RE: insider: Gasol to go high; Brown for Bonzi; Tinsley mystery

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

At 10:23 26/06/01 -0400, OzerskyJA wrote:
>this is nuts.  So far, we have Kedrick Brown,
>Jamal Tinsley, and an injured (and FA-eligible)
>Bonzi Wells at our #11 pick?  When we know for
>sure that Radmonivic, Murphy, and who knows
>who else will be there for us?  This stinks;
>I don't buy it.

I'm not too worried about it, based on Wallace's statement (of course 
"cash" could be construed as an incidental detail). This is the classic and 
tiresome "dangle three million cash in front of Gaston" scenario, a feature 
of seemingly every recent Celtics trade that ever goes down.

Gaston seems at times to be aligning himself for martyrdom in the name of 
"fiscal sanity", now that he is resigned to a sinking feeling that 1) he 
can't seem to rebuild the team back to the glory years when his dad owned 
the team, and 2) he can't talk anyone in the organization to unload the 
fan-unfriendly Antoine Walker (for Austin Croshere, Van Horn, whomever). 
Maybe he's disillusioned and disinterested with the whole on-court 
"product" he sees. I'm sure everyone in the polite society circles he hangs 
out in can't stand Antoine Walker and let him know it.

Maybe Gaston is discovering his new crusade and reason for self-worth by 
advocating fiscal sanity and "building shareholder value" (my favorite). 
You've got to discover some rationale to explain why you've been the owner 
during the worst period in Celtics history and that is as good as any 
(young black men are overpaid). But unlike Gaston, Celtics fans (including 
shareholders) couldn't give a damn about the NYSE price or the annual 
financial report that comes in the mail. We're not calling our brokers to 
buy more shares for our children's X-mas stockings, every time Gaston pulls 
off another 3 million dollar cash deal to grease a trade.

It is time for Gaston to sell this team, not because he is a bad owner but 
because he can't afford to compete against all the billionaires. At the 
same time, if I hear the phrase "three million dollars" one more time in a 
Boston trade I can only conclude this was done by guys who worry more about 
their job security than the good of the team. The latest rumor seem too 
coincidental not to have some validity, even if Wallace ultimately nixes it 
and uses the picks. And there is plenty of evidence that will be the case.

I refuse to go into this draft worrying one iota about getting only a gimpy 
Bonzi, Jamaal Tinsley, wait-a-year for Tony Parker and cash. There's just 
too much available with the picks, and too many signals from Wallace that 
he realizes this, to think we'd be that stoopid. Everything is coming 
together fine.

Joe

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