How did Bill Walker hide his game?

what i think (for whatever difference THAT makes) is that Doc is pretty rigid about who he gives time to to develop. it's hard to sit a future HOF'er for some unproven guy who has athletic ability, and now it turns out has some basketball ability too that we never saw. anyway, i guess i agree it wasn't the right situation RIGHT NOW with the C's for Walker, and i guess D was/is the main reason.

while he was with the C's i was never much of a Walker fan, but then i barely saw him.

my gripe with Doc remains ... he just doesn't give the younger guys much rope at all, doesn't hardly play them even in what little garbage time we've had this year, and does little to build their confidence. seems to get rigid in his thinking and doesn't shift ...

Michael

Michael,

How do you explain Doc's support of, and patience with, Rondo and Perk?

Sam

bobheckler wrote:It took years, and two more teams, before Joe Johnson hit his stride and made the Celtics look like they made a mistake. Woulda, coulda, shoulda with 20/20 hindsight.

It took 2 years and 3 more teams before Gerald Green and Sebastian Telfair finally imploded and made the Celtics look smart getting rid of them. Thank God we did.

Where I have problems is not when we lose players who are inconsistent or underperforming when we have them, it's when we lose a player that is consistently performing well with us. Like Leon.

bob

/

Johnson already showed he was an up and coming young player at Pheonix,they only got rid of him because they had too many players they had to take care of.Off his stay with the Suns he got a max contract,I think he proved his point there.Agree with you on Powe,I love rough and tumble players like Leon,the classy and right move to do was keep him.Say Baby didn't have his brain hijacked for that moment,we would have been fine with Baby and Sheed until Leon got right.Powe helped us so much last 2 years,how much fun was it to see him charging like a rhino with the ball and no one step in to take the charge?I'm getting pissed even thinking about it,how do you let a good soldier like that leave?dumb,dumb,dumb......do you think we could use his toughness and rebounding?what a boneheaded move.

bobheckler wrote:

KellyGreen17 wrote:I think it's safe to say that Walker has skills. Is it unfortunate that he didn't get to display them here? For sure. Does that mean that he should have? Not in my opinion.

The Celtics are a team who rely on the smarts of their players to run specifically designed plays. We all know they have an extremely detailed defense which 10+ year veterans have difficulty picking up...they are contending for a title.

The Knicks are more of a combination of players than they are a team. They aren't playing for anything other than a shot at the LeBron sweepstakes next year. Their offense is mainly freelance with a pick and roll thrown in here and there, and their defense...wait, what defense?

Bottom line is he wasn't right for what the Celtics are doing this year. I have no regrets.

kelly,

nice summation.

bob

/

very accurate summation,but I still hate losing a good piece,piece not Pierce....next year he can only be better,we just lost a piece with a just unleashed outside game and a great finisher to run with Rondo.Imagine if the Lakers never had Worthy on the break?

cowens/oldschool wrote:Imagine if the Lakers never had Worthy on the break?

So now Bill Walker is James Worthy?

Man the hits keep on coming.

Everyone keeps saying Rondo has nobody to run with,thats more the point,Worthy being the extreme,if Walker is an all star 2-3 years from now.....what do you know?took you 18 years to graduate college.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Everyone keeps saying Rondo has nobody to run with,thats more the point,Worthy being the extreme,if Walker is an all star 2-3 years from now.....what do you know?took you 18 years to graduate college.

I know one thing. Bill Walker is no James Worthy, and anyone that is trying to make the comparison loses a bit of credibility in my eyes. Sorry.

But Bill Walker has to be Worthy of something. Certainly he was worthy of more developmental and playing time than Doc was willing to give him. Doc's going to pay a steep price in the long run, especially looking at most of Walker's production for the Knicks since the trade!-MD.

MDCelticFan wrote:But Bill Walker has to be Worthy of something. Certainly he was worthy of more developmental and playing time than Doc was willing to give him. Doc's going to pay a steep price in the long run, especially looking at most of Walker's production for the Knicks since the trade!-MD.

So MD....can assume that if I do a search, I wont find any posts where you were questioning the team roster before the trade deadline?

You guys are the same people that would have toasted Danny if he DIDNT make a move. Then he makes a move, and you are also unhappy.

Some people are never satisfied.

mrkleen

As with "most" of MD's posts they are a bit tounge in cheek.

Will be interesting if Walker gets a meaningful ammount of minutes tonight. And if so what he does. Certainly the chance to throw it back at us a bit is there but even if he does well that doesn't prove the trade was good or bad.

BUT in 2-3 years if Walker "IS" something nearing an ALL STAR .........who knows. One wrong twist of the knee and he's done and of course thats the same for anyone not just him.

Maybe he won't even be in the league. Nate might not be either.

It is interesting to look back at trades in all sports and see in the end whom got the better of the deal.

Jury is out on this one for now. IMHO

beat

MDCelticFan wrote:But Bill Walker has to be Worthy of something. Certainly he was worthy of more developmental and playing time than Doc was willing to give him. Doc's going to pay a steep price in the long run, especially looking at most of Walker's production for the Knicks since the trade!-MD.

