Originally Posted by JD617
Bill Simmons just gave Rasheed a nice big dose of ether.
chock full of lost references
A few episodes ago on "Lost," something happened that made me thinkof Rasheed Wallace. Don't worry, I can explain it without violating theSpoiler Alert Treaty from the 2006 United Nations summit. Character Awas explaining to Character B that they absolutely needed to killCharacter X. And the reason was this: Although Character X was alreadydead, he had an infection inside him that, if left alone, would blossomand make Character X a potentially dangerous force.
You cannot heal this infection, Character A explained. You cannot treat it with medication. You can only kill Character X.
Character B disagreed. Character X was his friend. He couldn't kill him. He had to roll the dice and hope Character A was wrong.
I am not wrong, Character A said simply. We are endangering everyone's lives by letting Character X live.
AndI was watching this thinking, "My God, Character X is Rasheed Wallace!We let him live, and now he's destroying everyone on the island! Whydidn't we take him out in time? WHY DIDN'T WE TAKE HIM OUT INTIME????????"
That may seem demented to you. After all, CharacterX ended up killing Character A by force. Wallace is only a 35-year-oldbench player on a pseudocontender that will lose in Round 1 or 2 of theplayoffs. But it's been a decidedly unhappy regular season for a 50-winteam. Forget about Kevin Garnett's balky knee or Paul Pierce's achingbody -- there were damaging trade rumors, young guns (Kendrick Perkinsand Rajon Rondo) rebelling against the old guard, legitimate alpha dogand chemistry issues, a coach who can't consistently motivate his teamor settle on a rotation, ongoing rebounding woes and, worst of all, oldlegs. Only Rondo's individual brilliance made things tolerable.Everything else felt like the basketball version of that movie in whichLeo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet scream at each other for two hours.
Did Wallace infect the team, or was the team already infected? Probablythe latter. Probably. To be safe, let's figure it out. Everythingyou're about to read has nothing to do with Wallace's qualifications asa friend, husband, father or son. I am discussing him as a basketballplayer only. We will call that person "Sheed."
Sheed will finish the 2009-10 regular season next week as my leastfavorite Celtic ever, edging out Todd Day, Fred Roberts, Sidney Wicks,Curtis Rowe and Vin Baker. At least Vinnie had an excuse: a drinkingproblem. Sheed has an apathy problem. His doughy, nonchalant shadowlooms over every game.
Sheed roped the Celtics into givinghim an $18.9 million, three-year deal, made a big stink about breakingMJ's 72-win record and then showed up for training camp wearing a fatsuit.
Sheed caused my 62-year-old father to send me thefollowing text recently: "Wallace can't rebound, blocks nobody out,gets outhustled on every rebound and plays matador defense. What anawful Celtic!!!!"
Sheed caused me to respond, "You forgot about all the 3s he misses."
Sheedis so out of shape that Reggie Miller started a sentence during theCavs-Celtics game on TNT last month with "When Rasheed Wallace getsinto game shape …"
Sheed has been healthy since the first day of training camp.
Sheedlikes jogging at half-speed. He submits entire sequences -- two orthree minutes at a time, six or seven trips up and down the court --without ever passing either foul line. Sometimes I count to see howmany consecutive possessions Sheed can pull off without crossing eithercharity stripe. His unofficial record is nine.
Sheed doesn't rebound as much as debound. "Lazy" isn't a strongenough word. He always seems to be standing in the wrong spot. Heconstantly forgets to box out. His hops are long gone, so ballsroutinely bounce over his head to opposing players. When matchedagainst a hustler like Anderson Varejao, it's like watching a goldenretriever fight off a Rottweiler. Advanced metrics prove that he's acatastrophic offensive rebounder and someone who subtly altered theidentity of this season's Celtics team. (See sidebar.) So there's that.
Sheed'splus-minus is predictably bad: minus-4.6. I don't trust individualplus-minus as much as numbers for five-man lineups, so let's digdeeper. When Boston's three best perimeter players (Rondo, Pierce andRay Allen) play with Garnett and Perkins, that unit is plus-280 for theseason (plus-12.0 per 48 minutes). Swap Wallace for Perkins and it dipsto minus-19 (-5.0 per 48 minutes). Swap Wallace for Garnett and it dipsto minus-4 (minus-1.1 per 48 minutes).
