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Re: All the whining about Gaston

At 12:29 PM 8/16/02 +0800, Andy Quek, Asst Manager Ad Sales,SCV wrote:

Have been seeing people going on and on about
the luxury tax and how stingy Gaston is. Doesn't
anybody realise that this is ultimately a
business and not a hobby??

While I'm admittedly not a graduate of a business school, I realize enough to know that the goal is to be profitably successful--that is, to make a profit while accomplishing your business goals.


If you dont realise it by now, times are bad. With
the many companies announcing losses or worse
bankruptcies and layoffs.
The NBA teams doing badly (the loathed Hornet owners notwithstanding) financially were the ones who went nowhere because they failed to sign and keep top-level players.


Is it any surprise that
many NBA bosses, INCLUDING GASTON, are being prudent
with the luxury tax? Even the miami heat that has
previously spent money like water in the early years
of pat riley is holding back now.
Prudent is one thing. I'm as tired as anyone of hearing about 60-70 million dollar contracts. But when you refuse to shell out a relatively minimum amount to re-sign a guy who everyone knows helped you make the playoffs, it's hard to blame bad taxes instead of bad management.


The reality is that
in troubled times like this even winning the
championship may not mean earning more money...
Let's see--you make the playoffs, you get TV revenue, you win the games, you get a bigger share of the pie. The more you win, the more you can charge fans next year (witness our own Celtics, who increased ticket prices in the wake of their playoff run). I don't see how you CAN'T make more money, unless you do Enron-style accounting.


I'm a soccer fan as well and have seen all the different
soccer clubs all over europe go into panic mode the moment
3 major TV companies in 3 different countries that
hold the TV rights to 3 different soccer leagues announce
"difficulties". In England the TV company has in fact
gone bankrupt and all the clubs, some have been around for
more than a century, that were spending in anticipation of
TV money coming in are now on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, they spent money before they had it. That's not a lack of revenue, that's poor money management. If they spent money in a way that forced them to rely on funds they didn't yet have, that's idiotic.


GOD
FORBID but if any of the TV companies with NBA rights
announce "difficulties"..... Dont say it wont ever happen
coz I'm sure you would have said the same thing with ENRON,
WORLDOM & QWEST.
The networks get their money back--and then some--from advertising revenue. In fact, the reason NBC didn't renew it's NBA contract was they felt the NBA wanted too much money. In the end, the NBA had to split the American TV rights between two networks, plus all the local coverage from Fox for every team. Big difference from England, where there's a lot fewer networks and far less money going into them.


Why's Gaston stingy? Why isn't he spending? Simply
put, its all down to the previous 7-8 years of
Celtics decline. With that decline means a decline
in attendance, merchandising, and most importantly
TV MONEY. Add to that all the economic uncertainty
and you've got one scared owner. Yes he did pay
Pitino gazilion dollars but it didn't work out and
now he's paying for it with a smaller budget all
around.
He paid Pitino a ridiculous amount of money and got zip for his investment. Had it been a player doing so badly, he'd have been let go in less than a month. Pitino was such a pain that players were overjoyed to be traded elsewhere. ANYwhere. He misused his "style" and nearly broke the spirits of players like Walker and Pierce. The C's did so badly, the ended up in the lottery and couldn't even get THAT right. Rick headlined a "Brainless" trust that was a lock to pick the worst possible players to draft or trade for, and other GM's rubbed their hands with glee every time their caller ID showed a call from Boston. Yes, revenues declined. TV exposure was so bad that some people probably forgot the C's were still in the NBA.

But Jim O'Brien changed that, and encouraged the team to play better. If he'd had one or two key people, the Celtics would be hoisting #17 in October. This year, TV exposure is overwhelmingly better, and the C's were initially positioned to be a threat in the East. Then, Gaston shoved his checkbook up his butt and dared anyone to go get it. He's performing a dismantling that may rival that done to the Bulls a few years back. He wants a banner, he says. He wants to up ticket prices. But he doesn't want to do the one thing that would guarantee him a better team and consistently better income--spend money for quality players.



Yes we are paying for it to but what can
we do? So why don't we just shut up, live with
it and praise the god that we still have pierce and
walker!!
We have them right up until they get stuck with silly injuries caused by carrying the whole load themselves, because we traded or outright gave away anyone who might have helped them bear the load.

You want to talk money being tight? Walter Brown went BROKE keeping the Celtics afloat, but they still managed to fill the team with hall of fame players for years. They just tightened their belts and didn't play in a nice building. Most of those players could legitimately gripe about the pay, but they made enough to stay with the team, and they didn't let the team or it's fans down.

Gaston could look a heck of a lot smarter if he shut up and handed the checkbook to Red.

Snoopy the Celtics Beagle