Kevin Pelton on the Celtics

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http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_5919.shtml

Page 23 Season Preview - Atlantic Division By Kevin Pelton for HOOPSWORLD.com Nov 3, 2003, 18:00 
   		
Boston Celtics I touched on it briefly in my recent Transaction Analysis, but it's remarkable the transition that's taken place in terms of perception of Antoine Walker over the last two weeks. I love Bill Simmons, but how can he in good conscience write the following?  "And Antoine Walker ... believe me, I watched him for seven years straight. He can't get to the line. He can't score down low against any above-average defender (Kenyon Martin simply demolished him last May). He launches an utterly ludicrous amount of threes. Statistically, he's a 38-percent shooter who took an astounding 1,554 shots to score 1,570 points last season. Think about that for a second. For instance, Duncan took 1,374 shots to score 1,884 points, and Nowitzki took 1,489 shots to score 2,011 points. Walker barely averaged one point per shot. Was there a less efficient All-Star in the league?  "Now throw this in: He's a below-average defender. He stopped rebounding about three years ago. Maybe he'll make "SportsCenter" with an occasional highlight pass, but you won't see the three other passes he bounced off the basket support that same night. And he was such a dominant personality in Boston, his teammates tuned him out after awhile -- did you notice how none of the Celtics spoke up against the trade (not even Paul Pierce or Jim O'Brien)?"  It's not that any of these things are necessarily untrue - the last part, none of us can really say for certain. But were they any less true last March, when Simmons called Walker one of the twenty best players in the NBA?  Don't think I'm dissing Simmons here. He ranks as one of my three favorite sports writers alive, number one after a mailbag, but what he writes is symptomatic of a much larger trend. A month ago, Rick Reilly wrote what I consider the best column he's ever written, titled "Your team. . . . My team. . . ." Sample comparison:  "YOUR SUPERSTAR is a selfish and arrogant narcissist who can't even stand his own teammates, much less his fans. MY SUPERSTAR is focused."  This is par!
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y frustrating thing for a columnist. When readers write in to e-mail you, it's all too often not because they really have considered an issue and have come to a different conclusion - it's because you've dismissed a player on their team (or their team itself) and, well, that must be wrong.  One of the most memorable examples of this for me was before last season, when I wrote a column discussing which teams had over- or underperformed in 2001-02 based on point differential. One of the teams I pointed out had been a little lucky was the Dallas Mavericks. In the Hoopsworld message boards, several Mavs fans wrote to their team's defense, arguing it was clutch play, not luck, which had allowed Dallas to win more games than its point differential would predict. Would these fans have that same disagreement based on last year's results, when the Mavericks won four games less than they "should" have? (Incidentally, the Mavs were not really "unlucky" - finishing four games below is not out of the ordinary for such a good team.)  This actually does have something to do with the Celtics besides the Walker angle, for the fans complaining about the use of point differential last year were Bostonians. Though the Celtics went 44-38 and were the sixth seed in the playoffs, their point differential was actually negative, -0.4 points per game. In most cases, point differential is highly correlated with wins and teams that get outscored finish below .500. Studies like this one by John Hollinger for CNNSI.com have indicated that over- or under-performing point differential usually isn't persistent from year to year.  What that mean is, all other things even, the Celtics probably would see their record drop several games this season. All other things aren't even. The Mavericks, for example, won more games despite losing their point-differential luck, because they were simply a better team last year. Are the Celtics a better team? It seems difficult to justify that conclusion.  J.R. Bremer and Tony Delk are not point guards i!
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ue sense of the word (something multiple Celtics fans pointed out to me after my Transaction Analysis), but both can shoot and score. Mike James is a better defender, but an equally poor playmaker and a worse shooter. Marcus Banks is the long-term answer, but as our good friend Hollinger again demonstrates, the track record of rookie point guards is pretty abysmal.  Walker has been roundly criticized, but his presence at least gave the Celtics a respectable alternative to Paul Pierce. Last year in Seattle, Pierce was injured during the second half. The Celtics did set a Sonics opponent record for fewest points in a quarter with seven, but a couple of well-timed Walker three-point bombs (followed, naturally, by the shimmy) allowed the Celtics to win anyway. Friday, with Pierce fouled out, the Celtics had James of all people take the final shot against Memphis. That James made it and Boston won 93-91 is irrelevant; you shouldn't have players like James taking shots like that in the first place.  That could all change with a resurgence by Baker. He's certainly skinny, and he's been simply outstanding in his first two games, putting together a 23-point, 8-board effort on Friday. Still, I can't help but be cynical; I've been burned by Baker too many times before. A little over two years ago, I wrote the following for my Sonics report at this website:  ". . . [S]eeing him twice has been enough to bring me, one of the staunchest anti-Baker supporters, onto the bandwagon. I strongly believe now that Baker is capable of, if not a return to his form, at least providing a solid big man for the Sonics to bring into the Western Conference."  Nine months later, I opened Baker's Seattle eulogy by writing, "For Sonics fans, the four-year nightmare is finally over."  You want to believe that Baker is back, not only for the good of the team but for his own sake. That feeling has increased tremendously now that Baker has been made into a sympathetic figure in the wake of his stint in rehab. I'm certainly not going to write!
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at Baker has definitely not changed, that he has not turned the corner. While I don't think his weight had much to do with his play after the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, it is impossible to say how much Baker's alcoholism hurt him. It's entirely possible that rehab, both physical and mental, was precisely what he needed to find his All-Star form, or at least an approximation of it, once again. But it's going to take more than a good couple of games, maybe even more than a good couple of months, and maybe never before I can ever believe in Vin Baker again.