Re: News

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

> I think it is pretty much known that the big name free agents have not even
> considered Boston as a place to play or Pitino would have made some deal.

I consider this one of the silly myths circulated among those plagiarists
that call themselves sportswriters. The Celtics have not had the cap room 
to pursue any big name free agents. When they have had any cap room, they've
had no problems spending it. You just can't sign a big name free agent 
without major cap room. 

> Most veterans think Pitino's style is great for young kids, but is too much
> for older players. Massenberg & Childs are good examples . 

Massenberg and Mills (I assume that is who you are talking about) are two 
examples proving that veteran free agents will sign with Boston. True, 
they didn't fit in and ended up being traded, which is going to happen on 
every team in this league (note that Mills and Massenberg have since been
traded by their new teams). 

If you want to talk about big names (which Mills and Massenberg are certainly
not), how about Mitch Richmond who said that he'd have no problem playing
for Boston?  

I remember that Tim Hardaway said something negative about Pitino's style.
But I bet that if Boston could dangle the $10M/year contract that he wants
when he becomes a free agent, he'd shut up and sign.

> Stewart even made a jerry Maguire joke about Pitino.

I think the point is that Pitino recruited him hard, not that he didn't want
to play for Pitino. He went to Toronto because they had the ability to reward
him a year later when they had cap room. If you look at his performance and
compare it to the large contract that he received, it looks suspiciously like
he was actually signed to a 7 year, $25M deal, not a 1 year, $1M deal followed
by a 6 year, $24M deal. I suspect that money was the issue here, not Pitino.

I think that there's absolutely no evidence that big name free agents 
won't sign in Boston, just unsupported assertions by random sportswriters. 
Can you think of a single big name free agent that Boston could have signed
with its cap room during Pitino's tenure? I can't.

Alex