Re: The Boston Celtics Mailing List Digest V6 #45

[Michael Joseph Byrnes <mbyrnes@leland.Stanford.EDU>]

Dan Forant wrote:

> Let us all hear of the stupid things Pitino has done. Funny, I thought he
> was bringing us back from the dead if I remember correctly. Last season was
> exciting and he made many a better team than us really sweat to beat us. 

Pitino *has* done some stupid things, but he has also proven adept at
turning his lemons into lemonade, so to speak.

Signing Tony Massenburg was stupid, but Pitino quickly turned him into
Rot Rogers.  Rogers was a useless injured spare part, but he did end up
part of the deal that brought us Kenny Anderson and Popeye Jones, and
subtracted the contract of Dee Brown.  So, a bad move but we manage to
come out ahead in the end.

Signing Chris Mills from the "slow it down Cavs" was stupid.  But, again
Pitino turned lead to gold by trading Mills for McCarty, and the useless
Dontae' Jones.  All we got was a role player out of the deal, but we
are stuck with the last year of Dontae's contract instead of 6 years of
Mills' contract.

Signing Travis Knight was stupid.  I like Travis Knight, and I think he
will have a big year as a role player on the Lakers with Shaq doing the
heavy lifting.  But, signing him to be the #1 center was a mistake.  If
the Celtics had landed Duncan last year, Knight would have been a good
complement to Duncan and Walker.  In any event, Pitino was able to trade
his mistake for Tony Battie, who at worst, will be gone after next year,
and at best, will be a better fot for our system than Travis Knight.

Trading Eric Williams was not really stupid.  Williams was an out of shape
tweener.  To small to be the power forward, not good enough to be a small
forward.  Perhaps Pitino could have gotten more for Williams, but I'm not
all that broken up about losing a player who would be at the bottom of our
depth chart anyway.  I would much rather have had Rick Fox back, but even
he wouldn't be getting a lot of mintues with Pierce, Mercer and Walker
around.

Michael Byrnes
mbyrnes@stanford.edu