What Is Wrong With Rasheed Wallace?
By bpaul
Remember that time in early July when Celtics fans everywhere were ecstatic about Rasheed Wallace joining the team? If you don’t, I sure do. Rasheed was expected to be that guy that would make the Celtics favorites to win the championship and raise banner eighteen. He was suppose to provide a spark off the bench and fill in if anything was to happen to the fragile Kevin Garnett.
Now I’m not going to say he hasn’t done either of these things, but I will say that he has not lived up to his expectations one bit. There has been moments such as his game against Toronto on January 10th in which he scored 29 points, but for the most part he has not brought a whole hell of a lot to this team.
Sheed is currently having his second worst shooting season of his fifteen year career, shooting a pathetic 40%. Besides the shooting aspect of his game he is also having the WORST rebounding (4.2 rpg) season of his career. Remember people, Rasheed is a CENTER. He comes into games to back up Kendrick Perkins and is expected to be a dominant presence inside. Instead he is playing selfishly, shooting shots that should not be taken, and playing the game as if he were a shooting guard or small forward.
Now if you have watched Sheed throughout his career, or even just this year for that matter, you should know that this guy is a BEAST when he plays his role. If you get this guy on the block you might as well put two points up on the scoreboard before he even releases the ball. What stumps me is why he continues to go away from this and instead stand behind the three point arc and air mail three point attempts.
In last night’s game against the Lakers… well I’m not even going to go there because steam will start coming out of my ears. I’ll just give you a quick stat line and you can take it from there: 20 minutes. 4 points. 2-11 from the field. 0-3 from three point land. 0-1 from the free throw line. 3 rebounds. 1 turnover. 1 foul. 1 techincal foul.
Oh and one last thing, there is no stat that keeps track of how many times he got beat on the defensive end by Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum. If you didn’t get to watch the game I’ll just say you probably can’t count the number of times he got beat on one hand, or better yet two.
Because I, and many other Celtics fans are pissed off with the play of Rasheed I decided to sit down with Natalie Sitto from Need4Sheed, a Detroit Pistons blog, to talk about the man her site is named after. Natalie got to watch Sheed closely for six seasons and knows this guy like the back of her hand. So without further ado here are a few questions I asked Natalie, enjoy!!!
"In last night’s game vs. L.A Sheed was horrible to say the least. When he was in the game he was forcing up shots and doing nothing except hurting the flow of the offense. Do you think there will be a point in team when Sheed will eventually settle into his role in the offense, or will Sheed continue just being Sheed?It’s not necessarily “Sheed being Sheed,” that’s just a rule of thumb general. There is nothing Sheedtastic about how frustrating he can be when you know he can play with the best of them and he loafs around like it’s a pickup game. He’ll say it’s all about the playoffs and when it counts, things will happen. Don’t take his word for it…he can make you smile one second and cry the next. So far this season Sheed has been a huge disappointment on defense, is there any reason to believe he will come around and stop being lazy? I am actually surprised, when Sheed was with Detroit he really did pride himself on closing down guys. He would rather block a shot than take one most nights. Will he come around on the D? My guess is yes. What should make us Celtics fans believe that Sheed will come around come playoff time?Nothing. Celtics fans will know how it’s going to go with after the first playoff game. Body language and his shot will tell it all. If he posts up just once during his first 15 minutes on the floor, consider yourself blessed by the Dalai Lama.How’s that post play going by the way? And the Techs? And the affinity to jack up ridiculous threes?One last tip…a clean shaven, fresh haircut is not a good sign. Him throwing his headband off in anger…usually means good things (kind of his HULK move)."
We thank Natalie for taking the time to answer these questions for us and encourage everyone to check out her site which has been featured on Cold Pizza, Pistons.com, ESPN.com, and NBA.com.