More strategy for the future

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

Building on Tom's posts, there seem to be several options for the future:

1) Stay with the present core, develop it over several years, and hope
that it eventually grows into a playoff team, and then a championship
contender. I'll call this the Indiana approach. They've had Miller, 
Smits, and Davis for basically forever, and struggled through long
periods of mediocrity before finally having their chance; even so they
are a marginal contender because their top talent is not All-NBA First
Team type talent. 

2) Try to stay decent while structuring for massive free agency. I think
this is what Tom had in mind. I'd call this the Pheonix approach: they
built around Kidd, a true All-NBA talent, and added some nice pieces
through free agency and trade - Gugliotta, Penny Hardaway. I'm impressed
by how they managed this, but they did have Kidd to build around.
Personally I don't think Pierce is anywhere near as good a player (or
building block) as Kidd. They also had the "warm weather" advantage.

3) Blow up the team and try to be bad to get draft picks as well as get
massively under the cap. This is the Chicago approach. It's a wonderful
long-term strategy if you can get the fans to not kill you. It seems
like most championships are the result of superstar players acquired
in the draft, rather than through trade or free agency, although the
Lakers and Portland may change that this year. 

4) Try to restructure the team through trades without blowing it up to
get under the cap. I guess this is the Portland or New York approach.
It helps to have deep pockets because you can absorb all sort of cap
trash to get better talent. 

One question to ask is: Do the Celtics have the talent on their roster
to form the core of a championship team, even in the far future? If
they don't, it's probably not possible to trade for it without taking
some big risks, since they don't have super-deep pockets to safely buy
improvement. So if they don't have the talent, and we are really 
hampionship-oriented, then at some point blowing up the team to some
degree will be necessary. 

I guess I'm not advocating any particular approach at this point. I'm
leaning towards feeling that our talent isn't sufficient to contend
for a championship yet I don't think we're bad enough to improve through
the draft without significant luck, like hitting the top 3 in the
lottery or getting another Pierce type talent around #10. So I guess
I'm hoping for some sort of bold move during the offseason. Hopefully
something that involves a athletic center with real size, either through
trade (I've already mentioned Pierce for Olowokandi and Anderson) or
the draft, which I know nothing about.

But if Pitino wants to stay with the current core, I'm basically
willing to give him another year with this core and the addition of a
draft pick and a middle-class exception player. If he doesn't make
the playoffs, I think that drastic measures will probably be taken:
a change in management, or a change in approach to rebuilding again
the right way.

Alex