Offseason thoughts

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

A disappointment missing the playoffs yet again, but I'm optimistic about
the offseason. Initial points:

1. The comparison between Jim O'Brien and George Irvine is tenuous.
Irvine's performance is hard to evaluate because he lost his team's best
player. He may have even exceeded preseason expectations. The Celtics, on
the other hand, should not be losing any key pieces next year. A
potentially more accurate comparison could be made with Paul Silas,
actually. When Cowens left, Silas made a valiant but ultimately failed run
at the playoffs, similar to O'Brien's run. Since then, he's been an
excellent head coach. Of course, you could argue that Silas really
inherited a 45 or 50 win team that was only struggling under Cowens because
of the injuries to Rice and Mason. I hope that we get lucky in the lottery
like Charlotte did, too.

2. I'm actually looking forward to seeing what Chris Wallace can do as the
head personnel guy. Whenever I hear the guy speak, I get the impression
that he's into these ultra-athletic freak types -- McGrady, Marion, Keon
Clark, Moiso, and even Billups in terms of his "deep into the playoffs
point guard body." Of course, there have been good and bad calls in this
area, but I doubt that he'll be repeating trades for guys like Kenny
Anderson, for instance, after the way he was talking about Billups' body.
(That was evidently Pitino's call based on PJ Carlesimo's recommendation --
sigh). I wonder if he will develop a team identity based on high
athleticism if given free reign over personnel, instead of Pitino's mixed
identity team-building. In particular, would he trade Antoine Walker, who
doesn't fit into this identity? Walker for Ratliff was rumored to have been
discussed earlier, and I could see Wallace pushing for this trade. Yeah,
he's not a proven big-picture guy, but the only unemployed big-picture guy
that really seemed appealing to me was Bird, who is unproven himself.

3. What do the above two points mean for the current roster? Well, since
O'Brien plays with more of a restricted rotation than Pitino did, that
affects the salary structure of the team. Under Pitino, we had 10th-12th
men making $2M because 12 guys would get significant playing time. That
doesn't really make sense under O'Brien. Our current lineup, not including
free agents, is:
	5. Battie, Potapenko
	4. Walker, McCarty, Moiso
	3. Williams
	2. Pierce
	1. Anderson, Brown
Bringing back Blount and Palacio for small money is an easy decision.
There's room for a backup swing man so you can bring back Stith if it
doesn't cost too much, since he makes the 8 man rotation. But if we do, I
don't see us adding a $4M exception player, especially since Pierce's
extension and the rookie contracts would already be pushing towards the
luxury tax. I don't see Carr, Griffin, or Herren returning.
	The two guys that don't seem to fit in with my speculation about Wallace's
views are Potapenko and Anderson. Both of these guys would be difficult to
use to upgrade the team without throwing in a draft pick or two, and
receiving some sort of bad contract in return. Unfortunately Gaston may not
be very willing to take on a bad contract as lightly as Cuban or Paul Allen
does. Otherwise certain package deals could be appealing -- say Anderson,
lottery pick, and future pick for Terrell Brandon, or Anderson + McCarty +
picks for Big Country and Bibby.

Alex