Re: trade and draft

["Jeff Tepper" <jaytee@itasoft.com>]

- ----------
> From: jpacuska@epix.net
> To: Jeremy <jwarren@emerald.tufts.edu>
> Cc: celtics@igtc.COM
> Subject: Re: trade and draft
> Date: Tuesday, June 24, 1997 1:27 AM
> 
> Jeremy wrote:
> >
> >		<snip> 
> >
> >         Battie's stock is dropping because he was measured at 6' 9.5"
at
> > the Chicago camp.  Thus he will never be a center. 
> >		<snip>
> >
> > Jeremy
> 
> Obviously, Jeremy, you've never heard of a couple of 
> "less-than-six-foot-nine-and-a-half-inchers" named Bill Russell and Dave 
> Cowens (not to mention Wes Unseld at 6'7").
> 
> Don't anybody try to tell me that "the players today are bigger and 
> stronger", so guys like Russell and Cowens couldn't play today.  
> 
> Baloney.  
> 
> Russ had to go against Wilt (7'2") and the Red Head had to go against 
> guys like Walt Bellamy and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.
> 
> This is NOT an endorsement for the Celts to draft Battie.  I'm just 
> cautioning everyone against judging a "center" by his height.
> 
> Joe.

These are some good points that Joe made, but in Jeremy's defense i think
that his post is still valid.  People have been questioning whether or not
Battie's body and playing style are better fit to the center or power
forward position, and the general consensus was that ideally he's a power
forward due mostly to his playing style.   But people have been saying that
since he is supposedly so tall, he could be a makeshift center for a team
like us that doesn't have anyone better to play center, even though it
would be a reach.  

If my thinking is the same as Jeremy's, i think that Jeremy was simply
pointing out that he's not as tall as everyone thought he was, and this
will make it even more of a reach to play him at center.  

If a player is fit to play center, then like Joe points out, they don't
necessarily need to be 6-11 or over.  But if you need to move someone who
is ideally a power forward to the center position, I'd much rather move a
6-11 power forward than a 6-9 power forward.

Jeff