Re: Pitino's stupid things? Okay.

["Christopher J. Littlefield" <cjlitt@erols.com>]

Hey, Jim, 


Williams re-upped for a 6 year extension valued at $26-32 mil,
incentive-laden.  Not $50 mil, but not peanuts.

We traded Mills, and essentially his cap space, for three short-term
space-eaters, Jones,
McCarty, and Thomas.  Of those three, only McCarty has come even close
to working out.  

That Mills was signed and then turned out to be tradeable is spinning
the fact that Pitino dropped
$33 million on a guy who subsequently turned out to be a bust relative
to contract.  Rick should be lauded for
getting out of the Mills debacle as well as he did.  But as I said in my
earlier post, Williams had a great deal more value than
2 second rounders.  Teams _called_ Pitino saying they would have offered
much more, I'm assuming 1st-rounders at least, for
Williams.  Outside of everything else, that indicates to me a not very
well thought-out decision.  

I'm fuzzy on the details of Edney a year later, but basically, given
published reports of Boston's available cap room at the
time and the reported base salary for Mills, there was enough room to
sign Mills without trading Williams. However, Edney and Mills had 
the same agent, and it was an agent-driven package deal.  The additional
$500,000 in cap space needed to sign Edney was more space than they
had.  Thus Williams got shot-putted.  

Even though I like Williams a _lot_, I won't debate the merits of
trading him or not, because as you say, the money was an issue.  

However, I will debate what seemed to be a knee-jerk decision-making
process that contributed, along with Knight, to the Celtics' not being
able to do anything in the free agent market this season, as well as
sapping the club of what little talent it had for marginal return.  

Mills was signed for $2.6 mil to start, if I recall, and Knight $2 mil. 
Massenburg was $1 mil.  There's $5.5 mil right there.  We wouldn't have
had all of it, but given the relative contributions of what that money
brought, McCarty, Thomas, Roy Rogers (and by extension part of Kenny
Anderson), don't you think maybe we could have done a little better with
it, and maybe retained, with the other moves made, a little more
flexibility this off-season?  

I'm not saying we would have been $5.5 mil better, but if we'd been able
to retain or free up $3 mil of it, we would have had $5 mil to play with
when the lockout lifted. 

Let's say additionally that Williams was able to bring a 1st-round pick
in the mid-teens.  That right there adds up to two more players
for this team, one of them conceivably a real center, maybe Geiger or
Ratliff or Clark through the draft. 

The reason this is so galling is because this was our last year to get
anything done in the free agent market.  Next season
Walker's extension goes into effect, starting at $9 mil against the
cap.  The year after that, Mercer.  Then two years later Pierce but by
that time it won't matter.  Unless we get lucky through the draft again,
the talent base you see is the talent base you get, or the talent base
you reallocate, through a trade for a center perhaps.  It could be good
enough to contend in a couple years, but an extra 1st-round pick and a
passable center, even as trade bait, would have significantly added to
the available resources.  

Hey, hindsight is 20/20 but these errors seem pretty basic and
short-sighted, not worthy of someone in whom the franchise invested
$50 million.  

Besides that, though, I'm (honestly) very happy with what Pitino's
done.  It's fun to watch the C's again.  I hope the Toronto game was the 
norm, not an aberration, 'cause that was a blast!  Additionally, the
Celts get a week off in February to practice, essential for
a Pitino team.  They also get to heal Walker's carnage a little bit. 

In terms of the playoffs, this may be premature, but... if these 3 'if's
work out, the C's will be there...

If Anderson's knees hold up
If the Medium 3 of Walker/Pierce/Mercer stay healthy, particularly
Walker
If the middle can be as effectively handled in the regular season as it
was in Toronto (Go Dwayne!  Don't be an Acie Earl!)

Then things are good.  

Latah!





Jim Meninno wrote:
> 
> Let's not forget that Williams got 50 something million from Denver and
> Boston was not going to pay him that anyway.  By doing it the way he
> did, Pitino got to sign a free agent that turned out to be tradeable.
> If he held onto Williams, he'd have left now and they'd have no
> Williams, Mills or McCarty.
> 
> I have no idea where you came up with the bit about the cap room being
> for Edney.  Care to explain?
> 
> Jim
>