Re: Thoughts on the deals/celtics

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

"Berry, Mark S" wrote:

> How do the Knicks do it? How do they convince teams to give them decent
> players for their garbage? I don't care what kind of defense Mark Jackson
> plays, the Knicks are better with him at point guard instead of Childs, Ward
> or Sprewell.

Kenny Anderson is 31-years-old, loves to dribble, and is a defensive liability.
Mark Jackson turns 36 next month, loves to dribble, and is a defensive
liability. Both could have been good additions for a deep playoff run on the
right team, and Kenny is a legitimate NYC legend (and the last NBA player before
Walker to score over 40 points and 10 assists in a game). I wonder if Chris
Wallace even bothered to ask if the Knicks had any interest?

I question on what basis the Celts front office rests on its laurels
particularly after games like on Friday, where three starters (Williams, Blount
and Anderson) combine for all of 8 points, your starting center gets 0 boards
and your starting pointguard get 0 assists both in 20 minutes, and your two best
players combine for 47 points while the rest of the team is held to just 35
more.

You'd think the front office would at least say "hey we tried nonstop from every
angle but everything fell through." If they want to make the playoffs, they
should have tried to upgrade the supporting cast. They had Utah's first rounder
as a throw in, a bunch of smaller contracts besides that of Stith that clear the
cap this summer (valuable to teams trying to create space for a run at free
agents), as well as a bunch of dead weight at the power forward slot where
Antoine is forced to play fulltime by default (Moiso, McCarty and any one of
either Blount, Potsie or Batgirl).

In terms of job security, Wallace would have been smarter to gamble on a trade
for the playoff run than doing zero. I think there is very little question that
he is dead man walking at this stage, with or without the sale of the team.

Joe

p.s. It is nice to see the Celtics sounding so excited and positive about the
final 26-game stretch run, especially Walker and Obie. They are a lot more
upbeat than I am, but I do hope positive thinking will pay off with another
miracle hot streak. Part of me daydreams by pencilling into the Celtics lineup
for next year names like Eddie Griffin or Jason Williams, but that scenario
depends not only on missing the playoffs but also finally winning on of the
three top ping pong balls (which has something like a 5% probability or whatever
it is). If we don't hit the draft jackpot, we fans will be spending the rest of
this decade trying to get excited this time of year about making a big stretch
run for the 8th playoff seed. This season I don't mind investing my full
emotions in that sort of goal, but not year after year.

----