prediction and other thoughts

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

' ``We need mobility at the 4 and a good ballhandler, and I don't think at
this point in time that our team is comfortable with two big guys playing
together,'' O'Brien said. ``I think we are vulnerable to being pressed and
vulnerable to having Paul trapped in the low post with those guys. I always
prefer to have four 3-point shooters on the court at one time. And the
other reason is that I think that Eric is a guy that I want to manufacture
as many minutes as possible to have him on the court.'' '

When I read this paragraph, all my fears about JOB's coaching philosophy
seemed to be confirmed at once. "There goes the season", I thought.  Let's
play four shooting guards with a third-string C/PF who can't rebound, while
substituting a 9 rpg rebounder with a 2 rpg rebounder at PF. If playing
Blount/Pot and Williams at C and PF is not an invitation to get murdered on
the boards, I don't know what is. 

Furthermore, Obie wants four 3-point shooters on the court at all times.
We have so many proven high-% 3-point shooters on this team that we should
just let'em fly without worrying about offensive rebounding - there will
hardly be any rebounds to collect, given our deadly accuracy. On the
defensive end, we don't have to worry about rebounding either, as Eric "The
Terminator" Williams won't even allow the opponent to get a shot off on
most possessions, if you buy into Obie's propaganda.
  
Seriously, I don't think Eric Williams is as bad a player as his stats
suggest, and could be useful in limited circumstances. But come on - now
he's so good that he's going to play power forward at 6-7 and 220, in
addition to SG and SF?! Gimme a break. I know this is only going to be for
a few minutes a game, but the very fact is an indictment of either Obie's
basketball philosophy, Celtics management's criminal refusal to obtain a
servicable backup PF in the offseason, or, most likely, both. 
 
' ``There's nothing that [Battie] has done better than the other two, other
than the fact that when he's on the court, we keep a plus-minus system and
he's done a good job,'' O'Brien said. ``He has the highest plus-minus of
any of our centers.'

This plus/minus issue has been discussed on the list before. While I have
no quarrel with Battie's starting (the alternatives aren't exactly
appealing), I wonder whether the Celtics staff understand that the measure
is likely to be meaningless if you don't control for important variables
either experimentally or statistically - like whom the player is playing
with and against while hes' being rated. In Battie's case it doesn't matter
- we already know that he's better than Pot and Blount without any stats.
But I wonder if the Phoenix-like rise of Eric's stock  is not attributable
to the same tea-leaves reading of simplistically used statistics? Williams
plays with the starters a lot, as he's been named a starter himself.
However, if you played ME  with the starters, and played Michael Jordan
with Blount, Salvadori, McCarty, and Herren, I would probably have a better
+/- rating than Jordan, through no agency of my own. 

With all that said, there are some reasons for guarded optimism. Walker is
a better, more mature player than last season.  Battie -  the only
talented, if incomplete, big guy on the team - is back. Palacio can shoot
now.  The combined contribution of the rookies should surpass that  by
Stith, Griffin and Carr even this year. Heck, even Kenny and Eric are
better than last season, for what it's worth (not much).  I've seen
attempts at fast break after a 3.5-year-long nuclear winter.  They all seem
to love Obie, his wacky basketball philosophy notwithstanding, as well as
each other, and that's more important in the NBA than any X's and O's, as
we know.  If there are no major injuries, and the lovefest continues, I
predict they will do as well as they have so far in Obie's reign - .500
ball and thus a 41-41 record. 
Kestas