Re: have you seen fortson play?

[damekmo@teleport.com]

>I think Fort can push 25 mpg without Battie losing too much PT. With Griffin's
>slump and natural timidity to create his own shot in a starting lineup with
>scorers like Walker, Pierce and Anderson, maybe now is the time to reinvent him
>as a sixth man and start Fortson for the first six minutes of each half (with
>more minutes depending on matchups and how he's doing).

You know, I've been on this list for a while and maybe I've just finally
been broken, but the reason this team sucks is because playing time for
Battie Griffin and Fortson is an issue. I'm sure Griffin, Fortson and
Battie are all great guys. I'm sure everybody on that bench is just a
spectacular human being. But to be honest, they all get minimal minutes at
best on any good NBA team, and in most cases, only deep garbage time
minutes. Those three guys are examples of less than mediocre players and
this team is full of them. It always seems like we're discussing shuffling
mediocrity around, or trading our mediocrity for someone else's. Derek
Strong? Holy Mother of Mercey, what the hell are we talking about!?  But
yet that's the kind of name that keeps coming up because that's the kind of
player you get for someone like Cheaney, Battie, McCarty, and all the rest
of the scrubs. The starters alone simply aren't going to get this team to
the next level any time soon, and to be frank, three of them aren't all
that great to begin with. Griffin's a nice guy but it's over. Vitaly is all
right but he's only all right on some nights and I don't think he really
gets much better than this. Kenny's having a great year but he's never been
a big assist pg and do you really expect him to play this well next year? I
think the only chance this team has of climbing out of the mud is to roll
the dice and trade either Walker or Pierce and at this point, you prabably
get more with Pierce. Alex brought this up last week and I think he's
right. You have to give up something to get something and right now there
are only two players on this team who get you anything.  Would it be too
much to ask for some three way deal that brings the Celtics one really
talented starter and two "very good" players. Hell...maybe Ricky trades
them both along with other long term scrubs and clears a ton of cap space
for free agency "and" acquires some real talent, or gets a bunch of very
good talent and draft picks. Maybe the package is VP or Anderson and one of
those two in a multi-team deal. This is long and rambling and I'm not sure
what's possible, but I just think picking up a bench player here, a one
dimensional "starter" there, shuffling these bench players in and out of
games, isn't going to make it happen. I think Ricky has to roll the dice
and take a big chance.

Paul M.