re: Jordan's two cents

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

I've followed the games but I'm just catching up to the list after a few 
days down with the flu.

I appreciate Michael Jordan for the mentorly pre-game advice he gave on 
Walker, just as some of us hoped he would do in addressing Walker's 
season-long slump. What's admirable is that by getting through to Toine, MJ 
actually damaged his own team's chances in the game. MJ could have easily 
played mind games and said "Walker should keep right on shooting because 
eventually its going to fall." But he didn't do that. The end result is his 
team loses by 9, even though he helped hold Pierce to just 2 points in the 
second half and outscored him by 18 overall.

This marks the end to round one of the annual "St Paul versus bin Walker" 
debate. Like many of you, when I first read Jordan's quotes on Walker I 
thought: "MJ has the basketball IQ of an escargot ". The game has passed 
that geezer by. Admittedly that is also how I felt about Larry Bird being 
the only head coach whose name was ever linked to any plausible trade 
rumors involving Antoine Walker in the past three years. If MJ and Larry 
could only listen to our Ryan Lee, who actually watches all the games! ;-)

That jibe was meant in good humor, and I hope it is taken that way. Ryan is 
the guy who coined my nickname "Zeronaka", which I admit is a good one. To 
be fair to Ryan and other one-trick ponies, it wasn't uncalled for to kick 
Walker when he is down. I think people on this list, including Ryan, were 
legitimately alarmed by Walker's shooting slump. He sucked.

But please disabuse me of one lingering doubt. If Walker swapped stats with 
Pierce's less than stellar numbers through the first four games, how many 
of us besides Ryan might have still instinctively singled out Walker as the 
evil doer? We're talking seventh on the team in assists!? 90 shot 
attempts!? Why NOT trade the selfish ballhog. He isn't helping his 
teammates at all. But meanwhile you've got to love St Paul, who at least is 
*quietly* contributing 5.5 assists and 11+ rebounds. These positive numbers 
aren't "deceiving", how dare you suggest that! Paul's just in a horrible 
slump that's all...shooting close to 20% worse than his career 2-pt FG%. 
That can't last forever.

I'm exaggerating the"St Paul versus bin Walker" comparison for effect, but 
that's basically how we tend to rationalize this sort of thing. Oh sure 
Walker is a year older. Trust me, in a year's time we will be booing Paul 
Pierce as well. Trust me. We've got to get our kicks in when Walker is 
down. If he had shot even his usual, unacceptable 2-point FG average in 
those two losses, we'd be a 5-0 team right now. Instead we are 3-2.

I haven't caught up on the whole debate, but I just want to say that Paul M 
really brings a refreshing perspective to things with his humor. Over the 
first four games, the main criticism I've read has been that Antoine isn't 
passing the ball enough to Boston's other three starters like ex-McNuggets 
"El Busto" and third scorer Eric Williams (.362FG% last year), or the ever 
reliable Kenny Anderson. Pitino worked so hard to build this team, and yet 
this supporting cast is being ignored by you-know-who. Thanks to Antoine 
our bench can't score to save their lives in the first four games. It is a 
travesty to see so much *talent* being wasted as a result of having 
"Anthrax" Walker on our roster.

As I wrote in my won-loss prediction, this is going to be a schitzophrenic 
season. Boston is stuck between being a 2-man, "ball hog" lineup with .500+ 
upside and one that could eventually have five guys capable of scoring and 
creating with the ball like the old Celtics. Clearly Forte and Kedrick have 
a long way to go just to catch up to the wily Eric Williams' of the present 
NBA landscape. Our 2001 rookie class isn't even old enough to order a beer 
after all. None of this is likely to blossom, if it does at all, until 2003.

In the meantime, we have to live with Walker carrying a heavier offensive 
load than his talent allows. That's my point of agreement with the rest of 
you. Over a season, that's probably going to mean a crummy 42% shooting 
from the field overall. Walker's still well below even that level of 
effectiveness at the moment (.356%). He'll likely need several more weeks 
of good games just to get back to par. Yesterday was a good start.

Joe H.

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