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Re: Ah well

At 11:02 PM 1/22/03 -0800, Peter Delevett wrote:

You were there and I wasn't, but he was only dinged
for one turnover in the box score, and he's averaging
only 1.3 t.o. per game, or fewer than Walker and
Pierce in comparable minutes.
Fair point, but even if he was the Vinnie of our dreams his role would not include handling the ball anything close to a comparable amount in those minutes and IMO they've stopped presenting him with the opportunities for turnovers by not passing it to him. While the times that he never moves to get the pass or rebounds count as turnovers against the passer or don't appear on a stat sheet. I'm sure Pierce got 2 of those tonight. And it was after that that they stopped passing it in to him.

And he has gotten slightly better about it, just not enough to make me comfortable passing it to him in a crowd. At least he doesn't lose the ball with no one around him as much as he did earlier.

 Especially considering
Milwaukee's interior defense, you might argue that not
dumping the ball inside to Vinny once or twice was a
"wasted possession." Two points is still two points.
Might but wouldn't, since there are other options to get that 2 and Vinnie scoring is not a likely event while something negative happening from passing it to Vinnie is still a real possibility.

Look, I know Baker isn't tough or hungry, but he also
outrebounds Walker, Pierce and E-Will on a per-minute
basis, so I wonder if some of this isn't perception -
on O'Brien's part as well as on ours.
Probably true to some degree. But look, I'm one of the ones who has insisted that he HAS gotten better through the year, just very very slow progress. I haven't brought up tough or hungry or other things that I can't judge, and I think he IS trying. That being said, the rebounding difference isn't in comparable roles either and there are very very real problems having Vinnie on the court that have to be balanced out against any positives to see if it's worth it. He can have something to offer, but still not be our best option. He may also just not be able to play a lot more - Jimmy Meyers on the radio station doesn't think he's in game shape (vs merely better shape) yet. That may well be true.

 Yeah, it's a
very good point that we lost this game defending
guards, but again, why not try to even the scales a
bit by taking advantage of our size matchup? It's not
like Battie was keeping Milwaukee's guards out of the
lane by hobbling around out there.
Because size alone isn't enough. It's not really a matchup advantage. And like I said, they did try to feed him early in the game. Hey, Bruno's even taller, but I don't see you complaining that he didn't get 30 minutes out there : ) Or wonder why Grant Long - who did do some nice things - didn't get more minutes (probably his still healing hand).

Seriously, I think Vinnie can still be more help than hinderance (the contract I ignore) but likely not until next year after some highly targeted work doing things like building up his hands and legs. This past summer was more just lose weight time. Until then, he'll certainly get some minutes and help us at times, but you don't want to plan on that as a big part of any winning strategy. I've not given up completely on him as totally worthless, but I'm not going to fault Obie for not playing his more.

Kim