, Telander based his article on 
having watched one day of scrimmages, plus he's a bit of a groupie. Also, 
treys counted for only one point, so if Walker was having one of those 2-10 
games from downtown....

Maybe someone can goof Antoine into believing this is a league-wide rule 
change in the NBA, so he'll tone it down just a notch. ;-)

Let's face it, the three point set shot is a big part of what Walker feels 
he needs to elevate into the consistent 20+ points per game. He's quite 
able to get that shot off clean like Magic used to.

Still, he'd be a hell of a Celtics player if he grew comfortable with 18 
points per game and focused even greater attention on his more remarkable 
gifts (passing, rebounding). I doubt there is any greater high than going 
for an NBA triple-double, and it is the type of thing that is respected 
throughout the game because many household name All Stars never achieve one 
in their entire careers.

----

Regarding the debate about the top eight Eastern teams, IMO the more talent 
that flows into our conference the better everyone's chances will be. 
Things turned a bit upside down in the past decade, with the East becoming 
daintier and softer. So I welcome seeing Mourning, Mutombo, Olajuwon and 
Ewing in our conference.

Collectively they pose a better test of Boston's true strengths and 
weaknesses viz a viz the West, as opposed to matchup concerns posed by 240 
pounders like Camby, Ratliff and Jermaine O'Neil. Big picture-wise, who 
frankly cares if Bat Girl is our best option against these gumby dolls, if 
the starting centers out West tend to carry 40+ pounds more bulk? It's a 
bit akin to how the NFC used to maul the crap out of the AFC in the Super Bowl.

If Boston isn't one of the top eight teams in the East next year, this 
wouldn't shock me. They are deeper and more talented but they seem to 
remain fatally flawed in rebounding and shotblocking.

At the least I feel the Celts will be in the running a lot deeper into the 
Spring than before, and probably won't stray as far below .500 ball as they 
did in the past. In recent seasons, we'd make our runs at the playoffs 
coming from 10 to 12 games under .500 by late-winter. That's tough to do no 
matter how many 40 point games you get from Pierce or Walker.

Based on an interpretation of our won-lost patterns, the Celtics have been 
relatively fast out of the gate due to overall superior conditioning and 
summer participation (and the Pierce, Griffin rookie-of-the-month effect), 
totally implode as veteran teams also got in shape and in synch and started 
making a total mockery of the headless chicken outbreak system, then 
finally make an entertaining late run for the 8th spot when it was already 
too late.

I hope Harter and Obie will mesh well to bring out the strengths of both 
their defensive philosophies, without burning out the players too quickly. 
I personally like the headless chicken press after made baskets, especially 
now that we may have 7 or 8 player depth in quality basketball players and 
under Obie we no longer go 11 players deep for parts of games. A press can 
just blow up any systematic effort to play zone defense.

What I didn't like are the constant half court traps that willfully ignore 
matchups and take away individual accountability. I think Harter can get 
Boston to play better individual, half-court defense.


p.s. On a half-serious note, Way predicted back in early July that we 
should all watch out for Kedrick Brown's left knee. What was that all 
about? Pretty irritating frankly if it was meant as a joke.  Pretty scary 
if it's true. I looked back at some of his posts and found the usual Way 
stuff. I wonder if he's done yet "yawning" about Joe Johnson, for instance, 
whom he also compared to former NBA journeyman Jerry Ice Reynolds for 
reasons that aren't very clear.

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