Re: Inefficient scoring

[Kestutis.Kveraga@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Kestutis Kveraga)]

--- You wrote:
I'm not saying Antoine doesn't do some good things, but this gets to the
heart of what bothers many of us about Antoine-the guy's career numbers
clearly show he's not a good shooter or efficient scorer. Yet he continues
to hoist shots at near a league-leading rate. I guess a lot of fans have
just accepted it and bought into Obie's company line about the perfect
Antoine, but some of us haven't.
--- end of quote ---

I have been curious for a long time - would Obie be coaching the way he is
without Toine? That is, is it ALL based on what Toine wants, or is it at least
partly Obie's philosophy independent of Toine? We all know that Obie's coaching
tenure lasts exactly as long as Toine wishes to have him around, but if we by
some miracle got a smart GM who saw that a team built around Toine was never
going to win a title and thus traded him, would Obie change his ways? I guess
it's a purely rhetorical question, since the priors aren't very likely to
happen, but one I ponder a lot lately.  

I occassionally suffer these brain farts after seeing Toine play the rare
disciplined game, and start thinking that maybe it COULD happen, if he only
matured some more, if we got the right PG, the right center, a solid bench. But
it's folly to be thinking this way. This efficiency rating, while far from
complete, nonetheless captures what we've been seeing from him year after year
after year. By this point, it's clear that t's never going to change,
especially under a coach like Obie.  That point was made salient  once again on
Monday night when the Celtics were blowing a 15-point lead by chucking threes,
when all they needed to do is waste some time, draw a few fouls and have
someone guard Cuttino Mobley. To say that it wasn't Obie who missed all those
shots is to be factually correct, but to miss the direct connection between his
stated coaching philosophy and the outcomes such as the one on Monday night.
Obie's claim that the trey-craze is a necessary condition for the team to win
is unfalsifiable while Toine is on the team.  Which brings me to my next point. 

For this team to be more than an also-ran, drastic changes need to be made to
its personell, primarily in the form of trading Toine for a competent, if less
talented PF/C, and obtaining a real PG. They don't have to be first-rate, as
the success of Detroit this season demonstrates. But we aren't likely to get
any major stars in a trade for Toine anyway, for he's not one himself. The best
thing for Toine and us alike is to find a team with a dominant coach and/or
strong veteran *star* presence to trade with. A team that can "Bakerize" Toine
if he starts acting up, and more importantly, one that has an abundance of
talented players that we would want. Teams like Portland and Dallas come to
mind. Of course, all this hinges on whether Dumb & Dumber are running the team,
for they hitched their wagon to Toine years ago. The irony of it is, Pitino had
the right idea - to trade Toine - after all. But like so many of his best trade
ideas, it didn't happen.  Needless to say (on this list, anyway), this
franchise needs someone who can conceive and *execute* such trades. 
 
I guess this offseason will show if the owners are men of vision who recognize
this need, or so many blind mice that can be sweet-talked into believing
anything by a slick, smug huckster peddling his basement mold-bred  ideas. But 
I fear that the Celtics' modicum of success will be their greatest impediment
to real improvement. I know it sound terrible to many of you, I'd gladly trade
a season of losing and the change I expect it would bring for years of
mediocrity and mismanagement. That's why this mantra of "we're exactly where we
were last season" scares me so much. 

Wow, this has grown long. Being depressed about the state of the Celtics does
that to me. 
Kestas