Where do the C's go from here?

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

Right now, it seems that the Celtics are in a precarious position. The
primary decision maker has left and things are now being run by Wallace and
O'Brien, who both have uncertain futures. I think there's a danger that
they'll make short term moves in an effort to hold onto their jobs. In my
mind, these would just be patches to try to keep a sinking ship above
water. I'd rather not see anything like this.

My top preference is the same as just about everyone else's: the "Bird and
the Billionaire" scenario. There are several nice things about having a
ludicrously rich owner. The first is that you can basically ignore your
past mistakes. If you paid Potapenko $30M and he now stinks, so what? The
second is that you can throw money at poorer teams to create favorable
trades. Just add $3M each time you want to upgrade your 9th-12th man and
soon you have a nice, deep team of overpaid players. And you can take on
other team's mistakes too, like Shawn Kemp. The third is that free agents,
your own and others, see you as an attractive destination, because you'll
overpay, lavish them each with their own coach, fly them on a dream plane,
etc. So while spending your way to victory is not exactly the proudest way
to win, it's probably the surest.

But with or without the billionaire, Bird is the best option. His legendary
status would give him a huge reprieve from the vicious Boston media and the
boobirds. He'd have the ability to take a long term view on the team, which
is what I think we need at this point. He's shown that he's willing to
delegate to other capable people also. Donnie Walsh seemed to imply that he
would come to Boston to work for Bird, and he's certainly done an excellent
job building for the long term with Indiana.

That's the dream scenario. But let's say that can't happen because of the
friction between Bird and Gaston. You have to start with a new president
before you decide on a new coach. Danny Ainge practically volunteered for
the job, and he's not a bad choice in my mind. He talked about exploring
the option of dealing Walker and I'm in agreement with him there (more on
that later). As for the new coach, my first thought is John Thompson. Yes,
he was a college coach. But he also played in the NBA, for the Celtics. I
think that may give him some credibility with NBA players that Pitino may
have lacked. In addition, he's produced some All-Star centers in Mutombo,
Mourning, and Ewing. Acquiring and developing a quality center, probably
through the draft, is where I'd start.

I've been thinking about the structural problems with this team and I'm now
in agreement that a major overhaul is necessary, especially with new
management coming in. I've argued for Walker as the best player in the
"Walker vs Pierce" debates. But if you're blowing up the team, I think you
keep Pierce. Walker is multitalented and has great potential but creates a
structural problem with your team because of his defense and his ambiguous
position in the same way that Iverson does. As a result you have to build
in a certain way around him if you want to succeed. If you're going to
rebuild the team almost from scratch, you have more flexibility with Pierce
than with Walker.

If this draft is as big as everyone is predicting, then the future of the
franchise for the next 10 years could depend on it. I hate to be thinking
about draft position less than halfway into the season. But it's starting
to look like we could be drafting quite high, with 9 more road games than
home games left and most of the games against the West still remaining to
be played. Getting a dominant big man would change everything.

Alex