bogus rumors

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

It seems that if you believe most of the rumors floating around, Pitino
is always trying to wreck the Celtics by trading all their talent for
Jamal Mashburn and other stiffs, only to be saved from destruction by
other GMs refusing his offers. But whenever a trade actually happens,
we're almost inevitably surprised and the result has usually been pretty
pleasant recently.

I would actual guess that Pitino runs a pretty tight ship and almost all 
of the rumors come from the other side; naturally they are slanted towards
favoring the other team. "We are going to get Mercer for Samaki Walker,"
from Don Nelson, is an example. 

So has Pitino actually ever offered talent for Mashburn? I doubt it. Pat
Riley was quoted as saying that the Celtics are always offering him crap
and want real players in return. Does that sound like Mercer for Mashburn?
It's just a ridiculous rumor that propagates because Pitino once said that
Mashburn is still a favorite of his.

Even now people are saying, "Oh, the Mercer trade was great but I still
hate Pitino because he was thinking of giving away Walker." I don't really
think any of us knows the true details of this trade, and from Pitino's
reaction, the leaks were on Indiana's side.

By the way, here's my guess for the original trade. It would have been a 
three way trade involving Mercer and Dale Davis going to Seattle, Vin Baker
and Jalen Rose coming to Boston, and Antoine Walker with various Boston cap
trash going to Indiana. Indiana would facilitate somehow using their trade
exception to get around Walker's base-year compensation. Draft picks would
also be included but I won't guess at the details. After Mercer was traded,
the deal blew up; Indiana still wanted to discuss acquiring Walker but 
without the possibility of acquiring Baker, Boston wasn't interested.

If I were running a "NBA insider" website, I would post the previous 
paragraph, but instead of calling it the wild guess that it is, I would
say, "Sources on both sides tell me that..." and include some juicy details
about how Pitino pulled out at the last minute, infuriating everyone.

Alex