Walker being Walker

[Eric Albert]

>> Sean wrote:
>>
>> Frankly, from an NBA player perspective, that sounds like good 
>> advice.Its funny how people who hate Walker go out of their way 
>> to find things,twist them, and turn them into an assault on the 
>> guy.
>
>Kestas wrote:
> 
>have you seen Toine's response when he was asked about being part of the Heat's supporting cast? The one where he said something like "I ain't no member of no supporting cast. I ain't supporting nothing" (not an exact quote, but something along those lines). Is that also twisted? 

Well, yeah, kind of.  I tried finding out exactly what Toine said, using
Google, and decided it was impossible.  Every news outlet quoted
different portions; some of the portions disagreed with each other
(that is, they couldn't have come from the same interview); each
portion, in isolation, had a different slant.

Maybe Toine was asked the question several times.  More likely, it's
sportswriters wanting to support one point or another, coupled with
"sloppy" transcription.  (I've seen this kind of "sloppiness" directly,
back when I used to watch every postgame interview, and then
read the supposed quotes (often cut and/or mangled to change the
meaning) in the papers the next day.)

In any case, here's the longest version I could find of what Antoine's
supposed to have said.  As I point out above, other papers quote
him (much more briefly) as saying things that aren't (precisely) in
this article.

Antoine lovers and haters will both find support herein.  I continue
to feel that his heart (and it's a big one) is in the right place, and
that he's got a good basketball brain, but that emotional difficulties
make it impossible for him to use his brain effectively when he's
playing.

By the way, I meant to post from an article I read somewhere, I
think it was the Wall Street Journal, but it could have been Forbes
or someplace else, that some place that crunches numbers was
calculating wins added by different players.  They happened to
mention Antoine Walker for last year, and claimed that, for Atlanta
and Boston *combined*, he added *one* win.  Sorry I don't have
the cite, or the number for Paul Pierce, which was much higher.

http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/sports/basketball/14789717.htm

[Here's some; there's more.]

Walker bristles when he's including in the Heat's so-called ``supporting cast.''

`NOT A SUPPORTING GUY'

When Channel 4's Jim Berry asked him Saturday if the Heat's supporting cast was good enough to beat Dallas if Shaquille O'Neal is double-teamed, Walker responded, ``Who's the supporting cast? I'm a player, man. I ain't no supporting cast. I don't categorize myself as that.

``I'm not a supporting guy. I'm Antoine Walker, a basketball player. Supporting cast kind of downgrades players. I'm not a supporting or nothing. I'm part of 15 strong as a team. We all try to do our job.''

Walker on Saturday reflected on the turn his career has taken, from being a go-to player in Boston to a third option, at best, in Miami.

``Everyone wants to be a Hall of Fame player in this league,'' he said. ``It's very hard to say if you wanted to be a role player.

``I enjoyed my time in Boston. I enjoyed my chance being the man, making game-winning shots. That's a great feeling as well. But it's hard to say being the man is where you want to be. I think you want to win a title.''