on marcus williams

[Berry, Mark S]

It's not that I don't like Marcus Williams. I think he's OK. I think
he's a guy who runs a team pretty well. He's not a dynamic point guard
by any stretch. Did he make Rudy Gay better? Not that I can tell. Josh
Boone? Charlie Villanueva? That team had a lot of talent the last couple
of years and not a lot of cohesion. Doesn't some of that fall on the
point guard? Not all of it, of course.

He's not especially quick. He's not a good shooter -- around 40 percent.
He's not a good defender. I think he's rising up draft boards because
he's the best of the point guards in this draft, but that certainly
doesn't make him the seventh best prospect.

I don't think he'll ever be better than Delonte West, and that's the
only reason I can see for drafting a point guard. If we want someone
better than Orien Greene, I'm not interested in using a lottery pick to
find him.

I value the point guard position highly. If this guy were Jason Kidd,
fine. But he's not. Did anyone look at the Celtics last year and think
they were a point guard away from being great? I didn't. A GREAT point
guard might make a difference. I don't think this kid is a great one. Is
he better than Chucky Atkins? I honestly don't think so.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: celtics-bounces at igtc.com [mailto:celtics-bounces at igtc.com] On
Behalf Of Mark Piotrowski
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 11:56 AM
To: celtics at igtc.com
Subject: on marcus williams

>I just can't imagine Thomas sliding to 7. Teams still default to size
>and best player available ... and Thomas fits both bills.
>
>I hate where the Celtics are in this draft. We need someone to fall in
>love with Marcus Williams. My only other hope is that O'Bryant or Sene
>is the real deal.
>
>Mark


Mark --  you've gone on record for not being into Marcus Williams. 
You've got a good basketball eye.... why are you donw on him.

i ask b/c (a) the scouting reports on him sound solid-to-spectacular 
... he sounds like a "true" PG and (b)  i'm reminded of a fantastic 
draft anaylsis over at Celticsblog fourm by HankFinkel:

http://www.celticsblog.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6060

It's an interesting, if not air-tight scientifcally/statistically 
...... he basically looked at all the players chosen in the first 
round (which he broke into 1/4ths), sorted them by postiion: PG, 
Swing (SG/SF) and Bigs (PF/C) and plotted where they were after 5 
years.

one of his conclusions was that teams strike out more on Bigs (31% 
are out of the league in 5 years) than PGs (only 19%)

>Finding II: Point Guards are drafted less, but stay around more: 255 
>big men were drafted but in 5 years 79 were out or nearly out of the 
>game (31%), leaving 176 contributors. Only 98 point guards were 
>drafted (well less than half the 4s and 5s), but only 19 were out or 
>nearly out of the league (19%), leaving 79 contributors, much closer 
>to half the number of 4s and 5s left. Wing players are drafted 
>slightly less frequently than Big Men, but have similar rates of 
>success and failure. Don't wait too long for those point guards 
>though, 12 of the 19 who were out/nearly out of the league were in 
>the bottom quarter of the first round.

of course it's dangerous to conclude that if a PG is available at 7 
-- like Marcus Williams -- then he'll therefore pan out, but i think 
it does lend some credence to the fact that teams reach more for bigs 
(like Sene, Vasquez, OBryant) than for PGs.... if a PGs projected 
this high, there seems less of a chance of "inflation" occuring.

just curious on your thoughts... b/c i watch very little college
BBall...

(the other) mark
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