Re: Celtics Trading For Pippen?

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

At 13:13 26/06/01 -0400, Way Of The Ray wrote:
> > This comes from the ESPN Message Board, so who knows?
> > But interesting stuff....
> >
> > Boston / Portland Details
> >  Posted by: metalorusa42  9:20PM PDT, Jun 25, 2001
> >
> > Talked to NBA draft analyst Chris Monter( he was
> > on ESPN "up close" this weekend ) about the
> > Portland / Boston trade. He feels strongly that
> > B. Wells is not part of this trade and that
> > Kenny Anderson is included. You may hate this
> > but here goes: Celts could be looking to package
> > Anderson, EWill, and K.Brown for Pippen. The
> > trade works under the cap. Portland gets a
> > young stud to fill in at the 3 for a very washed
> > up Pippen. What does Boston get? Cap room. The
> > C's are shooting for free agency in 2 years when
> > only Pierce, Walker, Battie, V, and Ewill are
> > under contract. Pippen has 2 years left at $13
> > mil per but will be off the cap in 2 years. So
> > by making this trade the C's clear another $5 mil
> > for their F/A signing period in 2 years. V,Battie,
> > Pierce, Walker and (Gasol?) would only be making
> > about 35 to 36 mil total. The cap should be about
> > $50 mil in 2 years. The C's would then target
> > Duncan (who will be a free agent) with the max
> > offer and hope that Pierce,Walker,Gasol,Duncan
> > core can bring home a ring .(even if you miss on
> > duncan you'll be one of only a couple teams that
> > can offer the max for any other blue chip starter.

Hi Ray:

Two years of Pippen over two years of Anderson and Eric Williams? In my 
view both Kenny and Pippen are equally washed up. And they clear the cap at 
the same time to boot.

The deal also costs Boston the #11 pick in return for nothing to build our 
future on....except 3 million cash from Paul Allen no doubt. ;-)

I'm not buying it. The cap math cited looks very fuzzy on the face of it. 
Don't see how it makes one shred of difference as far as clearing space for 
the 2003 FA class.

On top of that, since when is Tim Duncan a free agent every two years? Did 
he re-sign for the veteran's exemption last summer or something? I'm sure I 
missed something.

My conclusion is that we should follow Alex Wang's advice and never trust 
any Celts trade rumour that doesn't explicitly mention the phrase "3 
million dollars"! ;-)

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