Re: Baker

[Celtic4Hire@AOL.com]

I don't understand two threads of logic shown on this thread: 1) draft and 
develop. Hello, we just drafted a guy to develop and he won't be able to help 
significantly for 2-3 years. Now I am not advocating trading away our draft 
picks. However, to think we are going to get an impact player from the draft 
this day and age and from our likely drafting position is slim and none. 2) 
Inside scorers don't grow and trees. There isn't many in the NBA. Walker 
isn't a true inside scorer. I don't know where people think the improvement 
will come but I have identified low post veteran scoring of the bench as a 
way that the team can improve. I hear a lot of hindsight complaining of why 
we didn't get so and so. Oakley was thought of being toast and he stablized  
the Raptors when they traded for him. You just don't get something for 
nothing. You have to take risks, especially for the rare inside scorers and 
centers. 

We can talk all we want about getting other players at the 2 thru 4 spots but 
would they be playing instead of Walker, Pierce and Stith? I don't think so. 
Do you want to develop another Billups for a few years? Do you think Pierce 
will resign in a couple years if we still haven't put this together?

Get it together, guys. Apparently there are still people who believe that we 
are somehow going to get lucky and Tim Duncan, Mutombo or someone like that 
is going to sign with us for the mid-year exception...

That being said, I went to the Realgm site and looked at the salaries. I have 
to admit that Baker's contract is a hogger. It goes through 2006 at around 15 
million. It would be a heck of risk, at least with Gaston as an owner. I 
agree that it really dwarfs Anderson's salary and Seattle must be shaking in 
their boots thinking they got to pay him six more years at 13-15 million per 
with his present play. I have never proposed including Walker in this deal. 
However, I think there would be some combination of salaries(Brown, 
Anderson,VP) that I would be willing to trade to get Baker. 

For those who you would said not no but "hell no", please share your offer of 
alternative improvement...

DJessen33