re: Seattle & Baker

["Thomas Murphy" <tfmiii@worldnet.att.net>]

I have to agree with JoshO - Baker would be a terrible liability to take on.
Ainge was riding him on the last Seattle TNT broadcast and rightfully so. If
you think Twon is a chemistry problem wait until you get a load of Baker
slowly meandering up and down the court while his team plays 4-on-5. That
and the fact that Baker has a max contract the same size as Walkers that
eats up somewhere between 25% and 33% of your available cap space (depending
on future cap size).

I could only see a trade for Baker if one thinks that one is clearing out
our own liabilities OR scoring another player. Who to clear out will vary
from person to person. Some right now think Kenny is a major problem
(despite or because he hardly played this season?) but Kenny's contract will
be up in two more years. McCarty's is up in one year. Twon's contract
matches Baker's perfectly but even the most die-hard Walker basher would
have to admit that at this time in their careers a Walker for Baker straight
up deal is a disaster. Battie has the longest contract of current Celts
(going until '06) but makes a relatively reasonable (vis-a-vis the cap not
his contributions) 3.6 mil next year and maxes out at 5.2 mil. Vitaly takes
home 4.76etc mil next year. Both are reasonable in light of Baker's
contract.

Here are several possible swaps. All are predicated on Walker moving to SF
since Baker is too soft for C even back east (which argues against including
Vitaly in any trade for Baker).

One could construct a trade of Kenny + Battie for Baker

Kenny + Vitaly for Baker + Ruben Patterson

Kenny + Vitaly for Baker + desmond mason

These trades may be attractive to Seattle: they subtract Baker, provide a
replacement for the soon to be departed Ewing and also provide a proven
backcourt partner in shifting Payton to SG. For Boston however, they merely
trade short term problems for long term problems.

Coaching represents more of a problem than personnel right now in my
opinion. This may sound surprising in light of the nearly universally
acknowledged shortcomings in team talent and given the recent swap of
coaches, but O'B only represents a less grating and less attention-grabbing
version of pitinoball. The changes have been minimal (despite which the
results have been dramatic - signaling how desperate the previous situation
truly was). What the team needs to do is stop pretending that Walker is a
PF - not because he doesn't fit some preconceived notion of what a PF is but
because he simply can't guard 'power players' (who else can make Ostertag
look like the second coming of Russell). If that can be accomplished then we
can work on his 3-pt attempts.

These changes won't happen simply by shuffling the personnel file yet one
more time. If Baker were on this team right now he'd be just another member
of the center by committee and we'd be moaning about his out-sized contract.
The commitment must come from management and right now all we have is a
skeleton crew playing out the string and making a few adjustments that the
'inflexible one' couldn't even contemplate. If current management cannot
contemplate changing Walker's defensive assignments or his offensive
'philosophy' then by all means get some value for Walker on the market - but
not in a straight-up trade for Baker.

As I see it, problems at PG and C can best be solved via the draft (this has
been argued by someone else on the list - I forget who - sorry!). No team
that has an answer to either position is going to give it up in a trade
short of extreme circumstances (see Mutombo). We have modest  if not
exceptional coverage at both areas in Kenny and Blount/Vitaly to allow
draftees to be groomed for the positions. I would argue that in
contemplating trades we need to focus on acquiring young talent in the SF/SG
area. These players are easier to pick up in trades but are by no means the
common commodities some make them out to be, particularly ones who can
really stroke it - like Pierce for example. We've seen how effective our
offense can be with Walker and Pierce taking a majority of the shots -
imagine if we could improve on Walker's shooting %.

If we can upgrade our shooting % from SG (either by acquiring a SG or a SF
and shifting PP there on a more consistent basis) that should translate into
better offense (and better D since a higher shooting % = less fastbreaks for
the opposition). Any trade allowing Seattle to dump Baker should net us
Rashard Lewis. He's a young talent who *could* be our version of the 'big
ticket' at SF and complement Pierce on offense. Here's an example of such a
trade (using next year's contract #s since the trade deadline has passed):

Walker  + Battie (partial BYC) for
Baker + Lewis (partial BYC) (I worked it out and the math is kosher.)

(One could also substitute Vitaly or McCarty or Williams for Battie. I chose
Battie because he has the longest contract and his skill set is duplicated
at a cheaper price by Moiso).

The key to such a trade for Seattle is obviously Walker whereas the key for
Boston is Lewis. Does Lewis's potential warrant the risk of swapping Walker
for a stiff like Baker?

Rashard Lewis's #s
Height: 6'10"
Weight: 215 lbs.
Born: Aug 08, 1979
YEAR  G GS MPG FG% 3P%  FT% REB APG SPG BPG  TO PF PPG
98-99 20  7    7.3    .365  .167  .571   1.3   .2      .40    .05  1.0  1.0
2.4
99-00 82  8    19.2  .486  .333  .683   4.1   .9      .76    .44  .95  2.0
8.2
00-01 59  59  34.8  .482  .414  .825   6.9   1.5    1.31  .59  1.8  2.4 14.7

The safe answer is "probably not". But in any such trade there would have to
be SOME risk involved (or Seattle or whoever would never consider the
trade).  This is where opinions often differ - as to how much risk is too
much. Playing it safe means never having a chance to improve other than
incrementally whereas winning a championship will require dramatic
improvement. Other than winning the lottery during a Duncan type draft year,
I can see a town like Boston competing for championships only if they adopt
a different coaching philosophy (Walker to SF) and investigate trade
opportunities that might involve a calculated risk as represented by the
last example above.