Pack/Cheaney for Herren/Stith

[Alexander Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

It's interesting that Shira Springer broke this news. From what I recall of
recent Globe articles, both Holley and May seem to have burned their
bridges with Celtics management and rely on recycling second-hand quotes
and speculation. Her story has more credibility in my mind than the junk
that May ("Walker for Croshere") and Holley ("Walker to the Lakers") spout.
Luckily there's also the Herald who seem to have writers on good terms with
Pitino.

On the actual trade: It seems Stith's contract length (expiring in '01 or
'02?) is unclear. Cheaney's contract expires in '02. If Stith's contract
expires in '01 and he is let go, we save a year of Cheaney's salary -
around $2.4M. If it expires in '02, he'll get paid more than Cheaney, so
he'll cost us an extra $2M or so. Hopefully the Celtics' budget is
sufficiently flexible to allow an extra $2M in salary though, and who
knows? Maybe Stith won't be totally useless. He did have a few solid years
where he was injury-free.

Why would Denver want to do this? They have three potential point guards on
their roster, Van Exel, Herren, and Cory Alexander. Issel is supposedly
very down on Alexander, who got 49 DNP-CD's last year. I've heard that
Issel would have waived him to open up a roster spot but his owner didn't
let him for financial reasons. Herren, while promising, is young and
probably not ready to be an NBA point guard yet. They need a more
experienced backup to Van Exel, who frequently played 40+ minutes. Pack
probably fits into a similar scoring point guard mold as Van Exel.

The Celtics on the other hand have three point guards, all 29-31 years old
and with significant contracts. Brown has probably been promised a
significant role as a backup and defensive/press specialist. While we need
a third point guard in case of injury, this third-stringer probably
wouldn't play much. He doesn't need to be someone as experienced as Pack,
and in fact Pack would probably not be happy with this role. Furthermore
Pack would certainly not be re-signed next year to fill this role. Herren,
on the other hand, will have a chance to develop behind Anderson and Brown.
When their contracts expire in 3 years, he may be ready to step up. I
believe that under the CBA he may be a restricted free agent after this
year, much as Brad Miller was this year, which means that we'll probably be
able to keep him without breaking the bank.

Cheaney for Stith: probably a wash. My guess is that Chris Carr would slide
into the backup shooting guard spot. I doubt that Pitino and Wallace were
enticing him with the third string shooting guard spot. They want to inject
more athleticism and aggressiveness into the lineup and Cheaney seems to
have totally lost that. Cheaney shot 13 FGs for every FT he shot last year.
I wouldn't be surprised if he led the NBA in FGs per FT. On the other hand,
Carr has that athleticism and a scoring mentality, but with a low shooting
percentage. 

Anyway, the acquisition of Herren makes sense to me (in terms of the
concept of trading Pack for a younger point guard), though I haven't seen
him play much.

Alex

Alex