the trade

["Jeremy Warren" <jeremy.warren@alphatech.com>]

                      the trade                                    10/23/97

I love this trade.  We just got younger, faster, taller, and more cap
friendly.  McCartey and Walker will make a great 6'10" bookend pair at the
starting forward spots.  Dontae Jones would have been a lottery pick last year
if it weren't for his foot problems.  I see him as a poor man's Michael
Finley.  I've never seen John Thomas play, so I can't really comment on him. 
Mills wasn't going to fit into this system the way McCartey and Jones will. 
And we unload his six years guaranteed at $26M for McCartey and Jones who each
have two years left at around $700K per year, Thomas about $600K per year over
three years, and Brooks who I'm guessing had one year at near the league
minimum.  That comes out to a total of about $5M over three years.

Brooks has been cut, leaving us with 16 guys.  I believe 13 of them have
guaranteed deals through next season.  It would be fun to have a contest
trying to guess who the 12 players to make the roster will be.  Pitino has
already hinted that John Thomas will start the year on the injured list.  The
trade makes Cunningham expendable, so he'll be cut.  That leaves two extras. 
If there are no other trades (which is probably an unsafe assumption), I'd bet
that Edney gets waived (mostly because he's the only small guard with a one
year deal) and Bowen gets placed on the injured list with concussion after
effects.  But hopefully they can move some other guys (Dana/Dee, Minor,
Massenburg, DeClerq) to make room for Edney and Bowen.   If not, the 12 would
be:

Knight, Ellison
Walker, DeClerq, Massenburg
McCartey, Jones,
Mercer, Minor
Billups, Barros, Brown

But again, I'd rather have Edney and Bowen as the fourth and fifth guards then
Dee/Dana and Minor.  I'll end this letter by saying that my faith in Pitino
has been completely restored.  This trade along with good showings against
Orlando and NY leads me to believe that we are definitely on the right track. 
And with Rodman, Pippen, and Kukoc all potentially out on opening night, I'd
say there's about a 40% chance that we'll upset the bulls.

Jeremy