Re: Virtue Rewarded; or, Ozersky Inside!

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

Josh, this is great. I already can't wait for your recap of the next
conversation. Will that be this afternoon? :-)

A few comments on what Wallace said:

1)	I'm not surprised by the comment about the point guards, but that's
a dangerous strategy. We all know how much these things change in a year.
Who will declare? Where will we draft? I understand what he's saying, but if
the plan is to wait until the 2002 draft to get a point guard, that's a
pretty flimsy plan. You could have just as easily said this year was the
year to get a big man-and we all know how that turned out.
2)	He differed on Kenny's statement... not much detail there, but who
cares? Kenny sucks and I'll celebrate the day he leaves the Celtics with an
annual holiday, complete with cake and ice cream.
3)	The comments on Walker and the centers were interesting. If only
Walker actually faced up and drove on these guys more often! Did he address
the 10 three-pointers a game? And I think Walker and our centers don't
complement each other at all-if you're going to play Toine at PF, you need a
monster at center; and if you're going to play VP/Blount/Battie at center,
you need a monster at power forward. If this is a pitching staff, it's the
Rangers'.
4)	The Moiso trade... the pick is fine and all, but I'm like everyone
else-I wish we knew the conditions. It's probably not worth much. As for
saving money for Blount and Palacio... good grief, how much will they be
worth? We are talking about the players who averaged 3.9 and 6 points
respectively, and 3.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists respectively last year,
right? I know they were starters in Boston, but what would they be anywhere
else? Backups? Third string? Palacio was outplayed by Khalid El-Amin in
summer league play, and he has a two-year contract, so his salary is locked
in next year (so clearing Moiso's salary has no impact). I like Blount's
potential, but let's be realistic... if we start clearing salary so we can
sign him to a Todd McCullough or Calvin Booth contract, then something's
wrong. Everyone can see those deals are bad for the teams that made them;
wouldn't the same be true for the Celtics?
5)	Talk about your fuzzy math... maybe the team was .500 BECAUSE it
didn't have Anderson and Battie last year? And they added three rookies. Joe
Johnson looks ready to play. The other two don't. And they were .500 with
Bryant Stith. He's gone. Pierce had a month where he averaged close to 40
ppg. Hopefully he'll have two or three of those months, but I don't think we
can count on it. They had the new coach "bounce" and I wouldn't be surprised
to see a little recoil this year.
6)	Agreed on Joe Johnson. I also see him getting a few minutes at point
guard, but I'm glad Wallace isn't going to lump that on him right away. Best
to let him just fill in and play off of Pierce and Walker without the
responsibility of running the team. There will be time for that later.

I'd love to hear the answers to all of Joe's questions. Also, could you ask
him his philosophy for building a team? How does he see it structured? I'm
not asking about always drafting the best player available, blah, blah,
blah. I want to know what he believes a team needs to win (and please, not
just "talent"-plenty of talented teams don't win championships). Size?
Quickness? Be specific.

Thanks again Josh.

Mark