Re: Nazr vs. Battie.

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

We've had some good activity on the list recently. A few comments:

Jim Meninno wrote:
 > Re: Sign and trades.  Aren't they also problematic because the signed player
 > normally gets BYC restrictions?

Whoops. Jim caught something really important here that I totally missed. 
Mohammed is coming off a rookie contract so he's going to fall under BYC 
rules that will make it impossible to acquire him in a sign-and-trade 
without the involvement of a team under the cap - and they're not going to 
help without getting something extra. It's basically impossible. This is 
exactly the reason why I think that getting frustrated about phantom 
non-deals is pointless.

Mark Berry wrote:
 > But let's forget Mohammed for a second, and look at philosophies.
 > Specifically, let's look at the Sixers. They've traded away Jerry
 > Stackhouse, Larry Hughes, Tim Thomas, Theo Ratliff, Toni Kukoc, Nazr
 > Mohammed... and gotten back players like Tyrone Hill (for Thomas), Kukoc
 > (for Hughes), Ratliff and McKie (for Stackhouse) and Mutombo (for Kukoc,
 > Ratliff and Mohammed). They've traded away some bright futures in
 > Stackhouse, Hughes, Thomas, Ratliff and Mohammed, but would they take 
any of
 > those deals back? No way, even though you could argue that they've traded
 > away more talent than they've gotten back.

I like what Philly did because they had a clear plan of building around the 
unique talents of Iverson. It's natural to look at their team and how 
they've gone way beyond us, and say, we need to make trades to catch up. 
But we have to do it at the pace that's right for us. Pitino mismanaged the 
roster. Wallace needs some time to clean up the cap situation and develop 
some more talent. I think that Philly got more value out of Thomas and 
Hughes because they played for a year and showed that they had potential. 
We need to do that with Joe Johnson and Kedrick Brown, let them play for a 
year and then consider using them in a trade for a legitimate big man, like 
Philly did in acquiring Ratliff for Stackhouse and Hill for Thomas. I just 
don't think anything's possible this offseason, barring a trade of Walker 
or Pierce.

Kestas wrote:
 > Obviously, a major reshuffling of talent may change the pecking order 
somewhat,
 > but in a way, NBA talent is a 'zero sum game' - if say, NY gets stronger by
 > landing David Robinson, then SA gets weaker. Trades may improve both teams
 > somewhat (thus raising the overall quality of the league), but I'm guessing
 > most trades actually don't accomplish that.

I agree with this. Most teams improve on paper over the offseason, because 
they draft players, look to fill needs, renounce their losers. Bad luck 
teams think, "no way we lose five players to injury this year." But in the 
end, the league's not getting a lot better overall from year to year. 
Change tends to be overrated; last year, everyone was talking about how all 
the Eastern Conference playoff teams improved except Philly. Whoops. This 
of course applies to the Celtics too; adding three rookies might not make a 
big difference in the first year.

But it could be tougher in the Eastern Conference this year (and 
consequently easier in the West) because some of the teams have benefited 
from the "rebuilding" efforts of Memphis and Pheonix. New Jersey was also 
one of those bad luck teams that suffered from a lot of injuries. Orlando 
and Miami may return All-Star caliber players.

To make the playoffs, we probably need:
1. A relatively injury free season. Battie was playing well before the 
injury -- certainly better than Blount ever did. A healthy Anderson, as 
infuriatingly underachieving and washed up as he is, can still manage 
better than the worse of Palacio or Randy Brown.
2. Contributions from the rookies (or Moiso).
3. Improvement from our stars, Walker in particular. I don't think either 
of them has "maxed out", especially on the defensive end. Pierce has 
improved every season he's been in the league so far. He may not score as 
many points but he can play better.
4. I'm not sure how the zone will affect us. Our team's offense under 
O'Brien relies on isolations. Hopefully having drafted a bunch of 3 point 
shooting swingmen helps us here.

And other teams are thinking the same team: "if we don't get injured, and 
our players develop, and our new free agents pan out, then we'll make the 
jump." It's not going to be easy for us to pass one of the current playoff 
teams; Indiana would be the best hope, I think, followed by Toronto if they 
lose Antonio Davis. On the other hand, it's tougher than most pundits think 
for a bad team like Atlanta or New Jersey to make the leap past us too.

Alex