How filthy is inspired to take a look at some recent players at their finest hour in the NBA. Too often I tend to remember athletes as the aged veteran or wounded star. How Filthy? will focus on the prime cut of meat from a players career. Like Larry Bird said in 1986, "All I know is people tend to forget how great the older great players were. It'll happen that way with me, too." Let's not let that happen. Let's remember just how filthy these players were.Antoine Walker has led career filled with high peaks and deep valleys. A McDonald's All-American, standout at The University of Kentucky, and 3 All-Star Game selections are equally as impressive as his ability to launch 3-pointers at an unconscionable rate, his predilection for turning the ball over (led the league in '97-98), or the way he went bankrupt after earning over $108 million during his NBA career.
Walker peeked in the 2000-01 season at the age of 24. While playing 42 minutes a game for the Celtics, Antoine scored a career high 23.4 ppg, had a career high 5.5 apg, and was rebounding at a rate of 8.9 per contest. His notoriously low shooting percentage fell right at his career average of a shade over 41%. He managed to lead the league in 3-point attempts in 3 consecutive years despite never even approaching a respectable 3-point %. To be more blunt, Walker was a forward who took 10+ free throws in only 3 games during his peak season, but attempted 10+ 3-pointers in 22 games. One game in 2001, Walker attempted 17 3s, making 6. These are staggering stats!
This grainy video is practically a "how to" instruction manual for having a terrible shooting percentage. This trick shot goes in despite being defended by 3 players
Here is a video of Walker highlights that includes college highlights, pro highlights, and plenty of Walker's patented "shimmies"
This video makes you wonder how the dunking college player turned into a lethargic NBA player that fell in love with the 3-point shot
The YouTube vault was relatively empty for Antoine. The highest returned results were for his ridiculous shimmy
So how filthy was Antoine Walker? 2 trash cans of filth for a waste of potential and inefficiency