Sheed makes me say the words, "Why won't we play Brian Scalabrine?"
Sheedlists himself as 6-foot-11, but he's probably two inches taller thanthat. Announcers love saying how "long" he is. Announcers love that hecan play down low or shoot 3s … you know, on paper, because hedoes neither of these things successfully and hasn't for two solidyears. But hey, it sounds great.
Sheed owns a beautiful baselineturnaround, but he keeps it in the garage like a covered Ferrari. It'sa breathtaking shot. He catches a pass on the left block, whirlseffortlessly toward the baseline, pushes off so he's going up (notsideways) and releases the ball well above his head. All in one motion.Nobody can block it.
Sheed shoots this turnaround once a game. Sometimes twice if we're lucky.
Sheed'scoaches always wish he would "go in the block more often." They neverdemand it; if they do, they know they won't get it. So it's more of asuggestion. Like reminding your spouse, "Hey, we haven't had sex in awhile." If broached the right way, Sheed might shift his focus the nextgame, with his head down low, and bank home a couple of turnarounds. Asthough he's acknowledging, "You're right, I could do this." Then hegoes back to standing behind the 3-point line.
Sheed makes his coaches want to become TV analysts.
Sheedis so gifted that during a Clippers game in December, he pivoted BillWalton-style, searched for a cutter, froze Brian Skinner, held the ballover his head for an extra second and then casually banked home a15-footer …
flat-footed. Boston's bench guys had anappropriate reaction: part glee, part disbelief, parthave-you-ever-seen-that-before? I was sitting 10 feet away. Rondo evenslapped palms with a teammate and exchanged "I'm glad we shared thattogether" looks.
Sheed loves moments like that. He's like an antisocial cat that suddenly jumps onto your lap to mess with your head.
Hey, buddy! Where'd you come from? This is great! Can I pet you? And just like that, they jump off.
Sheednever wanted the responsibility of being consistently great. That's adifferent kind of pressure. That's bringing it every month, every week,every game, every quarter. That's working in the gym long aftereveryone else has left. That's dealing with a steady stream ofopponents saying to themselves before every game, "I'm playing Sheedtonight, I gotta give him my best." That's dealing with fans who
expect you to come through instead of being pleasantly surprised when you do.
Sheed likes leaving people pleasantly surprised.
Sheed hasearned $150 million in salary since 1995. Most fans, media members andother players regard his career as a success. And maybe it was. That'sa lot of money. Until you remember that he has never made an All-NBAteam. Or an All-Defense team. Or that he has made the All-Star teamonly four times (once as an injury replacement). Then it's not soimpressive.
Sheed reminds me of Randy Moss: good in greatsituations, destructive in bad ones. A front-runner. After the 2007-08Pistons blew a playoff game to Boston, Sheed reportedly called coachFlip Saunders "the worst [bleeping] coward I've ever seen" in thelocker room … in front of the entire team. He played his bestbasketball for Larry Brown, who challenged him and refused to let himcoast. He played his worst basketball for Michael Curry, quitting onthe Pistons so egregiously that free-agent suitors couldn't decipherwhether Sheed was washed up. The Celtics rolled the dice and hopedCurry was the problem. They were wrong.
Sheed taught everyonethat "He's not washed up, he just quit on his coach" should never beyour justification for signing a free agent.
Sheed remains one ofthe NBA's smartest players. I watched him sitting on the bench duringthat Clips game for four quarters. Couldn't stop staring at him,actually. His wheels were turning the entire time. He's not a badteammate, nor is he disruptive. He yells out instructions. Works therefs. Doesn't miss a trick. During crunch time, Sheed was sitting inthe last bench seat with a gorgeous L.A. girl to his left. She tried tointeract with him during dead spots. He ignored her. She bumped himhappily after a couple of Boston baskets. He ignored her. Sheed waslocked in. I was impressed. It almost made up for the fact that heplayed 24 minutes, missed 12 of 16 shots and bricked all seven of this3s. Almost.
