Re: Celtics thoughts

["John Lyell" <johnlyell@hotmail.com>]

I am not sure I agree with this as far as potential, as far as trade value
with the base year crap it is probably true. Pierce has shown he can play
the 2 & 3 spots. Walker hasn't really shown he can play the 3 or 4 spots
consistently. I do not recall a lot of games where AW has dominated in his
ballhhanding and passing. He is almost a Joe Smith type , not physical
enough for the 4 spot, not quick enough for the 3. Hopefully he can either
beef up to play the 4 or improve his slashing and ballhandling to play the
3.

Maybe he was trying to beef up waiting for the restaurant to open ?

Pierce is more aggressive to the hope one thing I would like to see AW get
better at.












----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Wang" <awang@mit.edu>
To: <celtics@igtc.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2000 4:30 PM
Subject: Celtics thoughts


> I've been contemplating the future of the Celtics. I think you have
> to begin with the core players of the Celtics, Antoine Walker and
> Paul Pierce. In my opinion, Walker has the better potential of the
> two because his nonscoring skills, excluding defense, are superior.
> There are times when he dominates the game through his rebounding,
> ballhandling, and passing. Of course this is arguable because Pierce
> is a fine player also who rebounds well for his position, can score
> inside and out, anticipates on defense and probably has the potential
> to be a better man-to-man defender.
>
> Pierce has better value in trade because he is not a base-year player
> and he has a low salary. Right now I doubt that we can get enough
> value in return to justify a trade of Pierce though. At first I
> thought that we might have a shot at one of the disgruntled free
> agents like McGrady (who I thought was overrated at the beginning
> of the season - shows what I know about evaluating NBA talent
> potential). But upon re-reading the salary cap FAQ it seems like
> base year compensation might make very difficult.
>
> My assumption for now is that we are going to build around a core
> of Walker and Pierce. Everyone else is expendable. So the question
> is, what kind of players do you complement them with? You have
> two guys who are going to give you roughly 40 ppg, and most of
> the offense is going through them. They are going to draw double
> teams frequently. They give you a fair amount of rebounding although
> Walker seems to have trouble with the more athletic rebounders.
> What they don't have is great athleticism, toughness, experience,
> and defense, especially interior defense.
>
> When you look at it this way, you can see what Pitino was trying
> to do, although the result hasn't been great. Anderson is there to
> provide experience. Potapenko gives toughness and some interior
> defense. Fortson gives toughness and rebounding. Mercer was shipped
> out because a guy who doesn't give you much except on-the-ball
> scoring doesn't fit. The thing is, when you put it all together,
> the team we ended up with was both young and unathletic. I think
> what Pitino decided was, we have some core guys who are unathletic
> so we're not going to press and run, so let's just have a whole
> team that is unathletic - tough like the Knicks, say. I think you
> can definitely have a team that is experienced and unathletic,
> because veteran teams know how to play team offense and defense,
> and a lot of them have good team shooting also. But young and
> unathletic is tough to win with, maybe impossible, and Pitino is
> not the guy who can pull it off.
>
> So that is where we are at. We are stuck with some pieces like
> Anderson, Potapenko, and Fortson who have talent but are not great
> fits with this team. I think that the recent draft showed that
> Pitino is going to make a big push to get more athletic, and he's
> willing to pay a lot for it.
>
> Onto some individual moves:
>
> 1) Jermaine O'Neal. Now three first round picks is a steep price
> to pay for a guy who is so unproven. One thing that I haven't
> seen mentioned is the fact that he is a base-year player. I imagine
> that a third team (probably the Clippers) would be involved, and
> they get a draft pick to compensate them for taking a bad contract
> from us. It sounded like they expected him to make a major impact
> this year so I would have expected him in the starting lineup at
> either 4 or 5. For what it's worth, he was 10th in the league in
> blocks per 48 minutes. The main thing that I see from this is that
> Pitino is now willing to trade the future for present success.
> I can see the appeal though, because the guy is 21 years old,
> athletic, can possibly grow into a true center, and supposedly
> kicks butt in Portland practices. How many athletic, decently
> skilled centers are there in the league, 5? Still, a huge risk.
>
> 2) Jerome Moiso. I can see why he was taken over Alexander, because
> Alexander was praised as someone who could create his own shot -
> a vital talent in the NBA but actually one that doesn't fit that
> well with our talent. Beyond that he was a senior so that probably
> hurt the evaluation of his upside (it sounds unfair but from what
> I've read, that's how it is). Moiso sounds like someone who can
> contribute without demanding the ball, like Marion did for Pheonix
> this past season. Disclaimer though: I've never seen the guy play.
> I think the comparisons to McCarty and Battie, and Garnett of
> course, are premature. He sounds like he can play some small forward.
>
> 3) Danny Fortson. I thought he was gone without compensation but
> then there was that recent NY Post article about a trade for Childs.
> From what I understand about base-year compensation, a straight
> up trade would not work. Oh well. Anything we can get for Fortson
> is a bonus in my opinion. I don't think he goes to the Clippers
> because I believe they have the cap room to sign him outright.
> I also think that the recent trade with Orlando showed exactly
> how valuable the Clippers' cap room is. All these scenarios where
> we dump salaries on them are pipe dreams.
>
> 4) Austin Croshere. If he's coming to the Celtics, I would have to
> think it would be for a starting role. Pitino will find a way to
> play him and Walker together. One thing though: wasn't he pretty
> bad in the playoffs, with the exception of the Lakers who don't
> have a power forward? Still for the $2M exception he'd be a steal.
> I don't see him leaving Indiana though.
>
> In general, I believe that we're going to improve at least somewhat
> by packaging a player with a future first-round pick for an upgrade.
> It really sounds like Pitino is willing to take a big risk this
> offseason because it's his last shot at redemption. So in addition
> to the draftees, I'd expect to see at least three new faces: a
> trade involving future picks (and maybe Moiso still), and both
> exceptions. A sign-and-trade for Fortson would be nice but I don't
> know how tough it would be under BYC.
>
> So far our lineup looks like:
>
> Big men: Potapenko, Battie - maybe Moiso
> Forwards: Walker, Moiso, Griffin, Williams, McCarty
> Guards: Pierce, Cheaney, Sesar?
>         Anderson, Barros
>
> I'm glad to see Battie's name mentioned regarding the summer league
> team. It wouldn't surprise me to see McCarty on the injured list
> for most of the next season. My guess is that Eric Williams gets
> traded before next season. I don't see Barros playing much next
> year either; somehow they are going to have to get a backup point
> guard with size.
>
> Alex
>
>