Re: Rahim..

[Kestas <Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu>]

At 07:07 11/22/2001 EST, you wrote:
>Even though his game is less versatile, i.e. he isn't a three point shooter 
>perhaps
>we have to admit he is better then Walker. 

For me, it's a  no-brainer. In the NBA, it's always better to do one thing
extremely well, than to do a lot of them OK. Before someone accuses me of
valuing a Steve Kerr over Antoine Walker, by "do one thing extremely well"
I don't mean "to the exclusion of other NBA skills" (again, like Steve
Kerr).  Rather, it's being extremely good at one thing, decent at a few
others, with not too many glaring weaknesses.  For example, on the scale of
1-10 rating various NBA skills (scoring, rebounding, passing, D etc.), it's
better to have a 10, some 7s, and a couple of 4s, than 7s and 8s across the
board. The latter case makes one a nice complementary player - if the
player has a realistic view of his skills. Shareed is a stud scorer out to
20 feet, and an excellent rebounder. Antoine is a complementary player who
thinks he is a stud scorer, and that's basically the problem. (An
alternative viewpoint offered on this list was that he is "forced" to take
bad shots by the lack of talent on the Celtics' roster.)  

As for Antoine's being overmatched down low (notice how his few good games
in the post come against the likes of Nesby and Popeye Jones), it's part of
the problem, but not all of it. People like Adrian Dantley and Mark Aguirre
could score down low with the best of them, even though they were around
6-4, 6-5 and couldn't jump. Antoine's missing basic skills of how to get
his shot off under the basket. He has no idea how to create space to get
his shot off, or how to keep the defender(s) off balance by faking. 

Case in point: he got the ball under the basket last night with defenders
behind him. Instead of either 1) throwing a few fakes or 2) jumping up and
backwards and releasing the ball in front of him, he put the ball over and
behind his head, rather like a child, and made this feeble attempt to jump
and lay it in. Of course, he got stuffed again. 

Case #2: He was squared up to the basket about 15 feet out, with the
defender hanging on his shooting hand. Instead of thowing a few ball fakes
to loosen the defender and then releasing the shot in the same motion
(Pierce does this very well), he shuffled his feet awkwardly, causing his
whole body to shake in this weird, incoherent fashion, and then released
the shot with no rhyme or reason. Even before the ball left his hands, it
was obvious it had no chance of going in, so out-of-kilter was he. 


>And what's the deal with Blount?! Why does he get so many minutes? 
>Can anyone explain that? 

He's our de facto high lottery pick, remember? Gotta play him. Of course,
the same logic doesn't apply to Kedrick or Forte or even Pot.