Re: A lighter Antoine

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

A few comments on the "lighter Antoine" thread:

Josh Ozersky wrote:
>That's great news about Antoine, and suggests to me
>that he's now probably even less likely to be able to
>handle power players down low.  I wonder if he's now
>thin enough to play some three; then we could go out
>and get Gary Trent to play some four.

I'm not sure that this is actually the case. People have a tendency to 
equate various height and weight measurements with ability to play a 
position. But whether that weight is muscle or fat makes a big difference. 
Antoine at 250 pounds was never close to matching up with the "true" 260 
pound power forwards like Karl Malone and Tim Duncan. It also seemed like 
he could be stopped inside by lightweights such as Jerome Williams at 206 
pounds. This has something to do with the fact that all of these guys are 
very low on the body fat scale.

A comparison to some fit PFs around the league:
Garnett: 6'11", 220
Antonio Davis: 6'9", 230
Jermaine O'Neal: 6'11", 226
Rasheed Wallace: 6'11", 230

PJ Brown is listed at 240, which is the weight he builds up to during the 
offseason, but I was read a quote by Riley that he basically couldn't keep 
it on during the season, dropping down to 210. All of these guys are longer 
than Antoine, which definitely helps them on both ends of the court. But I 
would say that you don't see Antoine from prior years dominating any of 
these guys strength-wise either because of his 20-30 pound weight advantage.

So I think that Antoine coming in at 225 could conceivably be a much better 
PF than Antoine at 245, because he could be both stronger and quicker at 
that weight.

Mark Berry wrote:
>Anyway, the only way I get excited about the Antoine at PG experiment is
>when it involves adding a PF to the lineup. That gives Antoine huge size
>advantages over every PG in the league. And with the size the Celts will
>have at the 2-3 positions-with JJ and Pierce-there's no easy switch. Plus,
>can you imagine Toine, JJ and Pierce covering the perimeter in a 3-2 zone?
>That kind of length would make penetration a chore.

 From last year, it seemed like the idea with the current personnel was to 
have McCarty as the additional PF in this situation. While McCarty 
hopefully isn't the long term solution in this lineup, O'Brien's use of him 
is telling. He would want a PF who can shoot from outside. When you're 
talking about Antoine having a huge size advantage against PGs, that's 
mostly only relevant if he's posting them up. (He'll be able to get his 
outside shot off easy too, but that's not a problem from the PF position 
either.) Again, if Antoine is posting up, he needs to be surrounded by at 
least three shooters to prevent the easy double team, especially with the 
lack of illegal defense calls.

Indiana had a similar situation when much of its offense was being run 
through the ugly but dreaded Mark Jackson post up, where he'd slowly back 
down the defender while the rest of the team spotted up, before they made 
that illegal. They always had Smits in for that play hanging out at the top 
of the key. He'd get a big chunk of Jackson's 10 apg sitting up there 
because they'd rather give up that shot than a 3 pointer by Miller or Rose. 
It's possible that Vitaly could play a similar role if we had a true PF 
down low like Dale Davis, because he's decent at the catch and shoot from 
17 feet. But that would be limited to one particular lineup. If you could 
add PFs that can shoot, which is more common, you'd be able to run this 
lineup with all three of our current centers, and it would help when 
Antoine is not on the floor too. Guys that the Celtics have previously been 
interested in with these characteristics: Van Horn, Nowitzki, Croshere, and 
maybe Troy Murphy.

Alex