Re: Nazr vs. Battie.

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

At 11:17 11/07/01 -0400, Jim Meninno wrote:
>I'd say the debate's only worth having if you can say with reasonable 
>certainty that Mohammed is significantly better than Tony Battie.  My good 
>friend Joe certainly thinks so...

First off, welcome back from London, El Jimbo. Just for the record, I'm NOT 
advocating signing Mohammed, nor have I gone out and said we should before. 
If O'Brien doesn't want him, then I certainly don't. I haven't the foggiest 
idea about him, and he played horribly against Boston this year.

This whole thread started because Mark and I felt that Wallace/O'Brien 
shouldn't behave on an assumption that the free agent market is off limits 
because of spending edicts (sign-and-trade solves this) or that Boston 
couldn't possibly improve around the edges without involving the two 
captains or the rookies in a trade.

Hence if Mohammed insisted on joining Antoine and Obie in Boston, and Obie 
wanted him, then Boston could try to force a swap involving one of our 
centers (Potsie or Battie) without any effect on either team's salary cap. 
If Atlanta needs a center or backup center for Theo, then this might be 
their "better than nothing" scenario. Boston gets a guy that rebounds the 
ball and knows the system.

My larger point is that if the Celtics don't rebound the basketball next 
season, they will lose period (no amount of success by the rookies is going 
to stem that).

And if the Celtics lose because of rebounding, the players are less likely 
to develop team cohesion and "learn how to win" since good team habits 
won't be rewarded in the win column.

Meanwhile, one way or the other, Paul Pierce isn't likely to continue 
getting enough "touches" to continue scoring 25+ points per game and 
achieve his personal goal of being an All Star.

After all, Joe Johnson plays his position. Joe Forte plays his position. So 
does Kedrick Brown. What if even one of them plays well enough to take 
those touches away from Pierce or Walker.

My view is that Pierce and Walker won't mind scoring less provided the 
Celtics at least win. They really want to win. But they aren't going to win 
unless they get or groom someone who will rebound. Walker we're stuck with 
but Pierce is a free agent next summer. And he's from LA on top of it.

Chris Wallace ought to be working to find a guy who can consistently get 9 
or 10 boards playing alongside Walker. I believe this would add 5 or even 
10 wins to Boston's total next year, because this team can already put 
enough points on the board.

If the Celtics can get those extra 5 or 10 wins, I believe Pierce will 
re-sign even if he averages only 18 points per game and gets overlooked for 
the All Star team once again. He just wants to win.

In Mohammed, you got a guy (on paper) who did deliver the 9 or 10 boards 
and pose a low post scoring threat. You also have a guy in theory who is a 
hard worker and would love to be reunited with his best friend Walker and a 
coaching system that won two NCAA championships while he was there. How 
rare is it to have that kind of interest from a player.

The fact that the Celtics didn't even invite him to Boston suggests they 
truly dislike him for some reason, or on Thanks Dad's order they've written 
off any prayer of offering the kid a contract.

Or they really love Battie's "upside". This guy is very talented and he 
isn't entirely under-productive or "El Busto" either. But if he continues 
to mail in so many games he plays in, as I illustrated in my earlier post, 
then he doesn't deserve to be wearing a Boston Celtics uniform.

Someone else deserves to.

Apologies for another longer than necessary post.

Joe

p.s. There are a lot of Asian guys on this list which obviously I think is 
fantastic. All you MIT guys and what not. Anyway, if you are Asian and you 
are anywhere near as superstitious as I am, I think you may agree Battie's 
game might improve if he changed his uniform number 4. As any Asian guy 
knows, this is a very unlucky number. Pronounced in either Mandarin or 
Japanese (and presumably also in Korean and Vietnamese), the number 4 is a 
homonym for the word "death". Out in Japan, no one uses that number. I've 
even heard that some buildings skip the 4th floor (like the 13th floor in 
Western countries or whatever). Anyway, you all know how superstitious I am.

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