first moves

[gene kirkpatrick <gk_tyler@xxxxxxxxx>]

As down as I am on Walker (the on-court player), I understand that the best move might be a harness, new blood to do what he shouldn't be doing--pg duties, three-point duties--and a real offense.  He's like a blue-chip stock gone bad:  do you wait for it to return and sell it even or cut your losses and begin to rebuild your money?  I'll accept either, but I can't see anyone now in charge accepting the old way.  Walker as pg/three chunker is dead; he buried that option himself. Since the naming of Ainge, I have been thinking that drafting Wade of Marquette might be a good step.  He may go higher, with his great offensive skills, but he is Danny Ainge redux!  He would be a slightly short two guard, but he would bring all-out scoring, speed, and the second option to PP.  Now, that said, we need a real PF and a PG, so Ainge would have to be slick to pull that off. An alternative would be Heinrich, also likely gone by #16.  Heinrich impressed me more each time I saw him and he has excellent PG abilities plus a good shot and fundamentals.  My other choice remains Collison.  I hope the love affair with Europeans holds and he slips to us. Peter May said we would not get a starter out of this draft.  But look who we start:  Williams, Delk or McCarty, Bremer!!  Who is he kidding?  If we draft well, we could add two guys in our top 7 or 8--by January.  May goes on to laud the play of T. Prince--taken what? # 24 or something? An interesting quirk here--the way Ainge forced himself into acceptance twenty years ago was with bravado, pushiness.  He would not be denied.  It will take a new player with absolute skills, personality, guts, to force Pierce and Walker to accept him.  But once the coaches or crowd accept a new player, the team will have to. Turning this team around is doable, even without trading Antoine.  If we had been lucky with JJ two years ago and he had the fire, that alone would have done the trick.  So I think Ainge has some options, but he must get us one excellent player in the draft and another by!
  hook or

 crook.  Then Walker can be forced to play the role he played in college. Cheers,  Gene
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.