At 01:20 PM 3/14/2003 -0500, you wrote:
He does. He's a good player; the problem, he thinks he's a great player. Hence the poor shot selection that comes from attempting to do things that he can't do, and the constant whining to the refs when it turns out that he can't do them. He can't accept that he simply missed a shot - if he did, he must have been fouled! His durability,leadership, and desire to win are all major plusses, but he's not the only durable player with leadership qualities who wants to win. Pretty much all stars have the same qualities (it's that selection bias thing, you know). The difference is, hardly any of them, with the possible exception of Iverson, are as inefficient and wasteful as he is.As for Antoine, he's the true leader of this team. Have you all forgotten how he chastised the team during the playoffs last year for giving up? It worked, didn't it? Why does he get no credit from any of you people for the good things?
He's also not stupid. He may not coach minute-to-minute according to Antoine's wishes, but he knows very well that he will only stay around as long as Antoine wants him to. As soon as Toine (and the rest of his teammates) quit on Obie, he's done. If Toine can make El presidente Pitino go away, he can certainly do that to Obie. I've said this before: Toine needs to be on a team with strong veteran *star* leadership, a strong coach, and a no-nonsense GM for his own good. If he played with/for MJ, he'd be twice the player he is because he'd be too intimidated to pull the same crap he's doing here. He'd be averaging 16, 12, and 8 on 48% shooting, 12 good shots, very few 3s, and hardly any technicals. The problem is, he wants to be known as a "versatile player", do a little bit of everything (mostly what he likes), attempt difficult shots and tricky moves so that people say, "wow, look at Toine, what a talent he is", and no one can rein him in here.I don't, for one minute, buy into this excuse that some of you have that Obie coaches according to Antoine's wishes. He's the coach and I don't believe he's weak.