Re: Not Jermaine

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

Why not? Jermaine O'Neal is 6-11, solidly built, athletic, young but a
four-year veteran, and capable of effectively playing power forward or
center. He's locked up at a reasonable (relatively speaking) salary. He
would play much more on any team that didn't have Arvydas Sabonis, Rasheed
Wallace and Brian Grant at the PF/C spots. 

Look, draft picks are a crapshoot. Tsakalidis? Mosio? DerMar Johnson? There
have been some players who have made it out of the 11th spot in the draft,
but there are far more who have flopped. Jermaine O'Neal gives you a
somewhat proven commodity, a guy who could turn out to be a real force up
front and provide exactly the type of game we need there (athleticism,
defense and shotblocking), and he's only going to get better.

Did you hear the comment during the Lakers-Blazers series that many of the
Portland players said no one could handle Jermaine in practice? Now, he
wasn't a great matchup with Shaq (who is?), but physically, he can match up
with just about any other low post player in the league (I'm not talking
about his game, just his physical presence).

I'd be all for this move. I still think the Celts need more, but this would
be a good start.

Mark