Losing Mercer

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

In my mind, Mercer doesn't fit in with the Celtics lineup. 
I can really imagine him excelling on a team with a bunch 
of frontcourt thug rebounder/defenders and a good passing
point guard - playing a role similar to Allen Iverson, but
based on his smart use of picks as opposed to quickness
and ability to break down his man. The thugs could set 
magnificent picks for him and crash the boards after his 
shot. Mercer really has a scalable game; you could give 
him many more shots per game and his shooting percentage 
would probably be roughly the same, because he uses picks 
very well. It's actually a pretty rare ability. He certainly
has the capability of being a primary or secondary scorer
in this league. There are certainly teams in the league 
who could really use a guy who puts the ball in the hoop 
consistently (if not that efficiently). 

The problem is that he is not creating opportunities for his
teammates; rather they are creating opportunities for him.
This works well when you surround him with players whose
talents lie in other directions that scoring. But when you
have Pierce and Walker (and even Potapenko) it's not really
clear that his major talent can be fully utilized. The Celtics
could take Mercer's shots and distribute them among Pierce,
Potapenko, Battie, and even Anderson (who shot a better 
percentage and went to the line more than Mercer) and not
lose too much scoring punch. So it makes sense for them to
trade for a talent that doesn't need to shoot so much to be
effective. That doesn't mean that Pitino should throw him
away for nothing. But it explains why Pitino may not be so
eager to sign him to a big money contract.

I suppose the Celtics could structure a second unit like I
just described with Mercer as the "designated scorer". 
Somehow paying $50-60M for that seems a bit strange though.
I wonder if he could play a sixth man role similar to Toni
Kukoc for the Bulls, but I think Kukoc could play effectively
with both units due to his passing ability. I think Mercer
has to be the primary or secondary option because he's most
effective when you are running a specific play for him.

Alex