Re: Walker stinks.....period.

[Noah Evans <ishbak@forest.STUDENT.cwru.edu>]

On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 10:12:55PM -0800, Ryan Lee wrote:
 
> have gotten Samaki Walker. Maybe Kenny "Sky" Walker.
> At least he understands the game better than Toine.
> Or maybe Jimmy Walker.  Not only an he tell a joke, he
> probably shoots better than Toine.
 
 
First let's look at your statistical arguments. You argue that,
because of perceived weaknesses in his offensive game, what twon
should really do is act as more of a utility player, concentrating on
his primary skills like rebounding.
 
That would be a fine argument if the celtics were a bad rebounding
team this year. But the Celtics actually are actually outrebounding or
staying even with the opposing team, so it's hard to argue that the
celtics need to do more work on rebounding.
 
The celtics most obvious deficiency is field goal percentage which is
indicative of poor scoring efficiency.
 
Antoine is obviously the main culprit. You assert that somehow the
celtics would be a more efficient scoring team if Antoine gave other
members of the team more shots.
 
I would argue that assuming that other celtics could make up for
decreased scoring work by Antoine is hardly a forgone conclusion. Look
at the players you mention: Forte, Pierce, Johnson and Kenny.
 
Let's look at each player you mention starting with Forte:
 
Forte can't even stay on the active roster. He must have some
deficiencies to the coach such that he was replaced by strickland on
the active roster. Let's assume the coach is wrong in his lack of
trust in Forte and let's also assume that Forte would actually be the
scorer you believe he would. Would Forte actually help the team in
this role? He's not the playmaker Kenny is, so would you start him
with Kenny, or would you start him instead of Kenny and deal with the
resulting offensive inefficiency?
 
As for Pierce, doesn't he get his shots already? He already takes
roughly the same amount of shots as Antoine would giving him even more
of the scoring load actually help the Celtics offensively? You'd have
to assume that relying on Pierce even more for offense would make the
C's even more predictable and our offense more inefficient.
 
As for Johnson, I don't think he can create his shot well enough(yet)
to be the sort of scorer we need. Most of the points I've seen Johnson
get(I've only seen the Cleveland game so I may be wrong here) have
come in the flow of the offense.
 
As for Kenny, for his career his field goal percentage is actually
appreciably *worse* than Antoine.
 
I'd like to argue that, until Johnson or Kendrick develops or we get a
third scorer, we *have* to rely on Antoine for a percentage of our
offense similar to what we get now. Antoine's main skill is getting
his shot. These shots might get rejected or miss for the most part,
but right now we don't have anyone else other than Pierce that can
actually beat his man one on one consistently.
 
Antoine's ability to get his own shot is what allows for the other
players on our team to get points. Do you really think that Battie,
Potapenko or Blount would score at all if teams payed any defensive
attention to them at all? Johnson's outside shot still seems too weak
for him to be expected to hit anything other than wide open
opportunities.
 
I think that's really the key to understanding Antoine's value to the
team. Outside of Antoine and Pierce the celtics probably have the
*worst* team in the league in terms of talent.  Mccarty, Williams,
Blount and Palacio would barely be 12th men on other NBA teams. Kenny,
Potapenko and Battie are probably 8th men at best.  The fact that we
get anything out of these players at all is probably more of a credit
to the opportunities provided Antoine's offensive game, as bad as it
is, rather than reason to give these players more opportunity in the
offense. The fact that we win at all is a miracle that should be
credited to Pierce's talent foremost but definitely crediting Antoine
for his contributions.
 
Second, outside of your statistical arguments you constantly seem to
be arguing that Antoine's inefficiencies must be due to some extreme
flaws in his character. You constantly assign to him motives that
no-one but people who actually know Antoine could possibly
discern. Maybe he does take a lot of shots because he's a selfish
player only out for his own statistics; but then again maybe he's
taking a lot of shots because he thinks it's the best way to help the
team win. We don't know and will probably never know. To make
assertions like that just makes your arguments look petty and
irrational.
 
Noah