Wild rumors

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

I know several people who work on the trading floors on Wall Street who
have told me funny stories about rumors. Every so often, a catastrophic
story blazes through the floor -- typically it's "Greenspan died in a car
accident" but Clinton and Yeltsin have also died several times (this was a
few years ago). The amazing thing is that the market gets significantly
moved by these complete fabrications, even though these traders are, on a
whole, pretty rational and intelligent people.

This is what I see happening on the Celtics list. Every far-fetched rumor
that gets posted generates some pretty strong, unjustified opinions like,
"I can't believe Gaston wants to trade our pick for cash!", even when they
are categorically denied by management. It seems like the list collectively
examines the huge mess of rumors (many of which contradict each other),
chooses the one that upsets us the most, and then believes that one. Calm
down!!

Mark mentions the McCarty trade. I never heard of the variation where we
gave up a #1 pick to get rid of McCarty. The deal that I read was, we give
up McCarty and get back a #2 pick from Chicago, but McCarty had to agree to
waive the guarantee on the last year of his deal (so that Chicago could cut
him if it didn't work out and save cap space). Either McCarty was unwilling
to do it, or it wasn't allowed under the new CBA, or the player's
association killed it (to avoid the precedent).

Now the Kenny Anderson and 3 #1 picks for Laettner is another story. But
all we really know is that some "inside source" told a reporter that we
"seriously considered it." Or maybe the reporter made it up or embellished
it or didn't have all of the information. What's the accuracy rate of these
reporters, about 1%? When one of these deals actually happens, we'll have
plenty to complain about. Before then, try not to believe everything you
read just because it upsets you. I enjoy the speculation and discussion but
there's no reason to get too crazy about every rumor.

Alex