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[Fwd: The Celtics NG is under attack!]

I don't recall an attack from here...

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The Celtics email group has a post singling us out (and me, in
particular) as a bunch of foul mouthed, whining Pitino haters.

Gosh, and I thought we were a bunch of highly rational, dedicated Cs
fans concerned about the lack of coherent direction in the operation
of the franchise.

It must be nice to live in a world where the Cs are assumed to be
under the control of rational, competent management; where the lack of
vision and shortsighted personnel moves that have put the Cs in their
present predicament are dismissed as flukes; where we are only one
plucky trade of Walker or Kenny Anderson away from being a playoff
team and only a few years away from another flag.

A year from now, maybe two, the chances are very good that Pitino will
be at his next job. He will have left the Cs with some young talent,
but in view of all the lottery picks he has had it will not be an
impressive amount. The Cs will have more expensive deadweight on their
roster than they did in 1997 when Pitino took over, and the team will
need years to get to contender status. The mere fact that there are
very few marketable players on theis roster today speaks volumes about
the GM work Pitino has done.

Now, granted, if Pitino suddenly changed form, stopped making rash
trades, and exhibited patience toward the present team; if he started
really coaching these guys like he did with the Knicks in the late
80s; if he said, "hey, we are very young, and we are going to be in
the lottery for another year or two, but there is no way around that
so I am focussing on getting these guys experience together and
coaching them," then there might be grounds for optimism. That is
exactly what this Cs team needs at this point in time. It is young. It
cannot, it will not, be a very competitive team next year. But it
could become a fine team in a few years with a patient and rational
coach and a patient and rational GM who shrewdly uses our lottery
picks and makes prudent trades and free agent signings. 

The fact is, unless Walker and Pierce both develop into all-NBA type
talents, the only way we can think of winning an NBA title is to get
at least one of those sorts of players. All NBA champions with only
one or two excpetiosn in the past 50 years have been built around a
player who would qualify as the very best in the game or among the top
three or four players in the game. They ususally had two players who
would rank amomng the top seven or top ten players in the NBA at the
time. And that means staying in the lottery for a year or two more,
and/or pateintly clearing away all the oversigned deadweight so at
some point we mioght be able to sign a free agent of value. In other
words, that means having patience.

But Pitino isn't saying that. Instead it is "we have to win next year
no matter what." Instead it is more talk about how he needs to bring
in more new faces. Instead it is talk about how he needs to trade
those looming lottery picks to bring in more talent. (i.e. he is
apparently willing to mortgage the future for the present. And given
his propensity for striking deals, that should raise a slight bit of
concern.) And there is not one iota of recognition that given the
youth of this team and its lack of expereince individually and playing
together, there is no reason to think it can win in the NBA next year.
Plus we have some big holes (i.e. the backcourt) that are not going to
disappear.

I take no pleasure in making these comments, that may explain why I
resort to profanity at times. I love the Cs as much as anyone. I bleed
green. I am willing to suffer through losing seasons if I sense there
is a vision to get us back to contender status.

I understand why the Celtics email group posts the way it does; it
would be depressing to face the truth. That is why many of us only
post periodically to the NG anymore. I'd rather live in a world where
we can fantasize about trading Kenny Anderson and Calbert Cheaney and
Antoine Walker and Walter McCarty and Eric Williams and get lottery
picks and stud players in return. But it ain't gonna happen. I'd love
to live in a world where Jerome Moiso and Josip Sesar are almost
certainly going to be first rate NBA starters, and possibly as early
as next season. But the chances of that happening are remote. They
will almost certainly need a few years to develop, if they develop at
all. I'd love to be in a world with no memory, where moronic trades
like the Mercer debacle are forgotten about, though we are left with
little to show in return (assuming, much to my regret, that Fortson is
not a C next year) and a massive hole at the 2 guard spot.

I predict that when Pitino leaves in a year or two what we have
written in the Celtics NG will be accepted as obvious on the Celtics
e-mail group. Time will tell. I hope I am wrong.

Bob McChesney
www.robertmcchesney.com

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