Sheed loves being on a winning team. Loves thecamaraderie, loves needling opponents, loves riding the refs, lovesbarking encouragement after big plays. I would bet anything that thispast summer, Sheed knew he was done and decided, "Instead of retiring,I'll just sign with a contender, pocket another $20 million, hang withthe fellas, jack up some 3s, play myself into shape during the regularseason, then go hard in May and June." You could execute a plan likethat only if you didn't care what fans thought.
Sheed couldn't care less.
Sheedcaused me to e-mail my buddy Hench in December just to ask whether heremembered seeing Sheed run harder than half-speed even once. Hench'sresponse: "I've yet to see Sheed make a fast-twitch move that wouldhave spilled a beverage if he was carrying one on the court."
Sheed'sbasketball IQ remains his most confounding quality. He makes onebeautiful pass per game. He sees angles that other big men don't see.When motivated, he can swallow up any low-post move. He loves guardingPau Gasol and Dwight Howard. He can shut them down two or three timesin a row by himself. And after he proves this to himself, he relaxesand gives up an easy basket. Whatever. He stopped them the other times.
Sheed'sreputation as a great help defender at this point of his career mightbe the biggest Sheed-related myth of all. He's too slow to jump out onshooters. He's surprisingly inconsistent on rotations (only the breadand butter of Boston's defense these past three seasons). He leads theleague in per-minute averages in two imaginary categories: "most timesgiving a soft foul when a hard one was required" and "most timesavoiding contact entirely as a guy drives right at him for a layup orfloater." LeBron sees Sheed and thinks to himself, "All I have to do isdribble right at him and he will either jump out of my way or love-tapme. … Either way, I am getting two points."Sheed made the Celtics softer. You will never convince me otherwise.
Sheed loves jacking 3s despite mixed results throughout the years.He's a 33.7 percent career 3-point shooter. He's attempted 160-plus3-pointers in 10 different seasons; never has he made more than 36percent. During his two best Portland seasons (1999-2000 and 2000-01),Sheed averaged 18 points per game, 7.4 rebounds per game and 51 percentfield goal shooting, and attempted 10 times as many 2-pointers as3-pointers. This season, through 74 games, he's attempted 3292-pointers and 275 3-pointers … and grabbed 298 rebounds.
Sheed has a gray patch on the back of his head. I think it's there as a warning to everyone who hasn't coached him before.
Sheedjacked up 202 3s in the first 41 games of this season (nearly five pergame), making just 61 of them (30 percent) … even though he wasplaying only 23 minutes per game. According to the Elias Sports Bureau,he was headed for the third-worst percentage of any player who everplayed 40-plus games and averaged four-plus 3s per game in a season.Yes, ever. The good news: He takes fewer 3s now. The bad news: He alsomakes fewer of them. Since Feb. 1, Sheed has made 16 of 72 3-pointers(22.2 percent). His season average: 28.2 percent.
Sheed takes wide-open 3s. Every time. And still … 28.2 percent.
Sheedcaused Hench to e-mail me after attending February's Celts-Lakers game,"Rasheed's 20 minutes tonight should be put in a time capsule andstudied by future generations. 2-for-11 … clanked his only freethrow … dunked on a few times … unforced turnover 40 feetfrom the basket … just one of the worst basketball players I'veever seen."
Sheed didn't even play his worst game of the season that night.
Sheedhas earned an NBA-record 314 career technicals (and counting), peakingwith 41 in 2000-01 (also a record). Referees treat him as if he'swearing a Tim Donaghy Halloween mask. At least in the old days, he wasa good player -- something of a tortured genius -- so the refs put upwith him. Now that he's washed up? They detest him. Even as a benchplayer, he leads the league with 18 techs this season, earning him anautomatic suspension that unfortunately ended after only one game.
Sheedreacts with abject horror to every call against him. He flips out. Hehops around in disbelief. He makes you think, "My God, why would theywrong him like this? What do they have against him? IT'S A CONSPIRACY!"Then you see the replay and … yup, he fouled him.
