Free Agency

[Warwick Janetzki <giants@eisa.net.au>]

I accidentally deleted all the mails in the free agent list prior to
reading them.

I believe the Celtics should look for 3 things when purchasing their
free agents.

1) Young
2) Athletic
3) Healthy

Those 3 components are basically what the team is built on.

Players that I believe are free agents and fit the needs of the team
(add Bo Outlaw if he is a free agent).

Center
1. Theo Ratliff
2. Michael Stewart
3. Cherokee Parks

Ratliff and Stewart are both young athletic shot blockers, if we
purchased one or both of these would give the Celtics a very
intimidating offense. Sure, both of them probably wouldn't be able to
score much but with Antoine in the front court they just need a guy who
can play defense and add 5 to 10ppg to the score.

Cherokee is the type of player who isn't an intimidator, but is a VERY
big improvement over Travis Knight.

With Andrew DeClercq being the first BIG man off the bench for the
Celtics next season, things would start to look better.

Power Forward
1. Tom Gugliotta (I wish)
2. Jayson Williams (I wish)
3. Christian Laettner
4. Antonio McDyess
5. Alan Henderson!!!
6. Gary Trent

The top 4 (excluding perhaps Laettner who has dropped a bit of late) are
all wishes. These are the types of players who don't need an
introduction so I'll just move onto Henderson and Trent.

Both of these young men have impressed me greatly with their hustle and
determination on the boards. Both have shown that they can play great
when one or more of the other more talked about players on their team
have been out injured (especially Trent when both Grant and Wallace
missed, he stepped in with something like 25 points and 15 boards).

Small Forward / Shooting Guard (shooter off the bench)
1. Rick Fox
2. Malik Sealy
3. Alvin Williams
4. Sean Respert

I would love to see Rick Fox back at the C's, as would most of you, I
can imagine!?

Malik Sealy is a nice guy off the court and has a good shot. He is a
competitor. Alvin Williams has been among the much loved variety on this
list since I can remember this season. Respert is a favorite of mine as
he has a nice shooting action, the downside of course is his size as he
is too small to play much at shooting guard and hasn't got the ball
handling ability to play the point where he would get buried behind
Barros.

Overall I think the C's could be looking at Theo Ratliff, Michael
Stewart, Alan Henderson, Gary Grant and Alvin Williams. With the draft
pick I would be in favour of trading the pick down or totally to a team
that doesn't have a first rounder for a future #1. This is because at
the moment the draft isn't very deep although Jamison has announced that
he is coming out. If Vince Carter and a couple of the other players come
out too then the pick would be very good. If we won the lottery and got
among the top 3 picks, then the reverse of what I just said would be my
decision, keep the pick in that case, draft the best available (be it a
point guard, shooting guard or needbe) and then we have another
tradeable player.

Cheers,

Warwick