MD,

Bill Walker has played 12 games for NY. He has started 3 of them (which means that D'Antoni has decided he's not starting material on a team that isn't that good and has nothing to lose by playing players with potential to be starters). He is averaging 24.6mpg. In those 24.6mpg he's averaging 10.6ppg and 2.8rpg.

Those aren't exactly "Holy Cow, where'd this kid come from?!!" stats.

Remember, too that his numbers look that good because of 4 high scoring game. 4 out of 12. That's the Bill Walker we saw on the Celtics. Flashes of great play and then nothing. That's ok on a lottery team like the Knicks, it'll put fans in the seats, but not on a team that's playing for a championship.

Unfortunately, those stats don't reveal how many blown defensive assignments he had. We saw a lot of that in Boston too.

Let's see what happens next year, when the league has a chance to scout him.

bob

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Sam wrote:Michael,

How do you explain Doc's support of, and patience with, Rondo and Perk?

Sam

and his other choice would be ... ?

bigpygme wrote:

Sam wrote:Michael,

How do you explain Doc's support of, and patience with, Rondo and Perk?

Sam

and his other choice would be ... ?

bigpygme,

He could have signed and traded Rondo this summer.

He could have packaged Perk and maybe someone else for another center.

bob


/

Hey isn't not too difficult to remember back to when Rondo wasn't any shoo-in for the starting PG job. In fact, there was A LOT of resistance to entrusting that crucial position to him once they had the window of opportunity with KG and Ray joining the team. Even more so with Perk.

In fact, there's still loads of resistance with Perk, who is still young. So I'm pretty certain Doc's going to be dissed whatever he does.

Sam

Bob is right that Walker has had 4 20+ point games and 6 single digit games in his last 10.
But that is only because he hasn't gotten the shots.
He is 10 for 21 in those 6 low scoring games.
How can he score when he is only getting 3.5 shots per game in some games?

Nate Robinson doesn't have one 20 point game with Boston and is averaging only 7.3 per game. Nate also has 3 games with 0 points. That is very Sasha Vujacic-ish.

HEy
TJ
Phil is calling

Why the heck do you care anyway?

beat

Why shouldn't I care?

tjmakz wrote:Bob is right that Walker has had 4 20+ point games and 6 single digit games in his last 10.
But that is only because he hasn't gotten the shots.
He is 10 for 21 in those 6 low scoring games.
How can he score when he is only getting 3.5 shots per game in some games?

Nate Robinson doesn't have one 20 point game with Boston and is averaging only 7.3 per game. Nate also has 3 games with 0 points. That is very Sasha Vujacic-ish.

tjmakz,

Maybe there's a reason why he's not getting his shots and that's because he's not executing offensive plays well. We saw Bill Walker not execute repeatedly during his stay with Boston.

Nate plays defense. That is very UN Sasha-Eurobitchish.

um, bob, Walker is not a point guard.
He can't execute offensive plays if he doesn't get the ball and if you watched some of those Knicks games, you would see that is what was happening.

TJ, why are you comparing Bill Walker with Nate Robinson? Nate took Eddie's minutes...Walker wasn't even playing in Boston.
Eddie's #'s with the Knicks: 14 games, 21.7 MPG, .34 FG %, .24 3P%, 7.1PPG
Now Nates: 12 games, 16.1 MPG, .421 FG%, .487 3P%, 7.3 PPG

Apples to oranges, IMO.

Who cares about House? Nobody was even talking about him.
This thread is about Walker.

bobheckler wrote:

bigpygme wrote:

Sam wrote:Michael,

How do you explain Doc's support of, and patience with, Rondo and Perk?

Sam

and his other choice would be ... ?

bigpygme,

He could have signed and traded Rondo this summer.

He could have packaged Perk and maybe someone else for another center.

bob


/

thanks to bobh and Sam for your replies. i'm not fault-finding with Doc as coach in general, but the Walker situation does raise the question for me.

and so, ok. he gave Rondo and Perk as young guys playing time and a chance to establish themselves, get some confidence in themselves and earn his confidence. i suppose i'm saying this is a rarity, an anomoly, an aberration, a very unusual move for Doc. mostly, you're young - you sit.

i think it's pretty apparent that his record for player development of younger players in terms of game playing time is, on the whole, not so good. there's times and places he could try them out but, for the most part, he eschews those opportunities. that's what i think i see happening, anyway. hey, maybe it's just me !

best regards,
Michael

Nice deflection TJ. The point is that Walkers production should not be compared to Robinsons. If you want to compare someone to Robinson, it should be House. I think that's pretty clear. You are the one who brought up Nates production. If you aren't prepared to discuss it further, maybe you shouldn't have mentioned it to begin with.

Why should we be talking about House? Because you said we should?
House hasn't done much for NY except for 3 good games.

Giving up Walker, Giddens, House and a 2nd round pick will be viewed as a bad trade for Boston.

tjmakz wrote:Why should we be talking about House? Because you said we should?
House hasn't done much for NY except for 3 good games.

Giving up Walker, Giddens, House and a 2nd round pick will be viewed as a bad trade for Boston.

TJ

19 posts in and you are making a bid to be the first REAL TROLL we have had on this board.

Way to step up your game.