The Celtics Report: Goodbye

["Josh Ozersky" <jozersky1@xxxxxxxxxx>]

My hoopsworld column:


Goodbye
The Debate is Over.  For seven years, the agonizing "Antoine Debate" has
defined the Celtics and their fans. Antoine's admirers, who included Larry
Bird and Tommy Heinsohn, pointed out his versatility, his peerless competitive
spirit, his leadership, and his baffling ability to take almost anyone off the
dribble. His detractors retorted with equally telling points of their own.
Antoine, they said, was a hydrocephalic egoist who still, after seven years in
the league, launched mindless three-pointers, drove into traffic, and
dominated the ball to an unconscionable degree. To claims about his
versatility, they pointed out that while he could rebound better than a guard
and pass and dribble better than a forward, he couldn't do either as well as a
traditional specialist, and deprived the Celtics of quality production at
either the 1 or 4 spots. "Name me one thing he does well," one GM challenged
Steve Bulpett.

Now the debate is over. Antoine Walker is no longer a Celtic.

It's hard for me to write those words. I understood better than most of his
detractors, I think, what Antoine Walker's limitations were. He did his work
facing the basket because he lacks explosiveness around the rim, and can be
easily blocked by athletic players down low. He liked the three pointers
because he played long and hard, never resting on defense, and the
three-pointer was a dangerous weapon in his hands, albeit an unreliable one.
But as more than a few erstwhile Antoine defenders have said in emails to me
this morning, Antoine was the Celtics. He set the example for dedication,
competition, leadership. The other players legitimately looked up to him and
liked him. The Celtics were one of the few teams whose players hung around
with other socially, almost to a man; and that chemistry, which proceeded
directly from Antoine's generous heart, is over with now. People were
surprised at how well the Paul Pierce / Antoine Walker partnership worked,
since Antoine had been so invested in his identity as a scorer. But Pierce was
better, and Antoine wanted to win. More importantly, Pierce isn't really a
vocal leader by nature; Antoine's assertiveness freed him to just play his
game. Now he's the leader, and we'll have to see how that will work. I will
miss Antoine. I don't think that Raef LaFrench is nearly the player he is.

But I think the trade had to happen, and I think that in the long run, it
brings us closer to a championship. Here's why.

Antoine Walker's skills, though prodigious, were only occasionally the sort
that led to championships. When posting up down low against an inferior
defender, his passing skills could open up the whole court. When you would see
him hitting cutters over his shoulder or running a give-and-go with Tony

Battie, it was like a glimpse of everything you hoped for from a good Celtics
team. More often, though, everyone stood around and watched him make something
happen. The imperative for this season had to been to install a running game,
the better to share the wealth and (ostensibly) to relieve the isolation
burden on Pierce and Walker. In truth, no team has ever won a title playing
the kind of "you get yours after I get mine" offense that Walker required. His
weaknesses, excusable in himself, became the weaknesses of the whole team. The
deciding moment, I suspect, came last week when Antoine made the following
remarks to the Boston Herald:



"It's very difficult for a rookie to come in and play on a team where the ball
is dominated by two players. He has to find away he's going to be effective in
the system. What a lot of people have got to understand is guys are brought in
to fit into me and Paul...We've talked about playing up-tempo, but that's
about it. To be honest, when all is said and done, it's back to the grind, as
always."






To call this ill-considered misses the point. Toine rarely dissembled to
reporters; one of the many things to like about him in person was his
willingness to talk frankly about basketball matters. What these words told me
(and, I suspect, Ainge) was that Toine hadn't bought in to the idea of a
running game; he still saw himself as the primary ballhandler and shooter. But
running isn't something you do three times a game; it has to be the first
reflex for all five players. I had hoped that Antoine, with his fabulous
dribble, would have flourished in that system; but it wasn't to be.

Of course, you can't judge any trade by only looking at one side. Maybe
Antoine had to go. But what did we get for him? A couple of years ago, the
names you heard discussed for Toine, at least by fans, were other all-stars --
guys who had the rare gift of creating their own shot and demanding a double
team, or young big men of untapped promise. But that wasn't Antoine's value on
the marketplace. Antoine now returns to the place from which he came: for the
pick with which we got him was originally acquired from Dallas. I'm willing to
believe that Raef LaFrentz, Jiri Welsch, and a pick are the best Walker could
fetch, but are they good enough?

LaFrentz didn't put up very impressive numbers last year on the overstocked
Mavs; but the previous year, his numbers were .458 shooting, 13.5 points a
game, 7.5 rebounds, 1.1 assists, and (most importantly) 2.73 blocks, 2nd in
the NBA. That last statistic is a little misleading -- LaFrentz isn't a great
one-on-one shotblocker, like Tim Duncan or Ben Wallace. He blocks most of his
shots on another's defenders assignment, coming from the weak side. But that's
perfect for the O'Brien / Harter help defense system. More importantly, his
offensive skills are ideally suited to an uptempo system. He can score from
all over, knows how to work and play well with others, and gets rid of the
ball in a flash if he doesn't have a good opportunity. More importantly, his
presence in the lineup opens up much-needed minutes and shots for Kedrick
Brown, Vin Baker, and, one hopes, Brandon Hunter too. In a way, you should
think of the trade as being for those guys as well, since they will now get an
opportunity they couldn't have had with Antoine in place. As for the rest of
the deal: Welsch is a big, talented combo guard that might turn out to be the
next Ginobli (or not.) Mills is a throw in. But don't turn your nose up at the
Mavs' pick because it will probably be in the high 20s: just this year, we got
Kendrick Perkins with that pick. And there is always the possibility that we
can sweeten another deal with it, or trade up in the next draft.

So we lose the Celtics' leader, their most talented big man, and the only
elite scorer other than Paul Pierce. And we gain an upgrade on defense, a
better uptempo player in attitude if not in skills, a higher
shooting-percentage, and more time and shots for the talented players we
already have on our roster. We add the shooting guard we needed, and get a
pick too. It's not a trade to exult over, but it might help get us closer to a
title. Still, it's a huge risk, comparable to signing Vin Baker a couple of
years ago. And for those of us, like me, who lived and died with Antoine and
watched him develop as a player and a man for the past seven years, it can't
help but feel like a deep emotional loss. We'll never see him launch a
three-point brick with 20 points left on the shot clock, but we'll never see
him pirouette into the lane and drop in a spinning bank shot that you would
never see before, and never see again. You won't have to see him get stuffed
by Kenyon Martin; but you also won't see him dominate and dismay Cliff
Robinson or Jermaine O'Neal either. When Antoine was drafted, the Celtics were
at their lowest and most dismal ebb. Reggie Lewis was as dead as Len Bias, and
M.L. Carr was the coach and GM. I was 28, marooned in a cold place far from
home, and he brought my dormant love and hope for the Celtics back to life. I
screamed at him, argued about him, finally got to meet him and talk to him,
and came to feel like he was part of my family, for good and evil. Now he's
gone. But let's have a moment to feel how much he meant to the Celtics
franchise, and the Celtics family, for these last seven years. And hope that
the Celtics will find a way to replace the huge, gaping space he has left
behind.