Re: Re: Re: Inefficient Scoring and Toine

[Kim <kimmalo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Mark-
It's certainly possible.
OTOH, I was one of those who thought he would never change and hated the excuses people made for him - you can always find excuses for anyone and anything if you want to put all your efforts into looking for them. The 'still young' one drove me particularly crazy as the years went on. It was one of my biggest problems with Pitino and one of the reasons I cut Obie more slack than some do, because whatever his faults he doesn't put a lot of effort into looking for excuses and even less into accepting them. Under Pitino, there were always a search for and apparent acceptance of excuses, right down to the infamous and insulting (because of the implication we couldn't tell the difference between being bad on their own merits vs in comparison to HOFers) Larry etc not walking through that door. It clearly went down to the players who seemed to be accepting the same excuses, Antoine included. I hated it.

But yes, I do honestly think the Walker that began to appear last season is a different player from the 1996 version. It wasn't linear progress so much as a big leap forward last year, with a slight stepping back this year.

I think the point you're making comes into it more as a matter of having to accept that Walker has matured into becoming closer to the best AW HE can be rather than the one we might want him to be. Which means you trade his honestly starting to work on his game (BAD aka unforced turnovers are way down including the fact that he usually looks for the right pass instead of the flashy one, he has added a few inside moves like that little baby hook, he doesn't look to be the first and only option shooting even if he still shoots too much, he clearly has worked on FT shooting even if he still has lapses, etc etc) for putting up with the fact that he will always do some annoying and dumb things and the best player he can be in part depends upon his own head and the NBA culture of today.

Kim

-------Original Message-------
From: "Berry, Mark  S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>
Sent: 02/27/03 10:41 AM
To: "'celtics@igtc.com'" <celtics@igtc.com>
Subject: Re: Re: Inefficient Scoring and Toine

> 
> Kim, I'm not so sure the opposite isn't true. I think the perception of
Antoine changed for some because the realization gradually set in, over
time, that he wasn't going to change. The arguments always were, "He's a
rookie..." "He's just in his second season... " "He's only 22 years old... 
"
"He's only 23 years old... " Eventually, those arguments wear out and
you're
left with what he is. He teases us, but is he that much different than he
was in 1996? He's more mature, but he still leads the league in technicals
(Rasheed Wallace has seven this season; Antoine has 19). The inevitability
of Antoine has dulled everyone to all of his shortcomings. It's happening
for some with Baker. They know he's going to be here, there's nothing to
do
about it, so they seem blind to his obvious problems.

Anyway, Antoine can be great. The game Kestas is referring to against the
Wizards last season was the single best game of his career and should be a
blueprint for him. He took one 3-pointer in that game, made a living in
the
post, shot a great percentage, got to the free throw line, scored 30
points
(on something like 15 FGA), grabbed a bunch of rebounds and absolutely
controlled the game. And it lasted one game. That's Antoine. I haven't
"slotted him." Antoine slotted himself.

Mark 

--- --- ---

Kim wrote:

I'm actually at a lot of the games. I don't think he plays that much
differently for national boadcasts, and is actually enough of a natural
play-to-the-crowd ham that he'd be apt to go the other way.

I think the disconnect is that some people slotted him permanently during
his early years when he might tempt us with very brief stretches of more
in
control play, and they see him through that perception or concentrate on
how
he's not their idea of a perfect player vs seeing what's how he really
looks
today. Toine's always going to do things you wish he wouldn't, but he
actually is a lot more mature and in control, even with things like how he
treats the refs.