Re: Walker at PF?

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

At 01:35 PM 3/12/01 -0500, Berry, Mark  S wrote:
>If the team isn't willing to make that fundamental change in direction,
>trade Toine this offseason. You can't win with an undersized,
>perimeter-oriented power forward.

Mark, 

I'm not so sure that the idea of moving Antoine to the small forward
position is actually a "fundamental change in direction." I believe that
the current situation has been motivated more by the current needs of the
team than some sort of long term vision about Antoine's true position. 

In particular, even if Battie were healthy, I don't think it's clear by any
stretch that Antoine would be better placed at small forward. First of all,
the spacing on offense would hurt the ability of Antoine or Paul to post on
the inside, because Battie/Potapenko/Blount collectively have limited range
on offense. The other team would easily collapse on any inside attempt. And
right now that's a large part of our offense. I don't think you can replace
that by dumping it in to Battie etc. to work their low-post magic.

But if the Celtics really could acquire a true low-post offensive threat
(that could defend inside too), then my guess is that they would move
Antoine to small forward. There's quite a bit of evidence that they've
tried to do that in the past. For instance, the acquisition of Fortson had
to have been made with Antoine as a SF in mind... in fact right before the
injury, Pitino had declared Fortson the starting power forward. But even
after that failure, the drafting of Moiso, the addition of Blount, and the
attempted acquisition of Jermaine O'Neal point to attempts to bolster that
C/PF rotation. I doubt, for instance, that they drafted Moiso with the
long-term goal of having him play 8 minutes of backup power forward behind
Antoine.

To me, your argument sounds like, 
   "The Celtics should 
	1. really try to get a good PF/C 
	2. so that they can move Antoine to SF 
	3. or else trade him this offseason." 
I think everyone agrees with the first part. I would further agree that
they can't win a championship with their current PF/C core. I would also
agree with trying the second part, though it could be that Antoine at PF
and a true center could be a good lineup. If they get a PF, then definitely.

It's the third part that I'm skeptical about. I think that it's almost
guaranteed that the Celtics will attempt to use some of their resources --
their draft picks, exception slots, and tradable players -- to upgrade
their PF/C positions. The question is, how far do you push? Do you offer a
Pierce for Antonio Davis type of trade? If you don't, I would say it's
quite possible that we don't really get a decent 2-way inside player, at
least not one that is ready right now.

And if you don't manage to get that player, is that when you pull the
trigger on Antoine? Or do you keep waiting for additional opportunities? 

For me, it seems obvious that you do just about anything short of trading
Paul or Antoine to get a decent inside player. I'm not talking about Webber
here, but a player like Antonio Davis or Jermaine O'Neal. But if you can't
get that, then I don't think you pull the trigger yet, just because you
don't think we can win with Antoine at PF. 

The other thing about your statement is, what exactly are you expecting to
get back when you trade Walker this offseason? I mean, this sort of
ultimatum statement (move him to small forward or trade him) doesn't really
make that much sense without the context of what you expect to receive in
return, unless you are advocating trading him solely to get rid of him.
Would you trade him for Dale Davis? Antonio Davis? Jermaine O'Neal? Theo
Ratliff? A draft pick?

Alex