Trading the future

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

The idea of trading one of our young stars for a veteran who helps us win
now seems unpopular. Yet at the same time, people are unwilling to be 
patient with a young team. People seem to want us to win with young
personnel, none of which is dominating in quality, when nobody in the
league does so. They complain that teams with Toronto and Philadelphia
are passing us, but also complain if Pitino wants to go the same route
and acquire a veteran.

You have to remember what Toronto gave up to get their frontline: 
Stoudamire and Camby. Similarly Philadelphia gave up Stackhouse and
Van Horn. They mortgaged their future for present success. Many people
want it both ways - for us not to mortgage the future yet be able
to win in the present. I admit that this is what I want too, and this
is why Pitino gets $7M to coach, but I'm beginning to think it's not
realistic. I don't think that we replace Pitino with a coach that
doesn't yell and suddenly this team is 33-23. 

I think when we overrate our personnel. I am absolutely guilty of this.
The mistake is comparing our young talent to veteran talent like Indiana
and saying, "Those old guys suck, why can't we beat them?" Compare us to
other teams that are made primarily of young players. Orlando, I will
grant, is the major exception, a team full of role players that is not
absolutely terrible. They're doing what the Celtics did two years ago,
make a playoff run with subpar talent.

But look at New Jersey - Marbury is an absolutely dominating point
guard. They have plenty of other talent, Van Horn, Kittles, Gill. But
their good talent is young. In the West, you have Denver, with
McDyess, Van Exel, LaFrentz, and Mercer (before the trade).  That's a
lot of young firepower. They probably thought they had four All-Star
caliber players. Vancouver has had how many top draft picks?  They
have Shareef, Bibby, Dickerson, Harrington; all these talented young
guys. Everyone in the world seems to agree that Shareef is much better
than Antoine. Dickerson's averaging 18 ppg and shooting 42% from the
field. Bibby's a great young point guard. But they're a terrible
team. The Clippers? Taylor, Odom, Derek Anderson. Olowokandi's
probably better than Vitaly, bust though he is. Yet they're terrible.

Alex