Re: What The Knicks Trade Means To The Celtics

[bird <birdw@aloha.net>]

>From: Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>
>
>With the Knicks' absolute steal of a deal and their blatant heisting
>of Glen Rice and Vin Baker for a practically defunct Pat Ewing,
>it now means that four teams  -- Miami, Orlando, New Jersey,
>and the Knicks -- in the Eastern Division - the very same milieu,
>where your hometeam Boston Celtics reside - have
>improved themselves dramatically in the off season.

Now, when you say "Eastern Division" -- do you mean Eastern 
Conference or Atlantic Division?  Because if you're just talking 
about teams in the Atlantic, then your point about a playoff gap 
existing is misused, because it's the ranking of teams within the 
Conference (more or less) that's important.

Of course, if all those teams actually did improve vastly, then it's 
true that the C's would have to play them more times than teams from 
other divisions, so presumably that would affect the Celtics' chances 
of making the playoffs.  But I don't buy that, because I don't think 
the Knicks committed any larceny.  As someone else mentioned, Baker's 
on a downward turn, and Glen Rice -- well, where does he play? 
Backup?  That'll go over.  So there's probably another move coming -- 
if the Knicks stay pat, I'm not so sure they haven't made themselves 
worse.  I don't think the Nets have improved all that much, and, 
although Orlando has improved, it's possible it takes them a year or 
a good fraction of a year to really gel, especially if McGrady's not 
as good as he thinks he is.

In short, I don't think that Boston's little milieu (I feel very 
chi-chi, oui-oui saying that, btw) has quite left us in the dust, 
although Miami is close to doing just that to virtually the entire 
Conference.