Re: On The Trading Block

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

Not to beat a dead horse, but while most people say Antoine needs to stay 
inside the paint, we also know that this year he's shooting 36% from 
2-point range, but better than 40% from three-point land. Doesn't sounds 
like a power forward to me......roster talent permitting.

To go further, last season Walker shot .439 (190-1117) inside the arc and 
very few of those shots or misses were mid-range jumpshots.

The fact is Boston has accumulated three lotto pick big guys, and two of 
them haven't panned out (Battie and Potapenko). Walker is our power forward 
by default (coaching philosophy obviously comes into play as well).

The larger picture may be that Walker is asked to do too much at this stage 
in his career, or perhaps at any stage. Statistics might bear out that he's 
a jack-of-all-trades player, but they also illustrate that he can't be an 
effective "traditional" power forward for the Celtics unless he really 
focuses on that skill alone. And even then, there's no guarantee its a 
smart move.

For instance, two years ago  a younger Walker shot .471 (575-1221) from 
two-point range and .256 on treys. The next year, he improved dramatically 
on his perimeter game (his 3FG% was about the same as Bird's career 
average) but, as noted, at the cost of his 2-point accuracy (.439). Note 
the inverse correlation between those two stats.

Let's say its reasonable that he hasn't yet put the whole package together 
(scoring accuracy both inside and out). He's shown he can do both, but not 
at the same time. He *might* get there someday, in which case he'd probably 
win the MVP. But the odds are he can't assimulate all those things. Bear in 
mind that if he fails he'd be no different than every NBA player in history 
not named Bird, who you could have split into two players and gotten two 
Hall of Famers (unstoppable scorer who was the best passing forward in 
history, and a 25-10 power forward with the greatest range of scoring 
skills ever seen).

Getting back to my point about the power forward market, we know Obie wants 
four guys on the floor at all times to chuck up treys. Under a different 
coaching staff I think a 50% shooting low post anchor ought to be precisely 
what the team is looking for. On 28 other teams, it would be viewed as a need.

Bird had McHale and their scoring and rebounding dominance overwhelmed any 
defensive shortcomings against quicker players, although neither would have 
been able to play as well in Pitino's system. Beggar's can't be choosers, 
so Walker might have looked pretty good playing alongside a Derek Coleman 
(in the rumoured Kenny swap). That's a 20-20 hindsight observation on my 
part if ever there was one.

Walker is probably being used closer to the best of his overall abilities 
than if he were playing only with his back to the basket against bigger and 
more athletic defenders. Fans want to lock him in the paint in part to 
teach him some kind of lesson on how not to be uppity. But that might not 
be in the interest of the team. At least it shouldn't be some sort of 
foregone conclusion.

Right now if fans have a problem with the efficiency of our power forwards, 
maybe we ought to *blame* Potapenko, Battie and a coaching staff that would 
rather sell their first born daughter to the Taliban than play someone like 
Danny Fortson or explore addressing the need in through the draft. I'm 
happy with the Celtics drafting philosophy, but this is a team that didn't 
even bother to interview or workout Kwame, Curry or Chandler (or any of the 
consensus top picks) just in case it might prove worthwhile to trade up.