Bulls, 76ers, GS trade

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

I think this trade again shows the difficulty of building a contending
team through developing youth. Larry Brown has again decided to trade
away a young, talented player (Larry Hughes) for immediate returns 
in a proven veteran, Toni Kukoc. Brown's really done a very nice job
of building the 76ers into a competitive playoff team with a good deal
of experience.

Pitino has taken an alternative course that is more difficult in the
short term but has a better potential payoff in the long term. The
young players that he has are unpolished right now. Most of them are
probably going to keep improving for the better part of the next 
decade, and they'll do it together, as opposed to some teams which 
have veterans that'll be on the decline as their young players ascend. 

In the meantime, it is tough to deal with young players. I'm not saying
that this excuses Pitino for any losses but it is tougher. Battie, for
instance, is practically being written off as a bust for the rest of
his career. Just remember that Camby and Ratliff didn't emerge until
the second halves of their third seasons. Before that they were 
basically inconsistent one-dimensional shotblockers; they blossomed
when given more responsibility. I don't know when Battie will come
around (or if he will, even) but unpolished big men take a while to
develop. 

Potapenko looks like he's developing into a more consistent offensive
threat. He's giving us 9.8 ppg and 6.6 rpg from the center position
in limited minutes, and is 5th in the league in FG%. He's probably
never going to give us 15 and 10 or block many shots, but he'll keep
improving gradually. I would guess that there are quite a few teams
who would love to have him on their roster. Of course, Pitino is 
making noises about upgrading the center position so who knows.

And what about Griffin? I know that I sometimes think of him as a 
veteran player already, but he's a rookie in this league and only
25 years old. I think he's going to improve, too, as he gets more
experience with the pro game. He'll improve his offensive game
while maintaining his playmaking role. 

I haven't mentioned Walker or Pierce but the sky's the limit for
these guys if they're willing to work hard during the offseason.
These guys, of course, are the key to any championship aspirations
the Celtics have. I would say that moving Pierce to shooting guard
has been a success; his rebounding from that spot is superb and
lets us put in a small forward for better overall team rebounding. 
As far as I can tell, he's physically capable of defending 2 guards.
His scoring, steals, assists and ability to draw fouls are all up
significantly with little increase in minutes, and he's being more
assertive in the offense. 

And Antoine has picked up his game quite a bit since his "Antoinette"
wimpy rebounding days. In November and December, he had 3 double
figure rebounding games. In January and half of February, he's
had 9. He may never average double figures again as he did in 97-98
because he'll never be surrounded by such bad rebounding, but he's
averaging 3.0 offensive rebounds in 2000, which is similar to
"pre-Antoinette" days. He's back above 70% on free throws. Now if
he'll only bust his butt during the offseason!

Alex