Re: Stith to sign with Cleveland

["j.hironaka" <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

At 10:27 08/08/01 -0400, Mark Piotrowski wrote:
>  Whatever the reason, i really will miss Stith.  I think his maturity and 
> presence on the bench and in the locker room will be missed -- and in 
> general has been overlooked in evaluating last season.  Yeah he only 
> averaged 10 points but his defense and spacing kept us in many a 
> game.  And i think that even though he was less talented than Pierce or 
> Antoine, they accepted his leadership.

As glass full as I am, I agree with Mark P. on this much overlooked point 
(the loss of Stith). In fact we've lost two old school "glue" players from 
each the past two seasons in Griffin and Stith. Where would we have been 
the last two years without them?

The hope is that Joe Johnson (or one of the other two rookies) will 
replicate the all out monster production of the rookie Paul Pierce along 
with the "veteran" rookie all-around production of Adrian Griffin. That 
would be something, but it is no sure thing.

Whenever your team's unchallenged veteran leaders are 23 or 24 year olds, 
you have to be a little bit concerned about overrating their winning 
potential straight out of the gate.

Sure Kedrick, Joe and Joseph all shoot straighter than Griffin and Stith, 
but they are all 20-year-old rookies. Joe Johnson is a full three years 
younger than "developmental project" Jerome Moiso.

But to me, the drafting of Paul Pierce and Joe Johnson is like having a 
latter day Sam Jones and John Havlicek. Well actually, I feel like we sort 
of resemble more the rebuilding Celtics circa 1971 (except that we are 
stuck with Hank Finkel instead of a rookie Dave Cowens)... a 30-year time 
warp like the whole Austin Powers movie premise. Yeah baby, yeah.

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