Re: the fortson trade

["Jim Meninno" <Jim_Meninno@hotmail.com>]

I remember this article.  When May said the Celtics want "nothing" in
return, he meant in terms of players/salaries.  They wanted to get a draft
pick.  That's exactly what happened.  They also shed/receive enough money to
make up for the players they will be taking back, so it boils down to
Fortson for a late first rounder plus a one year upgrade at third string
point guard.  That pick will have much more value than some mediocre player
with a Fortsonesque contract (e.g. Chris Childs).  This trade may not have
an immediate impact, but it was the right thing to do (if you had decided
not to keep Fortson here).  It adds one more asset to the team's portfolio.
It was a smart long term move that you wouldn't expect from a president
who's days are supposed to be numbered.

By the way, I was in Pizzeria Uno's at lunch time and ESPN was still
reporting the trade as sending Bruno Sundlov to the Celtics.  They seem to
be the only ones, though.

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: Francis Hsu <francis@ai.mit.edu>
To: <celtics@igtc.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2000 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: the fortson trade


> On Tue, Aug 15, 2000 at 12:34:53PM -0400, Mark Estepp wrote:
> > Peter May wrote in TSN:
> [...]
> > The problem: They don't want him back, but they also
> > don't want anything back for him. Collective bargaining
> > agreement rules make such a situation unnerving and hard
> > to deal with.
> >
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> >
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> > \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
> >
> > If May's statement is correct, and what the C's wanted in return was
> > essentially nothing, then I would say they got what they wanted.
>
> It seems like his statement is not correct.  Otherwise, despite the CBA,
> the solution would have been about as simple as it gets:  do nothing.
>
> Of course, you could then argue that maybe they wanted nothing in
> return, but also wanted to make sure Miami and NY got nothing.
>
> Francis
>
>