Re: Antoine Walker

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

At 21:29 3/31/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>The Celtics are 26-4 when Antoine gets at least 6 assists. They are 15-1 
>when he gets at least 8 assists. Those are pretty striking statistics. 
>Moral of the story: Antoine needs to pass the ball and run the offense. 
>When he does this team is pretty good, and certainly plays above its talent 
>level. When Antoine is not racking up assists, the Cs have trouble even 
>beating lottery teams, because they are a lottery team. Do the math: they 
>are 16-28 when he gets 5 or less assists in a game.

While I agree with your general point (that Walker should be running the
offense more and looking to score himself less), you're falling into the
usual trap of equating correlation with causation. There could be many
reasons for their inferior record when Toine has 5 or fewer assists. E.g.,
his teammates not hitting the shots even though Walker is passing just as
much and just as well, tighter defense by, or  better quality of, the
opponents or any combination thereof. One can't draw any meaningful
conclusions based on the assist split without accounting for these other
factors.  

Kestas

PS So what did you people think of the FleeceCenter crowd's booing of
Walker for his 3-point barrage, with the Celtics up by 20+? 
PPS Did anyone boo Kedrick or Forte?