RE: Antoine (was Re: Johnson Touted As Rookie With The Most Impac t)

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

Hi Joe,

I don't have a problem with "value for money" when it comes to Toine. Like
you said, there are far worse offenders on the Celtic roster than Toine. The
problem is, the team isn't built around anyone else. It is built around
Toine and Pierce. They bear more responsibility than anyone else on the
roster. Pierce really seemed to respond as he took on more responsibility
last season. I didn't feel Walker responded. His idea of increased
responsibility seemed to be dominating the ball and shooting whenever and
from wherever he wanted. You can't build your team around that kind of
player. Some say Antoine makes his teammates better. I say he's capable, but
his unwillingness to do so is his greatest weakness.

As for thanking our lucky stars... we traded into the top 6 in the Antoine
draft because there was a clear demarcation at that point. It was obvious we
would get one of six "impact" players, most likely either Antoine or Ray
Allen. I think the top five went Iverson, Camby, Shareef, Marbury, Allen.
Where Antoine fits among those top six is debatable, but that draft wasn't
just blind luck. That was M.L. Carr's lone good move. If we had stayed at 9,
we would have come away with Samaki Walker and Eric Montross.

Bottom line... Antoine's not a guy you build a winning team around, and I've
seen no indication that he's ready to blend in and start filling up the stat
sheet. In fact, he seemed to regress in terms of his floor game last year.
He turned into a bomber. As for the rebound+assist combo... remember, he
gets the best of both worlds for those stats. He plays PF on defense, so
he's close to the basket for defensive rebound opportunities, and he plays
de facto PG on offense, so he gets more opportunities than anyone to
initiate the offense. Everyone who talks about how great he would be if he
averaged 18 ppg, 12 rpg and 5 apg while shooting a good percentage is right.
He would be great. But he's moving further and further away from that, and
why would anyone think he's suddenly going to change?

I'm tired of seeing this team held hostage waiting for Antoine. The Celtics
play without a true PF or PG because Toine wants to defend the PFs (so he
doesn't have to chase the smaller guys) while initiating the offense. The
team is so structurally flawed-all these guys at the swing positions, no
true PF, no PG, lousy centers-and so much of the reason is the franchise
waiting on Antoine to find his niche. You can't build your team around a
player who, after five years, you still can't comfortably place in a
position on the floor.

Mark

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	j.hironaka [mailto:j.hironaka@unesco.org] 
Sent:	Thursday, September 27, 2001 2:04 PM
To:	Berry, Mark  S; 'Alexander Wang'; Berry, Mark  S; Berry, Mark  S;
'celtics@igtc.com'
Subject:	RE: Antoine (was Re: Johnson Touted As Rookie With The Most
Impac t)

To me an open look from the outside is a "good" shot to take (certainly by 
Pitino/Obie's definition)

A drive to the basket that draws contact is a "good" shot to take.

What percentage of Antoine's shot selection fall outside that category game 
after game?

Those are the shots he should be criticized for.

I certainly agree Toine shoots too much, but other gunners don't average 
five-and-a-half assists or lead their team in rebounds for the fourth 
straight year. These are saving graces.

I hope Walker improves. I realize fully why some of you don't see much hope 
for improvement. Its a real worry.

But as things stand right now with the Celtics, he's NOT the cause of our 
problems but our scapegoat.

He isn't beyond criticism. But even in terms of "value for money" (I feel 
this is the only justifiable grounds for fans to bash his production while 
making saints out of guys who do nothing like Chris Herren) Walker still 
isn't the worst offender on the team Pitino built.

For instance, he's got serious competition from Kenny and Eric Williams. Or 
Battie and Vitaly. Or our 14th man Walter McCarty.

To me Walker's an overachiever, just like Pierce in a different way. They 
are competitors.

Here's a fact. We should feel blessed by the Leprechaun on those two draft 
nights (and hopefully this past one).

I remind you that the guys picked immediately after Walker were (in order) 
Lorenzen Wright, Kerry Kittles, Samaki Walker, Erick Dampier and Todd 
Fuller. A few extra one-point wins that season and the probability is high 
that we'd still be, ahem, "rebuilding" around one of those guys.

Then came the draft where St Paul fell into our laps. But what if it were 
Traylor Trash that slipped instead of Pierce? Thank goodness that was the 
first and only time to date that Robert Traylor committed himself to losing 
weight and conditioning in order to boost his draft standing. Or what if 
Paul Pierce was long gone in the top five and we had to go with our 
projected selection Keon Clark?

We've had some tough times but it could be a lot worse. Rebuilding has been 
slow, but it can be potentially sweet and I enjoy being a fan. For 
instance, this is a better team than the one playing on fumes after Bird 
broke down that continued to win 45ish games. Frankly, a lot of teams in 
the East today are "better" than Boston right now because key components of 
there success are based on the cohesion of similarly decrepit veteran core 
players like the McHale-Pinckney-Parish-X-man Celtics of that era. Those 
teams may also be running on fumes, and facing the same down trend that 
Boston had in the last decade. Especially with the salary cap plus luxury 
tax. There's no easy way to buy yourself back into contention.

We're poised to make some real progress over the next two years. At least 
getting to the Milwaukee Bucks level is certainly within the realm of 
possibility.

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