Re: Antoine Walker/Draft

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

At 20:59 24/06/01 -0700, you wrote:
>I have never said he was not a talented player to give up for nothing 
>(...)Stephon Marbury is another talented player that does not seem to make 
>teams better. This is why Jersey is now looking to move him.

I respect where John Lyell is coming from, but "making teams better" is not 
a persuasive argument in this context. Every Walker scenario I've read over 
the past few years has involved trading him for a franchise player making 
his team better to the tune of 15-20 wins per year (Elton Brand, Bibby 
and/or Michael Dickerson, Shareef every year, Mo Taylor or Kandi before). 
If those guys were so preferable to Antoine, there teams would win more.

I think some guys may slightly overrate the value of franchise players who 
play a traditional role instead of a hybrid one like Antoine. It is a 
"grass is greener" perspective, except that the crabgrass underneath Elton 
Brand or Shareef isn't greener than what we have here. It is just that we 
focus on all the negatives here. Yes some do well sticking to a traditional 
position, whereas other championship programs choose to build instead 
around versatile "tweeners" (Larry Bird, Iverson, Kobe, Garnett, Magic, 
even Duncan and MJ).

On a different note, you often hear the argument that "if so and so took 25 
shots a night, he'd average 20 points too". Most players wouldn't be able 
to create 20 shots for themselves in a game. And if the defense were keyed 
into what was coming on a nightly basis,  the guy would be lucky to even 
get off 10 hail mary's in a game.

Playing in organized games, I know that our team's "go-to" scorer is going 
to have a weaker shooting percentage than I will as a spot-up shooter. But 
you'll have to trust me that I couldn't force up 20 shots in a game against 
a good defender even if I played from sunrise to sunset. I've also been on 
teams with one exceptional scorer where the coach starts out the season 
preaching "team basketball" and so-and-so number of passes before you shoot 
etc., and we end up losing games we should win, playing hot potato with the 
ball. Someone's got to take charge. It is good coaching to find your most 
talented scorer and create plays for him.

Yet I've always been the first guy to criticize a ball hog with a weak 
shooting percentage on a losing team (like a Mashburn or Aguirre at Dallas, 
Sprewell at GS, or Ron Harper at Cleveland), even though you'll notice I've 
never criticized Antoine Walker. If you don't know the difference between 
Antoine Walker and other ballhog shooters, then you don't know basketball 
period.

I'm not saying don't trade Antoine under the right scenario (and John 
Lyell's not saying anything less either, BTW). But I would say this is a 
akin to selling out of a company you built, a few months befor the IPO. It 
becomes a complete waste of our time to dump Antoine at 24....similar to 
what Clippers fans suffer through. Those guys listed above (all are 
inferior all-around talents than Antoine) were dumped in a very similar way 
and went on to reach their athletic peak at the tender age of 27 (yeah, 
what a shocker). They went on to help their new teams win or compete for 
championships. Why do you think there remains an NBA heirarchy of the great 
teams and the farm teams, despite the lottery system? Where do the Boston 
Celtics fit in this picture? Loser teams trade their best players before 
they reach NBA maturity.You can counter-argue that these teams congenitally 
make bad draft situations at the top of the lottery, but has that really 
been the case for the Grizzlies or Clippers?

***