Adding talent

[Alexander Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

One thing that this offseason has reinforced to me is that teams must
overpay to retain their own talent, and that the richer teams have gained
even more of an advantage as the result of the luxury tax. You have a team
like Cleveland desperately shedding their best player to avoid getting hit
by the luxury tax. They may get under the cap in a few years, but who are
they going to attract with their money? They threw $90M at Brian Grant with
no success.

Most teams are not going to be able to attract quality free agents unless
they are already contenders or have warm weather, low taxes, or some other
popular benefit. I don't think that "championship tradition" is going to
mean much to prospective free agents. There isn't much reason for them to
care that the Celtics were a great team before the 90's. It doesn't impact
their lives today. 

In the meantime, there are few options for the Celtics. First, like every
team, they can go through the draft. Even though we'll have quantity in the
next draft (barring trades), we're extremely unlikely to get great quality.
We'll have our own pick, which should at best be at the late end of the
lottery. Denver's pick will probably be in a similar area. The Utah pick
will be late in the first round. I think we'll be able to get a couple of
players with undeveloped potential (like Moiso), or maybe a ready role
player. I don't think it'll pay immediate dividends. The Celtics are
already full of former high picks and the younger guys aren't likely to get
lots of playing time.

Second, they can overpay for second-tier talent. This is what Pitino was
evidently trying to do when trading for Abdul Wahad. It can happen on a
smaller scale with the exceptions also. I don't see us getting below the
cap without blowing up the entire team. We'll have to rely on
sign-and-trades and exceptions.

The problem with trading a guy like Walker for spare parts, like Cleveland
did with Kemp, is that you won't be able to replace that talent with the
money you save. Cleveland is not going to replace Kemp through free agency.
They might replace him by being really bad and drafting well. So I think
that Walker is here to stay for another season, unless the Celtics actually
get a decent offer for him, which I doubt.

In the meantime, you have to keep building the talent of the team slowly
and building up that win total. We'll probably be on a slow approach. First
we have to make the playoffs, or come very close (40+ wins) this year.
Then, we'll likely struggle for a few years, going out in the first round,
or getting crushed in the second. Then, hopefully, you make the conference
finals, which qualifies you as a contender. In the meantime, hopefully your
draft picks are developing into solid complementary players and you are
attracting free agents who want to play for a contender. 

Alex