Re: NBATalk's analysis of the 4-team trade involving Fortson

["Jonathan Brainin" <jbrainin@bellatlantic.net>]

> One final thought. Pitino gets bashed in the media for making lousy
deals.
> But the fact is he fleeced Jerry West in the Travis Knight for Tony
Battie
> deal. In essence, he signed away a guy from the Lakers as a free agent
and
> gave up absolutely nothing in the way of a draft pick or a player to
obtain
> him in the first place and ended up only paying Knight for one year at
$1.7
> million in Year 1 of a long term deal (which was less than the NBA
average
> salary).  He then traded Knight back to the team he signed him away
from for
> a # 5 lottery pick that came out of college early. In essence, Pitino
> manufactured a #5 lottery pick out of thin air.

Not exactly.  In order to sign Travis Knight, we had to release Rick
Fox.  (Looks like we traded Rick Fox for Travis in a way.)  Then we send
Travis back to LA for Battie.  Now it appears that we traded Rick Fox
for Tony Battie.  Who won that trade?  Beats me.  (At least the Celtics
were spared dealing with Fox's angery behaviour during last season.)

The rest of your post was spot on.

Jonathan