offseason thoughts

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

Watching the finals has reminded me of Pitino's statement that 
adding a defensive player that was not a scoring threat would not
help the team. In particular, when Ostertag is on the floor for
Utah, the Bulls basically don't even need to put a man on him.
Pippen just runs around disrupting the Utah offense instead.

Regarding the Celtics' offseason, their situation is that they
have three starter-quality players. Walker is their sole player 
with obvious superstar potential, and I imagine he is untouchable
except for worst-case scenarios. Other than Walker though, I would
guess that everybody else could be traded. The goal would be to
have a net addition of starter-quality players, or to add another
superstar at whatever price. It seems to me that a team with two
superstars and role players tends to be more successful at the
championship level nowadays than a team with zero or one superstars 
and several decent to strong starters (Atlanta, Charlotte).

That is why I believe that Pitino will not just keep the pick and
re-sign Jones and Tabak for instance unless he has no other option.
Additionally, dumping the pick with Knight, for instance, would only
open enough room to sign Geiger or Ratliff. My prediction is that the 
pick and either Mercer or Anderson will be the principals in a trade 
for some combination of cap room, a higher draft pick, and/or a 
veteran All-Star player.

Alex