RE: Celts sign Grant Long

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Joe,

I'll agree on confidence-I'm sure it made a huge difference when Kedrick was
the stud against the lousy competition in JC ball. And I'm sure it would
make a difference now. I'm just not seeing any signs of the kinds of
advanced basketball skills you need to be a shooting guard/small forward in
the NBA. You need to be able to passably handle the ball, shoot the ball,
pass the ball, and Kedrick hasn't shown he has those skills at even a rookie
NBA level. 

You're also right that he's probably on the worst kind of team. If he were
in Denver or Memphis or someplace, he'd probably be force-fed more minutes,
touches and scoring opportunities and either gain confidence with some
success or prove once and for all that he can't do it. On this team, he gets
to carry the captains' bags.

I also hope it clicks, but I'm becoming less and less optimistic. Tommy says
Kedrick shoots the 18-footer like a layup in practice. Sure, and the
assistant/traveling secretary wins every 3-point contest the team has. What
was it Larry Bird said when Craig Hodges hit something like 20 in a row in
one of the 3-point contests at the all-star game? "That's pretty good, but
it's hard to make them from the bench."

Mark

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	hironaka@nomade.fr [mailto:hironaka@nomade.fr] 
Sent:	Thursday, January 16, 2003 4:30 PM
To:	berrym@BATTELLE.ORG
Cc:	celtics@igtc.com
Subject:	Re: Celts sign Grant Long

> ---------- Initial message -----------
> 
> From    : owner-celtics@igtc.com
> To      : "'celtics@igtc.com'" <celtics@igtc.com>
> Cc      : 
> Date    : Thu, 16 Jan 2003 14:57:02 -0500
> Subject : Celts sign Grant Long
> 
> How long before Long is taking away Baker's minutes? 
Whatever. At least he's
> not Mikki Moore.
> 
> A few other things from recent posts...
> 
> Joe mentioned Kedrick and the fact that he couldn't 
have averaged 15 ppg at
> any level without being more aggressive and 
assertive... Joe, I really think
> you're overestimating the competition Kedrick played 
against in JC. Imagine
> him banging and jumping against guys smaller and not 
nearly as strong or
> athletic. I'm guessing he racked up a lot of points on 
offensive rebounds
> and post-ups against overmatched kids. 


Hi Mark:

Well, only for what its worth, I was leafing through a 
college BB mag the other day (maybe Lindy's, but I buy 
them all) and it listed three current Okaloosa-Walton 
players among the top-rated JC recruits, as well as one 
guy last year (presumably a Kedrick teammate) who was 
ranked among the elite recruits.

Clearly, Kedrick played at a much lower level than 
Division 1. My point of agreement with you is that had he 
gone to college last year in the SEC AND played as 
unassertively as he has for the Celtics, there is no 
doubt he would have fared worse than Gerald Wallace. 
That's incredibly obvious.

But my hunch is he was handling the ball in order to 
score 23ppg and 4 assists. The goal for all these CC kids 
is to get a Division 1 scholarship, not to win community 
college championship trophies. 

If the best athlete on the team doesn't shoot and handle 
the ball, I guarantee you someone else will.

I'm convinced Kedrick was more assertive. I'm also sure 
IF he regained that assertiveness, it would serve him 
well against any level of competition. 

He canned that corner shot off a between-the-legs dribble 
last night, and Heinsohn was claiming he shoots the 18-
footer like a layup in practice. 

I would guess he did that stuff all the time as an 
amateur. The numbers just don't make sense otherwise. 

Haven't we all seen tons of best-athletes-on-the-team 
have 28 point highlight games, but end the season 
averaging 11 and 6. These guys are not consistent, and 
they aren't natural "scorers".

Those are the less elevated numbers that the Kedrick you 
describe should have put up, if he's as bad as he looks. 

Right now, Kedrick is the most over-hyped 1.7 ppg player 
in the NBA, without any doubt. I am in complete agreement 
with you.

Players with his numbers and FG% wash out of the NBA all 
the time. He may soon need the same sense of urgency and 
bust draft pick would have entering the third-year of his 
contract.

Now its like a dog pack situation, where he joins a team 
with established superstar/ballhogs and ends up falling 
in line as a timid catch-and-shoot guy. He plays like the 
only freshman on a senior-laden team, if you know what I 
mean. I wants the seniors to have a great season, and not 
step on anyone's toes.

He may not realize it, but the captains need him to be 
much more assertive. Eric Williams goes one-on-one all 
the time in games, and no one on the team glares at him 
or shouts for the ball. He needs to realize he's not 
taking the team out of the flow by dribbling the ball 
once in awhile, or going up for a shot without first 
hesitating and exploring his other options.

I simply doubt Kedrick was that limited and pathetic in 
college, or that if he would try to be more assertive 
again he'd end up being embarrassed at the NBA level. 
He's a good enough athlete, it won't matter.

But some things are habit-forming, once you find your 
place in a pecking order. Tony Battie was a 24ppg scorer 
in college. So was Adonal Foyle. Its not that these guys 
are terrible athletes who were badly scouted. 

What's clear is that they abandoned even thinking about 
going one-on-one in an NBA game. They leave that to the 
more conceited players. 

Kedrick's heading down the same path as Adonal Foyle. I 
like Kedrick because he actually fits as a Celtics role 
player. 

But a change of scenery to another team and a full year 
of health would be the best thing for him. 

When you have guys like Walker and Pierce, its hard for 
even VETERAN scorers like Kenny Anderson to step up and 
take the ball away from them, much less an injury-prone 
rookie who never played D-1 basketball.

I'm hoping this is just a break-in period and eventually 
he'll have an epiphany that he can dominate, like 
Jermaine O'Neil. 

I hope there is an NBA slam dunk contest and he enters 
it, so he can get some national publicity and some 
confidence. 

Its true that the staff begged him to dominate at Shaws, 
and instead he let himself be the third scoring option.

But really, I think he is what he is. Ego is the most 
important thing in basketball, assuming all other things 
are more or less equal. You can't get better without an 
incredible ego to start with. Right now he's just 
standing around in place, whereas Antoine was making tons 
of mistakes and talking trash to veterans at this stage, 
as he gradually got better at what he does.






-------------------
L'e-mail gratuit pas comme les autres.
NOMADE.FR, pourquoi chercher ailleurs ?