Re: Walker stinks.....period.

["Cecil Wright" <cecil@hfx.eastlink.ca>]

C'mon Noah...you know Ryan doesn't handle your kind of discussion well.  You
need to call a few names and try to be as humiliating as possible.   Check
out the tone of this snippet from Ryan:

> And if you ever played
> basketball you would know that it's pretty damn hard
> to hit shots consistenly if you don't get the ball
> enough to get into a shooting rhythm.  So please stop
> using couch potato statistical arguments and
> apologizing for Walker's faults.

As if nobody on this list, or even you for that matter, ever played
basketball, other than he.  Very presumptuous on his part.

On another note, and I don't know how many others on this list are of
African descent, however, it would please me if Ryan would use another
moniker to attach to Toine other than Melon, but that will probably give him
a sense of glee since expecting him to understand why may be too much to
ask.

Cecil







----- Original Message -----
From: "Noah Evans" <ishbak@forest.STUDENT.cwru.edu>
To: <celtics@igtc.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2001 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: Walker stinks.....period.


> 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