House not afraid to take open shots for Celtics
He's never been a big scorer, but Eddie House has always been a gunner -- and for that he doesn't feel he owes anyone an apology.
"I think I'd be doing the team a disservice if I have an open shot and don't take it," said House, who scored 15 points in his normal bench role Wednesday at Philadelphia.
"It's hard enough in the league to get one open look, let alone two, three, four open looks on one possession, so when you get it you have to take that shot, and I have no problem taking it."
House is the fourth-leading scorer on the Celtics, at only 8.4 points per game, but it's working out quite nicely considering Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen are each a tick above or below 20. It's a role with which the eight-year veteran is very familiar. In each of his seven NBA stops, he's been counted upon for this very job. He was averaging 7.8 points per game when the Celtics signed him as a free agent last summer; his biggest season was 2005-06 when he got up to 9.8 ppg for the high-scoring Suns.
It's just that House is a point guard, not necessarily a shooting guard. Everyone thinks of him as a Vinnie Johnson type. "The Microwave?" he asks, remembering the old Pistons guard, who could come off the bench and light up a scoreboard in a microsecond.
"I leave the comparisons to everybody else," he said. "I don't even think about it. I think I'm a unique type of player where I could fit in with a whole bunch of different teams. Everywhere I go it's like the same thing: I'm gonna give you energy, I'm gonna give you scoring, I'll be willing to run the point if you ask me to do that. I'll run the 2 if you ask me to do that. I'll leave the comparison to you guys."
House says he's been a point guard his whole life.
"I come to college (Arizona State) and coach (Bill Frieder) is like, 'we need more shooting, I want you to shoot.' So then you get this label that all you do is shoot. They're not allowing you to show your other skills. I think me playing the point here, it's refreshing other people's minds who've seen it but forgot about it because last year I didn't play the 1 at all and kind of the end of the year I really didn't play that much, so people have kind of forgot that I can play the 1 and I can make plays and I can run the offense."
Last season, House was at New Jersey, which means that he was behind Jason Kidd, which means that he averaged only 16.9 minutes per game. Of course, that wasn't far off his career average of 16.7 minutes. Part of his problem is that he's never really settled down. He did play the first three seasons of his career as a second-round pick in Miami, but after the 2002-03 season he was denied a qualifying offer and signed a two-year contract with the Clippers.
The following season he was traded to the Bobcats and in the next month, he was waived, signed and waived by the Bucks and then claimed by the Kings. On Sept. 12, 2005 the Suns signed him to a two-year free-agent contract, but when the Suns signed Marcus Banks, he elected to opt out after a year and filed for free agency. The Nets picked him up.
"I love the experience that I got from each place," he said. "Each team is different. I was able to meet a whole bunch of guys, get some friends, some lifelong friends, throughout the journey that I've had. So it's all a learning experience. I don't regret anything. It would be nice to kind of latch on and be somewhere for some years, but if that's not the case, hey, you pick up the pieces and move on."
House signed a one-year deal ($1.5 million) in Boston, and he likes it.
"These are the most important open looks I've gotten in my career," he said.
It's beginning to look like a good fit.
The Patriot Ledger