Celtics profitability (was Re: Bowen waived)

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

> If that's the case, doesn't it just illustrate how disingenuous the team's
> administration is? Pond made his remark to counter Bird's claim that "the 
> team is a cash cow." I think Larry hit it right on the head when he said
> Gaston doesn't give a damn about winning, just making money. Hence we're
> seeing fireworks and laser shows instead of quality basketball players.

You're right about Pond. Funny how the financial guy is trying to mislead
everyone into thinking his firm is unprofitable when it actually is, as
opposed to the other way around. As for Gaston, I don't it's true that he
doesn't care about winning, but it's not his sole priority. I don't think
he's a complete profit maximizer. On the other hand, it's important that
he makes money, moreso than winning - he would rather lose games than
lose money. So our resources are not unlimited. Most teams in the NBA are
like this to some degree; unfortunately the lucky few have a big advantage.

> On the other hand, maybe the problem isn't Gaston being unwilling to open the
> purse strings for players. Maybe, as I said yesterday, Pitino just uses that 
> as an excuse for his not wanting to keep the popular Ron Mercer around, and 
> to cover his tracks now that he's traded for a player who doesn't seem to
> mesh with Walker. Somebody wrote once that they doubted the hyper-competitive
> Pitino would stick around if Gaston weren't giving him the resources to 
> compete for a championship. I don't know what to think anymore ... except 
> that our team stinks.

Well, Pitino is not entirely honest about this, in my opinion. He says,
"We can't afford to pay him" when he means "We don't want to pay him."
That is, the player wants far more than he's worth to the team. When 
you have a limited budget, which he does - even if it's not as limited
as he claims - it's not a good idea to overpay players in general.
It makes them unmovable. The argument is, why pay guys like Vitaly,
Battie, and McCarty anything then? It's valid particularly for McCarty,
who probably wouldn't be in the NBA if Pitino didn't want him. Battie
is a borderline case; he still has potential in my opinion and is 
probably tradable at his price. Spending $30M+ on Vitaly is a no-brainer
in my opinion though, he's definitely a tradable asset. Anyway, the 
argument that you should take the money from Vitaly and use it to overpay
Mercer (which some sportswriters have suggested) isn't a good idea; you
could do it and Mercer would still be on our team, but he'd be so overpaid
that he'd be impossible to move. And it's not even clear he helps the team
at all.

> I found it ironic that Antoine would say today, "Don't trade our players, we
> think we can win with the core we have here," right after coming off 3 
> straight losses, two of them pretty miserable blowouts, one of those
> against a pathetic team, and none of which saw the C's shooting better
> than 40%. I used to believe the team had the talent on paper to be
> competitive, until I saw with my own eyes the debacle at Golden State.
 
I'm always ambivalent around the deadline. Part of me hopes for a blockbuster
trade, a huge gamble that'll make or break the team's championship hopes
for the next decade. Because I don't know if the current core will ever
be a championship contender; we don't have a dominant center, and we don't
have a Jordan-type talent. But I wouldn't mind seeing this team develop for
a few more years first.

Alex