[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: A passing fancy

At 11:19 AM 10/27/02 -0500, Tammo29@AOL.com wrote:

   I'm not sure what I said to deserve that kind of a response.  I simply
gave my opinion which is something everyone on this list does every day.
I explained in the response to Egg that you may not have seen when you sent this.


I'd say I would just chalk up your response to a bad day, but I'm sure that
would come off infuriatingly patronizing as well.

Infuriating, no. Amusing, yes.


Either way these players turnovers are caused by being aggressive and taking
chances.  I can't see how you can say one kind of turnover is bad and the
other kind is good.
Well since I didn't say that, I don't see why you should try to. Of course no kind of turnover is good. But as I'd already explained, too many of Paul's turnovers are caused by his own carelessness and bad habits. Rather than *just* aggressiveness as you claim, or even just a good play by an opponent. Which means they are easily avoidable, and yes IMO worse than some other turnovers because of that fact and what their continued regularity says about the player who could take some pretty basic steps to minimize them them.


I think it's great that most Celtic fans have seemed to come to terms with
Antoine the basketball player. It only took six years. They are no longer
looking for his every mistake.  They realize that what they see is what they
are going to get because that is who he is.
I don't think it's as much that he has changed on the court, because he
really hasn't.
A basic difference. I do think he has. See my comments, with some relevant stats, about turnovers - just one of the ways he has changed/matured on the court. The range extends from no longer personally hot dogging over every minor play, to the simple fact that he IS handling the ball more and passing to others more, to how well he handled passing the torch to Paul as the designated offensive star point machine, to the fact that I now honestly believe he will make his free throws in the clutch where it used to be that I expected him to miss 1 of 2. And on down a mix of major and minor things.


But his game is basically the same. He still takes a lot of threes and he
still drives into traffic and gets his shots blocked. People are just more
willing to overlook those things.
That's not totally wrong -more people do cut him more slack now, myself among them- but it's further from totally right. It makes out that the change in attitude has nothing to do with oncourt improvement - it's a factor with me anyway- while being a HUGE over-simplification of both his game and the situation.


 So who has really changed?  Antoine or Celtics fans?

Clearly to me it's both.


Now it would be nice if some fans would do the same for Pierce.
Or if his more ardent fans realized that most people do and that not every criticism is unjustified. Obviously, not everyone cuts him slack, but not everyone does for Walker either. And I don't think this discussion is about the lunatic fringe, anyway.


And fans that are going to
demand perfection or look for every little mistake are going to drive
themselves and everyone around them nuts.
*shrug* So which mistakes are we permitted to notice? Do we have a quota before we foul out of being considered a fan? Are we allowed to expect him to do what he can to improve his game or is that driving everyone crazy by 'demanding perfection' every time a suggestion gets made? Or is his game already so perfect that we are clearly just mislabeling virtues as faults so we can have something to complain about since we're so desperate to pick on him.

If you were willing to, you could see the non-lunatic fringe criticisms as a compliment to Paul rather than picking on him. Go back to comparison with what people said about Walker: a lot of it comes from similar frustration with seeing what they are vs what they could be and how much they themselves are causing roadblocks to getting there. You don't become as great as Paul has the potential for and clearly wants to be if you don't expect and strive for perfection (even knowing that it's impossible). Once you start actually accepting the mistakes (back to turnovers, BTW -not all of them are even mistakes on the player's part, a difference that underlies the point JB and I were making) and actively looking for excuses, then you've guaranteed yourself mediocrity. Maybe a high level of mediocrity, but still far less than you could be.


 At some point they will also have
to come to the realization that they will have to take the good with the bad,
just as most of Antoines critics have done whether they realize it or not.
That's just my opinion.
Ah. And you probably don't want to hear what's just my opinion of announcing that you know other peoples' minds better than they do themselves (...have done whether they realize it or not) after telling them what they 'have to' do about it.

BTW, IMO most people DO realize they have to take a certain amount of bad with the good. Russell was less than an offensive shooting star. Bird was NOT going to win the slam. But that's not the same as waiving their right to criticize, especially criticizing bad stuff that CAN be fixed.

best,
Kim