Re: Bird not buying Celtics

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

> The Knick organization I hated for years now are looking good. A guy named
> Van Gundy has a bunch of stumble bums playing good basketball and tied in
> the East for 1st place. I rest my case. 

The Knicks have a cap figure this year of over $70M, behind only
Portland. It's nice to be able to spend your way to victory. Ewing,
LJ, Sprewell, and Houston have all been solid All-Stars at one
point in their careers. That team has talent and experience, as 
well as being well coached by Van Gundy, who nonetheless was in
danger of being fired late last year.

Most people tend to overrate our young talent (which will be good
eventually) and underrate every other team. The Knicks are "a bunch
of stumble bums". The Pacers are a bunch of unathletic old men.
Sometimes I think that Pitino should just scrap the young player
approach, trade everyone for 12 year veterans and win 42-45 games a 
year for the rest of his contract, washing out in the first round
of the playoffs every time. Maybe Indiana will be looking to rebuild
after this year; we can give them Pierce, Walker, and Potapenko for
Mark Jackson, Reggie Miller, and Dale Davis. Maybe we can throw in
some first round picks and get Smits too. That'll make some fans
happy, because they don't have the patience to wait for a young team
that'll grow into something more than that.

Alex