Sheed'stantrums have a habit of jump-starting runs for opponents. It usuallyunfolds like this: As the Celtics lead by double digits on the road,Sheed gets whistled for something dumb, Sheed overreacts, Sheed gets atechnical, Sheed keeps pushing it, Sheed gets pulled away, Sheed keepsletting it fester and fester, and just like that, a completely deadcrowd has been injected with life. In December, Boston
blew an 11-point lead in Philly after Sheed got ejected. This will happen during the playoffs at least once. I promise you.
Sheed's current coach, Doc Rivers, has been afraid to bench him,call him out publicly or tell his owner, "I can't play Sheed anymore,he's too much of a liability." On Sunday against Cleveland, after Sheedthrew a tantrum and drew a technical, Rivers snapped and exchangedheated words with him. Sheed never returned. It would have been theperfect time for the coach to declare afterward, "Bench players can'tturn officials against their team in big games. If Sheed can't acceptthis, I can't play him anymore. Period." The coach did not say this.Big mistake.
Sheed caused me to mail my father a rough draft ofthis column four weeks ago. Dad's take: "It is a little harsh, but I'mnot sure how to make it less harsh. Maybe a couple of words here orthere to make it seem like a little less of a personal attack.Otherwise, that's Sheed!"
Sheed caused me to struggle with Dad's request. But I did my best.
Sheed once made this
Christmas video that I loved. It captures his sense of humor perfectly. Sheed is definitely funny … when he wants to be.
Sheedpurchased championship belts for everyone on the 2004-05 Pistons. Heeven wore his belt to select big games. I had wanted a player to dothat.
Sheed seemed like a fun teammate in the past. I rememberattending a big Pistons-Celtics regular-season game in 2008; Boston'scrowd was especially fired up because alpha dog status was on the line,so we booed Detroit's intros and went ballistic when the lights turneddown for our video opening. In the pitch-black arena, you could barelymake out the Pistons bunched in a circle, ignoring the moment, hoppingup and down in unison. Sheed was directly in the middle, jumping higherthan everyone and screaming toward the ceiling. Just a guy who lovedshowing up for big games. I remember thinking to myself, "Uh-oh, thoseguys are locked in." They were. The Celtics lost.
Sheed lived for those moments -- once upon a time.
[h4]
SHEED IN PHOTOS
[/h4]
• From his days at North Carolina to his tour through the NBA, a special Rasheed Wallace
photo gallery.
Sheed played for two passionate fan bases, Portland and Detroit.Both couldn't wait to ditch him. Pistons fans loved him but thought hewas done. (They had good reason: In Cleveland's first-round sweep ofDetroit last season, Sheed notched 26 points and 25 rebounds …total.) Portland fans despised him because his "Jail Blazers" nearly
murdered professional basketball there.Management only salvaged the situation by blowing up the roster andpromising fans that nothing like the Sheed era would happen again.
Sheed'sPortland career nearly earned its own "30 for 30" episode. He wore a"F*** WHAT YA HEARD" T-shirt to his introductory news conference. Hewas suspended two different times for
whipping towels at a teammate and
a referee. He drew a seven-game suspension because "he accosted a referee
and threatened him." He threatened to
punch a sports writer. He
whipped a basketballat a teammate who was shooting practice jumpers with his back to him,then ran off giggling as the poor guy writhed in pain. He was
arrested for marijuana possession while driving in a car with a teammate. He
claimed the NBA exploited black playersand said "I ain't no dumb-*%% n----- out here" (and was admonished byNBA commissioner David Stern for being "hateful" and "ignorant").Portland finally traded him a few weeks after he invented the phrase"cut the check," which Sheed defined like this: "As long as somebody'CTC,' at the end of the day I'm with them. For all you that don't knowwhat CTC means, that's 'Cut the Check.' I just go out there and play.Again, somebody just CTC."
Sheed is fortunate that everyone has forgotten those stories.
