Re: Johnson Touted As Rookie With The Most Impact

[Noah Evans <ishbak@forest.STUDENT.cwru.edu>]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 10:22:15AM +0800, kevin wrote:
> Bob is correct here. I based my opinion watching only 3 games last
> season (all under Pitino) on tv and quotes by the players/coaches on
> the papers (via internet). But generally, if your teamates throws up
> brick after brick (with 20 sec on the shotclock remaining) without any
> objections from your coach (pitino mostly, but OBie's guilty of some
> too), it just kills your own desire to be "responsible".

Well if there were other "responsible" players who could actually
score, it would be more appriopriate to bash on Walker if he jacked up
shots and ignored everybody else. But really the celtics were a two
man show last year. Unless anyone is willing to argue that the c's
have another scorer outside of Pierce and Walker any detrimental
selfishness on Walker's part would have to come at the expense of
Pierce. So let's compare the actual number of shots taken(including
shots taken that end up in free throw attempts).

fg attempts + free throws/2(this is inaccurate since it doesn't
account for three point plays)

Pierce 1882 

Walker 1894

Shots taken are a virtual wash. Pierce was significantly more
effective in terms of actually converting these shot attempts into
points(by going to the line and making more shots). But in terms of
actually being a hog it's pretty hard to blame Walker. Who would he
have given the ball to? Kenny? Vitaly? Walter? The celtics talent
level was pretty thin and Walker still averaged a ton of assists.

It's impossible to truly condemn Walker until he has a decent level of
scoring talent around him. Hopefully Forte, Brown and Johnson will all
provide a level of offensive firepower that allows Walker to take
shots that are easier to make and perhaps fewer of them.  Then he can
be justifiably criticized for being a shot hog. But it's pretty hard
to blame him for forcing his offense when there's really no support.

One other point that hasn't been metioned for a while. During the
glorious first couple of games right after Kenny came to the celtics
Walker's percentage shot up to normal NBA levels(almost 48% IIRC). A
few games is hardly a good sample for making conclusions, but it would
indicate that people who accuse Walker of being the source of the
team's problems ignore structural flaws in the team itself.


Noah