Re: 80% of NBA could be free agents

["Cecil Wright" <cecil@hfx.andara.com>]

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Joe!  Are you tryong to upset the applecart?
Prepare ye the way of the Lord. (Godspell - '72)
Didn't Caspar or Balthazar or one of them 3 black dude kings bring some
gold?  Or was that myrrh or frankenstein, er, frankensence.

I NEED SOME FRIGGIN B.BALL!!!!!!!

Cecil

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>
To: Josh Ozersky <josh_ozersky@yahoo.com>; celtics <celtics@igtc.com>
Date: Friday, October 09, 1998 11:53 AM
Subject: Re: 80% of NBA could be free agents


>Josh Ozersky wrote:
>
>> Joe, I can tell by reading this that you realized by the time you got
>> to the end how dumb the first part was.  Throw in Mercer or Pierce
>> WITH ANTOINE?  For who?  Wilt Chamberlain in his rookie year?
>> Everyone knows what Antoine can do, and the fact that he's an asshole
>> doesn't detract from his trade value at all (clip)
>
>Josh:
>
>Sure, but the fact that Antoine's perceived as an unsignable "asshole"
>does matter, as does the p.r. difficulty of trading an equivalent talent
>(Shareef, Vin Baker, Grant Hill) for a guy (Antoine) who's antics are
>unpalatable to some members of the ticket-paying white audience.
>
>My point is the same as the one you made yesterday, namely that
>(luckily, IMO) we have NO CHOICE but to sign the immature jerk, simply
>because we wouldn't be able to get a star player for him straight-up and
>so we'd have to (be dumb enough) to throw in Mercer or Pierce. Thus the
>present choices are: a) keep AW  b) trade AW for dogmeat  c) trade AW
>with Mercer/Pierce for a comparable front-line superstar. I'm with you
>in the "keep AW" tribe. My hope is that AW's perceived fall in value
>since the end of last season is a positive thing for the Celtics, since
>we'll end up having no option but to sign him (over the objections
>perhaps of certain fans) and hopefully for a more reasonable amount.
>
>Antoine is not only a winner in my book, but he's also a good kid and
>very hardworking IMO (yikes, here I go again). As I argued some months
>ago, many of the public relations faux-pas' Antoine ran into this
>off-season (picking his friend Walter to start over the rookie Pierce,
>his pained reaction to Pitino publically criticizing him, etc.) can as
>easily be explained as the result of his naive sincerity and his
>(betrayed) sense of loyalty to his teammates and coach. Not to preach
>too much, but I wish some list members wouldn't rush to judge Antoine's
>book by its shabby-looking cover (his wiggle, his glare etc.). As far as
>I understand it, Joseph and Mary were basically two raggedy-ass,
>homeless people who - to make matters more difficult - were probably
>black folks or, at least, very dark-skinned. They weren't even married
>(right?). Yet I guess some fair-minded people let them sleep over and
>have a baby in their barnyard and suddenly have uninvited guests named
>"Ahmad" etc. show up wearing flashy garb and throwing a joyous,
>multi-ethnic party. How does this biblical story relate to Antoine
>Walker?  I have no idea. I'm actually Buddhist. I'm going crazy without
>basketball.
>
>BTW, you should publish your last post "re: Business it isn't".  It was
>perfect.
>
>
>Joe Hironaka
>
>****
>
>
>