Sheedearned a big-game player reputation despite having a prominent role inthe NBA's biggest Game 7 collapse ever (Lakers-Blazers, 2000 Westernfinals: Sheed went 0-for-6
down the stretch and
bricked two huge free throws). He also made one of the biggest NBA brain farts ever (leaving a scorching-hot
Robert Horry wide-open during Game 5 of the 2005 Finals, a play that single-handedly swung the title that season).
Sheed is fortunate that nobody seems to remember those two games.
Sheedhas been lucky that nobody expects anything from him anymore. (When Itexted my buddy Bug this week asking why he thought Boston fans hadn'tturned on Sheed yet, he texted back, "Easy. Apathy.") When Sheedinexplicably caught fire against Oklahoma City last week, the crowdyelled "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!" after every make, almost as ifeveryone was trying to find out what the moment might feel like. He'sbeen written off as anything of consequence. Expectations are zero. Andmaybe he likes it that way.
Sheed's Celtics are 25-24 sinceChristmas. The 2008 world champs killed themselves every night. Adepleted 2008-09 Celtics team exhibited remarkable pride and heart. Nowthey're bored and sluggish? Now they're searching for ways to get firedup? Now they're blowing home games left and right? Now they're on paceto break the unofficial record for "most players-only meetings andclear-the-air dinners" by a contender in one season? A team led bythree future Hall of Famers who ALWAYS tried in the past? It doesn'tadd up.
Sheed may not have infected the Celtics as Character Xdid, but he did compromise the one thing that made them special:intensity. They care only when it suits them. The seven words thatdefined Sheed's career. Both the team and Sheed think they have anon/off switch that can be flicked at any time. Not true. They are indenial. "Lost" has the Smoke Monster; the Celtics have the Smoke andMirrors Monster. And it's the entire team.
Sheed keeps chuggingalong undaunted. Normally when a once-effective player loses hisfastball, you empathize with him. Not this time. 2010 Sheed stubbornlycarries himself like 2004 Sheed -- same shot selection, same swagger,same antagonistic relationship with officials, same hit-or-missintensity, only with 35-year-old legs and love handles. You would thinka basketball *genius* would adjust and keep thriving as a bench guy andteammate. You would think he felt guilty about repeatedly letting downthe bosses who signed him, the peers who recruited him and the fans whopay to watch him. You would think he cared about winning a secondtitle. You would think.
Sheed famously likes to say, "Ball don'tlie." He's right. Ball says Sheed should get in shape or retire. I bethe'll do neither. Cut that check.
Bill Simmons is a columnist for ESPN.com and the author of the recent New York Times best-seller "
http://twitter.com/sportsguy33.
[h4]
THE FACTS ABOUT SHEED'S REBOUNDING
[/h4]
1. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Sheed has the lowest careerper-48-minute rebounding average of anyone 6-foot-11 or taller whoplayed 1,000-plus games (9.
.
2. His 2009-10 offensive rebound rate is significantly
lower than that of any other center (2.
.
3. According to Basketball Prospectus' Kevin Pelton, Sheed in2009-10 is tied with Toni Kukoc in 2005-06 for the third-lowestoffensive rebound percentage ever among regular players 6-11 or taller(0.30). The two ahead of him? Manute Bol in 1989-98 (0.27) and DirkNowitzki in 2002-03 (0.2
.
4. The 2008-09 Celtics outrebounded opponents by five per game andaveraged nearly 10.5 offensive boards. The 2009-10 Celtics getoutrebounded by 1.3 a game and average just 8.7 offensive boards.Hmmmmmm.
[h4]SHEED'S 3-POINT SHOOTING[/h4]
The lowest single-season 3-point shooting percentage in NBA history(minimum 300 attempts). Through April 6, Rasheed Wallace is 78-for-277(28.2 percent).
| | | |
Mookie Blaylock | 1997-98 | 26.9 | 90-334 |
Antoine Walker | 2003-04 | 26.9 | 82-305 |
Antoine Walker | 2006-07 | 27.5 | 84-305 |
Latrell Sprewell | 1994-95 | 27.6 | 90-326 |
Allen Iverson | 2002-03 | 27.7 | 84-303 |
[th=""]Player[/th][th=""]Year[/th][th=""]Pct.[/th][th=""]3-pt[/th]
way too long of a read