Re: Melon Boy

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

Paul M. wrote:

Look, I agree, he looks like crap. The seventeen rebounds and team leading
assists aside, he looks like crap. We're four games in! Mother of God.....I
need to take another pill.

---end---

I knew I'd get you riled up, Paul. You're right... we're four games in.
That's why I'm not worried about Pierce (yet). It's only four games. With
Antoine it's five years. You think the Antoine of the second half of last
season is good enough. I disagree. I think the second-half surge last season
had a lot more to do with a Player of the Month performance from Pierce than
anything Toine did. Pierce was absolutely unbelievable. Meanwhile, we go
from one excuse to the other for Toine's play. Not enough talent as a
rookie... too much talent when Mercer and Pierce both were here... not
enough talent now... 

Now, could the Celtics try to build this team like the Sixers did around
Iverson? They could try. They could trade Pierce for Dikembe Mutombo or Theo
Ratliff and play Palacio in an Eric Snow role and "defensive stopper" Eric
Williams and try to find one more scrappy defender, convince them all that
the only way to win (and keep Toine happy) is to let him shoot whenever and
wherever he likes while they play defense and rebound his frequent misses.
I'm only half kidding here. They really could try to build the team around
Antoine that way. But is that what anyone wants? That seems to be the only
way to make this work with Antoine. We've tried everything else. If the team
around him has to be just exactly perfect in order for the team to win, then
Toine isn't the guy you want to build around. Look at Minnesota. They have
Kevin Garnett, but is the rest of that roster that much better than the
Celtics? Brandon and Szczerbiak are nice players, but are they better than
Pierce and Joe Johnson? My point isn't that Antoine is no Kevin Garnett
(anyone who can't see that is blinded by Celtic green), because there's no
shame in that. Garnett is a truly special player. My point is that since
Antoine isn't KG, we shouldn't be building the team around him. I don't
think anyone is thrilled about this, because it means the franchise is a lot
further away than any of us want to admit. The problem is Antoine thinks he
is a Garnett-type player and no one seems willing to tell him he's not. The
last guy to try is coaching in Louisville right now. If Toine can run Pitino
out of town, how tough would it be to do the same to O'Brien? And Obie knows
it.

Look at Chris Wallace's response to Josh's question about Erick Strickland
vs. Derek Strong... "Antoine is going to play 40 minutes a night at PF..."
The organization is operating on that edict. It's absolute. Rebounding
problems? Post-up problems? Defensive shortcomings? We'll try to fix it, but
"Antoine is going to play 40 minutes a night at PF..." He is absolutely
holding this team hostage. Trade up for a big man in the draft? Why, when we
know "Antoine is going to play 40 minutes a night at PF..." In the past six
months we've acquired Joe Johnson, Kedrick Brown, Joe Forte, Roshown McLeod
and Erick Strickland-who all basically play the same position, and all of
whom back up Eric Williams (and in some cases, Walter McCarty). But we don't
need anymore big men because "Antoine is going to play 40 minutes a night at
PF..."

It's a lot more complicated than identifying your best players and
encouraging them to shoot. You can do that when the players are
overwhelmingly good (Shaq and Kobe come to mind), but neither Walker or
Pierce are that kind of player. Selfishness is a dangerous thing. It's
contagious, and can tear a team apart. I think the Celtics are in danger of
coming apart if things don't change. A lot has changed over the last five
years. The one thing that hasn't is Toine. He's still here and he's still
the same. I'm not going to qualify it with "unless he gets his act
together..." or anything like that because we've all be qualifying our
statements about Toine for five years now. I'm just saying it... it's time
for him to go.

Mark