Antoine's season; Was Antoine vs. Kings

["Jim Meninno" <Jim_Meninno@hotmail.com>]

Personally, I think this has been Antoine's best year as a Celtic, so far.
I'll point to some stats (both good and bad) that back up the impressions
I've reached from watching the games.

First the good.  His scoring is about the same as in his second year, when
he was named to the all-star team.  More importantly, this is the first year
since then that his rebounding has been close to that level, which was the
stat that probably got him named to the team, AND his assists are at the
highest level of his career.  The assists are largely due to the increased
role he has assumed in running the offense of the Celtics, and his turnovers
have also increased as a result.  He's also, finally, started hitting his
free throws at an acceptable rate, with plenty of room for future
improvement.  I still find it compelling that he is capable of putting up
the kind of balanced offensive stats that few others can game after game.

Now the bad.  He's shooting worse than he ever has from the field.  His
percentage currently stands at .412, which is what he averaged in the
lockout year, but he's hitting a lot more three's than he was then.  He's
also getting to the line a lot less than he has in the past.  Add these
facts together, realizing that his scoring is as high as it's ever been, and
you can see that his offense has actually moved significantly away from the
basket this year.  From my observations, I would guess that if you charted
his shots, you'd find that he's having much greater success with his mid
range shooting and much less with his low post scoring.  That is not what
most people want to see from him.  The amazing part is that he seems to be
getting his shot blocked more than ever, if that's possible.  His actual
"shooting" appears to be much better, although there are no numbers you can
find to prove this.

All in all, I'd say that Antoine has continued to show that he is one of the
most versatile players in the league.  The league seems to be catching up
with his low post moves, by collapsing on him with double and triple teams,
which he tries to beat himself far too often.  He has worked on areas of his
game which needed it, primarily jump shooting and free throw shooting, with
perceptible results.  He's added even more "point forward" duties than he's
had in the past, and shown that he's capable of doing it while maintaining
excellent rebounding numbers.  He has seemed to be in good shape since the
start of the season.  The only controversy around him this year has been a
quote he supposedly made to Jim O'Brien about getting "touches" in the dying
moments of the Pitino Empire, although it's completely unclear exactly who
is supposed to have heard him say it.  At first it was supposed to have come
from a player, and later it was credited to Pitino, himself.  I guess I'd be
a lot more inclined to believe he was "selfish" if he wasn't leading the
team in assists and rebounds.

Of course, even if you agree with me that this is as well as Antoine's
played for half a season, it doesn't mean that you think he's the player
that will lead the Celtics to their next championships.  There's plenty of
good debate to be had over the next few months about that kind of thing, as
the front office situation plays itself out.  Myself, I'm in the camp that
believes this team isn't bad because of Antoine Walker, but because they
don't have enough players with his level of talent.

Jim