re: antoine and obie

["Josh Ozersky" <jozersky1@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I thought this post made some interesting points.  But
it's madness to hope that Kedrick Brown turns into a
player who can "score at will" or anything like it.  We'll
be lucky if turns into a Richard Jefferson-style slasher,
w/o Jefferson's moxie and professionalism, but maybe
with a little more size and athleticism.  Antoine is the
guy who can cause trouble for defenses with his ability
to drive left and right, and his improved jump hook.  The
challenge with him isn't to transform him into a different
and better player, but merely to rein him in, rest him so
that he can expend more energy down low, and cut down
on his turnovers by turning his passing into a more intergrated
part of his game and less of a specialty skill that he brings
out on special occasions, like a proud hausfrau bringing
down the good crystal for a round of special-occasion
shnapps.  Obie is the only guy I can see doing this right
now, unless the Celtics somehow got Phil Jackson to
coach them.

a bigger source of concern for me is the presence of marcus
banks rather than obie, in a weird way.  Antoine has played
with a legit point guard before in Kenny Anderson; the experiment wasn't too
successful, although maybe that
was Kenny's fault.  We'll have to see.  Marcus should definitely
be doing skill work now on throwing perfect lob passes over
big defenders to get the ball to Twon where he wants it down
low -- he'll be only too happy to come out the line to get the
ball and then drive toward the basket in point-forward mode.
Also, I would like to see Marcus, Paul, and Antoine really
work hard on developing a multi-option give and go play, such
as Stockton and Malone ran so beautifully, or such as Steve
Nash runs with Nowitski and Mike Finley.

Josh



Roy Enrile wrote:

Disagree,  I can picture the C's eventually winning a championship with
Obie and Antoine.

The last 3 championship coaches Jackson, Popovitch, Rudyt  are similar
to Obrien in that they're no nonsense oldschool coaches who had players
that grew together, and who were abnormally loyal to the coach.  Their
teams where defensive minded, and surprise! All the offense's involved a
couple of stars surrounded by 3 pt bombers.  The proof that Obrien isn't
fake like Pitino and doesn't take crap, is that he kept benching Vin
(poor defense), even though there must have been political pressure to
play our big investment a lot.

Suppose after 4 years, Kendrick has developed as much as
JermaineOneal/RashardLewis, and scores at will in the paint.  What if
Hunter turns out as good as Brian Grant.  Then Obie's style and
Antoine's skills would be part of a really successful, balanced team.
Toine is a better player than Horace,Rodman,Thorpe,Horry ever were, so I
don't think the current setup is a lost cause.