Re: coaches

[Kestutis.Kveraga@Dartmouth.EDU (Kestutis Kveraga)]

--- You wrote:

> I believe that Larry Bird was quoted as saying Riley and Pitino were his
> top two. Jerry West tried to hire Pitino for the Lakers. I'd say these
> two know a bit about basketball. He hasn't proven anything at the pro 
> level yet, but at the college level, it's hard to find anyone who has 
> gotten faster results in rebuilding situations than Pitino. 

Yes, but does that mean he's "one of the top 5 basketball coaches in the world"? Heck, Jerry West also wanted to, and did, hire Harris and Rambis. I'm not saying they're lousy coaches, but West's high opinion of a coach does not ipso facto make him/her great. Besides, I think we all are well aware of the fact that college-to-NBA transition can be treacherous for even the best college coaches. Arguably,  these are two quite different jobs requiring different (not incompatible!) sets of skills.  

> You keep Radja and Williams and sign Wesley and Fox to contracts and you
> have no salary cap room and no room for improvement for the next few years. 
> What is Williams doing now? He's getting paid $5M a year to come off the

 $4M. And he did abuse us down low when Denver was here. 

> bench for Denver, of all teams. If Radja was valuable, why didn't the Sixers
> want him, or any other NBA team that could have claimed him off waivers?

Because they didn't want to get tagged with his contract. But we're paying half of Radja's salary anyway, so we might as well have used him at full $5 mil per. Low-post offense and rebounding were something we were sorely lacking these 2 years.  
 

> Why did Paul Silas say, "This team needs a point guard" even though he 
> had Wesley? Do you seriously believe that keeping these guys would leave
> the Celtics with any chance to be more than a .500 team for the foreseeable
> future? 

Why not? We've been lamenting the lack of veteran presence and defensive, team-oriented players. This is precisely what Wesley and Fox could provide at relatively short money (Wesley's getting $3M/yr, Fox $1.75M/yr, although he conceivably would have wanted a more from us).  Can you seriously claim that Anderson at $7M/yr is a better bargain than Wesley? David may not have great PG instincts, but we all saw what similarly equipped (less D, better shooter) Barros could do for the team in place of selfish, no-defense Kenny. 

> You are guilty of the same thing: comparing Pitino's bad signing of McCarty
> to ML Carr's signings, and then spinning Ellison as a Grade-A NBA talent.

Hey, I'm just emulating our Great Leader (you pick which one)

> Your description of Ellison could be used for Tim Duncan. 

OK. Was Ellison not a #1 overall pick? Did he not average 20 points and 10 rebounds when he was healthy? Is he not a shotblocker? When he is healthy (yeah, I know), he IS a Grade-A NBA talent. 

> But how about 
> the Travis Knight signing, who got us Battie

We could've taken Battie with the #3 pick, and not had to endure Banana Boy, Billups's passes to the crowd, and Anderson's underachievement and cap-hogging $7M/yr contract. This is a great example of yet another unnecessary act now painted as brilliant and heroic by Pitino's supporters. Hey, we could've had both Wesley and Fox for Anderson's money.  Now, I'm not blaming Pitino for the Anderson trade- a lot of us thought it was a good trade, me included (little did we know!). 

>  or DeClercq, who helped us get
> Potapenko? 

The Declercq signing was the only really good FA signing by Pitino, at least so far. 
 
> Minor, Barros, and Ellison were completely unmovable so evidently
> no other NBA team considered them to be good signings. 

I have to give Pitino credit for possibly making the first two movable - not that we necessarily want to move them now. 

> And you are saying
> that Popeye and McCarty's three-year contracts are already terrible without
> seeing them for more than a season (lockout shortened to boot). 

We've seen McCarty for two years here, and he's nothing but a mascott. He singlehandedly cost us  a couple of games at the end of the season by taking bad shots (any shot but an uncontested layup for him is a bad shot) and putting people on the line with dumb fouls.  Popeye, if he ever gets healthy, may earn his keep - we'll see. But his signing was no less risky than the Ellison signing. Still, he may help as a de-facto assistant coach, telling Pitino things people on this list knew 3 months ago. 

> They can
> still redeem themselves in the next two years. 

 Yes, and Milosevic can still win the Nobel Peace Prize.