Kenny vs Milt

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

I've mentioned this before, but Kenny has a decent year in 99-00. Last year 
he stunk but injuries were a factor. Obviously he's not Jason Kidd, but 
it's not exactly fair that he's vilified as a shoot-first, pass-second 
point guard while most would prefer our "shoot last, but pass even less" 
third-stringer Milt Palacio.

99-00 Kenny: 7.8 assists/48 mins
00-01 Kenny: 7.6 assists/48 mins
00-11 Milt: 6.4 assists/48 mins

Palacio does play better defense and he played more time in the O'Brien 
version "Antoine as point forward" offense which doesn't give him as many 
passing opportunities. But my point is that Palacio is hardly a passing 
point guard, and his own offense is much inferior to Kenny's. The 
expectations are much lower because he's a CBA type with a small contract 
as opposed to #2 pick Kenny with the $50M contract. But on the court Milt's 
just not as good as a healthy Kenny, as much of a boneheaded waste of 
talent as he is. I don't think it's any coincidence that Antoine shot a 
much higher 2-pt percentage when Kenny was healthy, because he got to spend 
more time down low instead of being the point forward, and actually was on 
the receiving end of some assists. That's why I actually believe Jim 
O'Brien and Chris Wallace when he says that he's expecting Kenny to come 
back, be the starting point guard, and help the team.

Of course, if Wallace gets the chance to dump Kenny's contract, I'm sure 
he'll jump at it. But that's a separate issue. Kenny hurts the team through 
the cap, but he can still help the team on the court, relative to the other 
point guards we have. I really think that if Kenny was some 30 year old CBA 
type that signed with us for the minimum, but played exactly the same, we'd 
be raving about him. It stinks that he plays so poorly for his contract and 
his pedigree (and what we had to give up to trade for him), but that 
doesn't mean the team would be better off cutting him.

Alex