Re: Contracts etc.

[opi@unesco.org]

W wrote:

> Greg,
>
> Stockton finally said he was retiring in two seasons so the Jazz rewarded him with a two year contract at $11 per .
>
> Cheers,
>
> Warwick

In fairness you could also point to bad guy Charles Barkley, who without any reasonable doubt accepted the minimum so
he'd have a chance to win a ring with Pippen.

Utah is doing what the recently maligned Celtics did in letting their aging stars finish their entire careers on one
team, at the risk of a far more difficult and cap-constrained rebuilding process in a few years. I still think this in
the honorable thing to do (at least with championship caliber athletes), and - in the case of the several
post-championship era Celtic teams - usually was rewarded with a swift return to glory via a visit from the leprechaun
(manifested in ROY's Dave Cowens and then Larry Bird but not Tim Duncan). The Toine/Pierce combo will have to do, I
guess.

Regarding tonight's game, I'm not sure Pitino has any video evidence from the preseason that 6-5 Adrian Griffin has
settled down the Celts starting frontcourt and made them play better as a unit. The more logical and/or deserving
candidates to join the starting lineup are veterans like Tony Battie, Walter McCarty or Eric Williams.

Tonight's opening lineup reminds me of the Jimmy Rodgers/Chris Ford era of undersized, mistake-free forwards like Kevin
Gamble, Blue Edwards, Jim Paxson. I guess the idea is to start someone who might contain the 6-7 Vince Carter,
something Antoine (playing alongside Battie and Pots) Eric Williams or Waltah may not be fit to do. Still I think we
may be playing to Toronto's strengths by forcing Antoine to cover the Oakley, Davis and Willis combo instead of
assigning him (or Pierce) on Vince Carter. It would be somewhat akin to benching Larry Bird just because he didn't
match up defensively with Dr J, if you know what I mean. I say let the golden boy Vince Carter worry about stopping
Antoine defensively, not just the other way around. Carter will have free rein to concentrate on offense tonight, with
Griffin on the floor. If the smaller Griffin can just shut down Carter for awhile and frustrate him a bit, then the
Celts can go to other rotations that play to our strengths. I doubt Griffin has ever had to guard anyone like VCarter,
so it will be a "welcome to the NBA" experience for him.

Another issue is that either Walter or Eric Williams will now have to be left out of the second unit, which might look
like this:

f- Walter/Williams
f- Battie
c- Pervis
g- Cheaney
g- Dana/Turner

Here is what Pitino had to say about Eric Williams in Sunday's Mark Cofman article, which leads me to wonder about his
status on the key pressing unit:

"....(Eric Williams) may need to a year to put it all together (...) he's one guy who's not used to playing this style
of basketball, so while he's going to be terrific in the future, it won't happen overnight. Right now I think Eric is a
bit confused by all the things we're doing, offensive and defensively, but he picks up things rapidly. I figure he'll
get it by midseason and then you'll see him start to really come into his own."

****