Re: BSG's Dirgeful Celtics Chronicles

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

Pitino critics love to make these long lists of his errors in this manner.
But notice.. he counts many mistakes multiple times so the list looks nice
and fat. I mean, if I trade an apple for an orange for a pear for a
pineapple for a bunch of grapes, and BSG thinks that an apple was better
than a bunch of grapes, he'd tell me that I made four bad trades. But if I
traded the apple straightaway for the bunch of grapes, I've only made one
bad trade. Why are these different?

The '97 draft and it's consequences gets how many entries? You draft
Billups and trade him for Anderson and that's how many mistakes? Billups
twice, McGrady, Anderson. I mean, the real result is that we had the #3
pick in the draft and we ended up with Anderson. I'd rather have McGrady
too (though probably he would have bolted to Orlando regardless) but I
don't see how you can turn this into 4 mistakes instead of 1.

The other thing is that minimum wage pickups are hardly worth criticizing.
Plenty of teams have players who hardly play the whole year; do their GMs
get criticized for that? And the other thing is how he labels just about
every contract as "overpaid". Fans make a big deal about of the size of
contracts but unless you're in a desirable destination with a winning team
(Miami, Pheonix, Lakers, say) you either "overpay" or you watch your talent
walk, like the Clippers. What's the alternative? Save your money and get
under the cap so you can overpay someone else's free agent! Or try to,
anyway, if you're Chicago. Look at how much Tim Thomas and Austin Croshere
got for being reasonably decent role players.

The criticisms of Van Horn and LaFrentz are a bit questionable too.
LaFrentz had 90+ games over two seasons where he was a productive player
for Denver, and now he's had 13 bad games and BSG is writing him off. And
Van Horn is not as good as Duncan (obvious) or McGrady (who Larry Brown,
among others, passed on also) but he's been a pretty productive player.

Finally, if you're going to criticize him for moves he didn't actually
make, you should praise him for them too. He wanted Rodney Rogers, who was
the most improved. He wanted Dale Davis and Jalen Rose the year before they
become All-Star quality players. He wanted Shawn Marion over Andre Miller,
which BSG obviously approves of. Jermaine O'Neal's averaging 12.6 ppg, 9.3
rpg, and 2.0 bpg now that he's getting minutes. He could have helped us a
lot this year. I don't actually believe in this type of positive evaluation
but it's an indication of how questionable the whole thing is. I'm not
thrilled about a few of the significant "what if" moves -- ending up with
Anderson instead of McGrady or even Antonio Davis, Potapenko instead of
Shawn Marion. But this list that "proves" Pitino can't evaluate talent is
way overblown.

Alex

At 07:42 PM 11/29/00 -0500, wayray@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>--Billups (wasn't a point guard).
>--Billups, part two (they still gave up on him too early)
>--Bowen (couldn't shoot).
>--McGrady (the ballsy pick in '97)
>--Mercer (should have taken McGrady)
>--Wesley (better than anyone else Pitino's had).
>--Fox (gave them just as much as Mills did).
>--Tyus Edney (stiff)
>--LaFrentz, Van Horn (neither have been as good as he thought)
>--Battie, part one (overpaid at $24 million for six years)
>--Mills (overpaid, wrong guy at the wrong time)
>--Knight (overpaid, a stiff)
>--A. Williams (yikes)
>--Stewart (a stiff)
>--Popeye (idiotic contract extension for a guy with a bum knee)
>--Anderson (a catastrophic mistake on every level)
>--Moiso (you don't draft a 22-year-old "project" in the NBA these days)
>--Potapenko (overpaid, gave up WAY too much for him)
>--McCarty (overpaid, has no discernable basketball talent whatsover).
>--Fortson (wrong guy at the wrong time)
>--E. Williams (wildly overpaid)
>--Abdul-Wahad (could have been disaster)
>--Chris Wallace (remember how we gave up a 2nd-round pick for him?)
>--Stewart (ditto)
>--Schintzius (embarrassing)
>
>Here's a list of guys that Team Pitino judged well:
>
>--Walker (made the right move in keeping him)
>--Pierce (managed not to screw up that pick at #10)
>--Battie, part one (getting him for Knight was a good move)
>--Nowitzki (they wanted him at #10, even over Pierce)
>
>The jury's still out on these guys:
>
>--Stith (let's see him play 50 games)
>--Brown (ditto)
>--Herren (let's see him keep his nose clean)
>
>And that's it. That's the basketball expertise that Paul Gaston acquired
>for
>$50 million.
>
>Disgust. Dismay. Disappointment. Disbelief.