Re: And one MORE thing...

[Adam A Suchocki <Twilight@world.std.com>]

As everyone has probably guessed, I'm totally with dorine and chris on
this one.  I think all of us are willing to give Pitino his due as a
coach, but it is getting hard to respect his ability as a manager.  He has
scrapped all of our salary cap room for some mid level talent, some of
whom are not better than what he let go.  I understand the idea of
bringing in your own players, but you still need to get as much as you can
for the players you have.  So far, we've seen the following...


David Wesley - lost for nothing, yet considered good enough to be signed
to a 3+ million a year deal by a playoff team to be their starting point
guard.

Rick Fox - lost for nothing (and lied to in the process), yet considered
good enough to be the primary goal of the LA Lakers and the Atlanta Hawks,
both legitimate contenders.

Dino Radja - half his salary slot was gained, but very sloppily.  If it
was handled better, they might have gotten all of it or had him traded
(telling a player you won't trade him - when he asks for serious reasons -
namely his wife said she was going back to croatia with their soon to be
born child unless he either   returned to Europe or stay in Boston and
then trading him a few days before that child is due - is going to screw
up any   trade and cause hostile dealings from then on)

Marty Conlon - as Conlon's agent put it, Pitino lied to him.  He said he
wanted to sign Marty and his agent said it could possibly be done for
close to league minimum, and then cutting him for salary cap space.  Marty
was on the books as 375k.  As his agent put it, how can a value like that
mess be a sticking point on a 7 year 24 million dollar deal.  Simply put,
Pitino didn't want him, but tried to blame Knight for it.

Eric Williams - this is Pitino's biggest lie.  On draft night, Pitino
announced to everyone there that although there had been significant
offers for Eric Williams, the team was not interested in trading him.  He
said that it would have to be a very substantial offer to pry Eric away
from them.  2 second round picks and the ability to free up 1.2 million is
not in any wayu substantial.  Close to draft day, non Boston newspapers
had Eric Williams being traded for Eric Dampier or packaged for jayson
Williams.  ML Carr reported last year, that other than Antoine Walker,
Eric Williams was the only player who drew serious trade offers.  The idea
that they couldn't get better than 2 second round picks for him is just
plain crazy.  Moreover, the idea that they couldn't sign Mills without
trading him is just as crazy (unless Mills agent said you either sign both
Mills and Edney or neither).  Right now, I'm pretty confident that the
Eric Williams deal will go down as one of the worst deals in Celtic
History.

On top of this, I'm still a little put o by the whole Travis Knight thing.
Pitino's comments that the league made him sign Knight right away and that
is what forced them to renounce Fox and Conlon is just plain unbelievable.
There is nothing in the CBA that says there is a deadline in making free
agent deals official.  The league is very strict about trying to delay
signing your own free agents to create imaginary cap room to sign others,
but there is nothing preventing a team from waiting to complete a deal to
sign a free agent.  Case in point, the league let Dallas wait over 2 weeks
after it had reached a deal with Erick Strickland before they signed it
because they needed to use the new salary cap money that wouldn't be
available until August 15th.  the league did not make them renounce their
own free agents to sign him then, despite the fact that Strickland made
the deal public the first week of August.  Likewise, the deals between
Detroit and Wiliams was considered to have been negotiated before August
15th, but the league didn't make them renounce Terry Mills and Lyndsey
Hunter before then to get it done. Simply put, either Pitino is getting
very bad advice on how the salary cap and trades work, or he is not
putting in as much research as he should be into trades and free agents
and is trying to blame circumstance for his less than optimal moves.  

With a better Gm, we could have done the following:

sign David  Wesley for his desired contract (starting at around 1.5
million a year) and   then traded him to either Denver or Charlotte
(charlotte for a draft pick, Denver packaged with Greg Minor for a second
round pick).

tell Dino they might trade him outright, before they have offers - if he
puts up a fight early at least you avoid the trade fiasco which destroyed
all remaining trade value Dino had.

tell Travis Knight and his agent to wait until August 15th (maybe even for
an extra few 100k).

sign Rick fox to the deal discussed (4 years, 8 million - actually a pay
cut for this year which frees up extra salary cap money).  Either keep him
in place of Chris Mills - they are very compareable players, Fox is a
better passer, Mills slightly better on the boards, but both rate in the
tops of the league as defensive small forwards, and Rick can play more
positions - or trade him to Indiana for Eric Dampier or to Atlanta for
Alan Henderson - either way, more salary cap money and a better front
line.

Worse case, at this point, when August   15th rolled around, we have
almost 6 million in salary cap to play with even after signing Travis
Knight.  Go ahead and sign any of Bowen, DeClerc, or Massenburg that you
want, but you can still be a player for Williams, Grant, Mills, Dudley,
and are in a position to trade for a high salary player if need be.  You
still have Eric Williams, who could be used as part of a package to get a
question mark next years free agent player.  

Simply put, each time Pitino had a little money, he spent it right away -
going directly against his stated strategy of investing the majority of
the money in stars, not role players.  Mills, Knight, and Declerc will
never be all-stars, but the salary cap room Pitino tied up with them could
have been enough to get a potential all-star next year.  In the NBA, it is
almost always better to pool your money and get one very good player
instead of a few good players.  Pitino repeatedly misjudged how much money
he would have, and tied us up in a bunch of mediocre players - they will
help the team, but the team is no closer to being a contender by adding
any of them, and is further away because of the loss of salary cap room.  

I still think Pitino will get a lot out of these players, but it really
looks like he could have gotten more talent for his dollar if he had been
patient.

Adam