Re: Mike Fine - Time to move Antoine?

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

At 01:48 PM 1/15/01 -0800, Thomas Murphy wrote: 
>
> Unfortunately for Portland, Davis has also complained about playing time
- so
> perhaps the problem caused by a logjam at PF/C hasn't been solved by the
> subtraction of O'Neal. Add to that the emergence of Bonzi Wells and recent
> demotion of Steve Smith to the second team and you can see why chemistry
> issues may lead to a desire to move some of the older (and still effective)
> players given the presence of other even more effective players at the same
> positions. Walker would add versatility at SF/PF and I'm sure many GM's
would
> view him as a risk worthy of chancing IF you have some veterans to keep him
> in line. How about a big line-up of Pippen, Wells, Walker, Wallace and
> Sabonis/Kemp? So Portland would still position themselves for today but with
> a better distribution of minutes and hence better chemistry as well as
> positioning themselves for a future without Pippen, Sabonis, Kemp etc. Not
> that this is a knock-down argument, but still an argument could merit some
> thought from Portland's perspective - certainly more than the offer of three
> draft picks. 


I really doubt that Walker would improve Portland's chemistry. On that team,
Walker would not only be complaining about playing time, but the amount of
touches and his stats also. I mean, if that team has relatively unselfish role
players like Dale Davis and Brian Grant complaining, how are they going to
handle Antoine? I doubt they would want him for backup PF over Davis (who can
also play center), given the dominating power forwards in the Western
Conference. And he's an inferior SF to Pippen, who is a better shooter,
defender, and distributor at that position. They'd have to be convinced
somehow
that he can be their SF for the future, and for some reason want to be
positioning themselves primarily for the future this season. It doesn't help
their team right now.

Antoine has more value to another, less deep team than Portland. Waiting for
the end of the season when his BYC expires will open up more possibility for
trades. I would think that trading for Toronto's Antonio Davis would actually
make more sense for both sides. Toronto is actually trying to get younger as
evidenced by their Willis for Keon Clark trade, needs a secondary scorer to
Vince Carter, and may lose Davis to free agent.

Alex