Assessing talent

[Gene Kirkpatrick <gkir@tjc.tyler.cc.tx.us>]

It's late in the afternoon now and I'm still high on the trade for Roy
Rogers.  And I want to reply to the ideas about celtic players and our
talent level.  The missing link is not evaluation of our own, which I think
has been balanced.  Walker can be a star, Mercer and Billups have great
potential, and W. McCarty and Rogers add a lot.  The tendency I see is to
overvalue the opposition.

Whenever you warmed up for a game as a kid--even through high
school--didn't you look down at the other team and think, "ohmygod how
are we going to be able to stay on the same court with them?"  Well, I
had that fear, but usually we could manage.  That attitude extends now
to the teams with Chris Webber or Alan Iverson or (insert another "star"
here),  who are excellent talents, but play on teams that can't quite get it
done.  Sometimes lesser talents stand them off or beat them because of
a better system or better teamwork or because these "stars"  tend
toward individual accomplishments rather than team accomplishments. 
Anyway, their skills may exceed ours, but I don't yield to their teams'
ability to beat ours.

Now, I know that talent--the speed, shooting ability, defensive ability--are
necessary to go very far, but I believe this celtics bunch has that level of
talent now.  We need hard work, confidence, the best out of most of our
guys, but so do the other teams.  Match the top eight or nine players at
the end of this year and see how we look.  I think our young nucleus will
fare quite well.

Gene

PS:  Teams with equivalent talent that we will have to contend with for
the next 5 plus years:  Phoenix, San An., the Lakers, Seattle, Milwaukee
and Philadelphia.  That's the short list that have an excellent, young talent
base.