i like walker game at the star of his career, but his star to slow down his game, he got skills but he's now to soft if he chage the stamina and actitude to the game (a good coach could change that) is a good fit for the rockets (but he's overpaid) bottom line has to change the actitude,stamina. and (but) he's overpaid
I dont recall him jacking up shots and hogging the ball in this final. He played within a game plan..
Surely, you'll admit that it's an oversimplification to think that plugging in Walker over Juwan Howard would result in 6 additional points a game in those particular games. If not, it's probably pointless to continue. Howard and Walker were almost identical in production last year. Should we use the same logic with the Suns and assume they'd go 82-0 if they had their 26PPG phenom? Somehow, losing Amare only cost them 8 wins this year - too bad they didn't have Walker. Think of all the 5 point losses they could have converted. How? He shot 43.5% and averaged 12.2PPG. Hardly an improvement over Howard's 45.9% and 11.8PPG. I just don't see it.
So, if we had replaced Juwan's 12 ppg for Antoine's 12 ppg, it would have pushed us over the top. or We bench Stro and Hayes and give Antoine those minutes backing up Juwan and his 12 ppg put us over the top. Ridiculous.
You aren't accounting for Antoine's offensive rebounds or his assists or his intangibles. Antoine is a legit scoring threat with the ball in his hands anywhere on the court. Juwan sitting on the 3-pt line means that man can leave him and double team Yao. Antoine requires a little more respect further out on the floor whether he has the ball or not. Because of that, defenders can't leave him as easily which would create more shots for TMac and Yao. If you want to take the position that Juwan and Antoine are identical players, then yes, it would be hard to continue this. Antoine can create his own shot, moves well without the ball and has good court awareness. He is a better player than Juwan. If we had picked up 8 games, we would have been in playoff contention. Antoine scored over 20ppg 5 times in his career. Antoine on this team would have scored more than 12ppg.
The dude has been an allstar twice and helped "lead" Boston to multiple playoffs. While he is not a great shooter, he is a very good scorer and always will be because he is so talented. The most underrated thing that Toine brings is leadership. That is one of his best intangibles to go along with his good court vision, solid rebounding and defensive effort. I agree that he would be a lot better if he did not shoot from long range as much but he is what he is. T-mac shoots as many shots and has not been making them lately but he still finds a way to put the ball in the basket and makes his team better in other areas. I don't think Walker's impact is as noticeable until he has left a team. His weaknesses are more glaring than his strengths. I consider him and Rasheed Wallace kind of in the same boat. They both could have been perrenial allstars with their talent and ability but have chosen to settle for jumpers but are still very effective as role players and in crunch time they do what they do best.
You do realize that with Yao and T-mac hurt Walker would have been the first option instead of the third option like he was in Miami.
