Sports Guy's take on the trade

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

Here are SG's thoughts on the trade. Pretty much sums up my opinion as well.
One more thing: I think your opinion of this trade probably hinges on your
opinion of Joe Johnson. Some of us, including me, have decided he just
doesn't have the aggressiveness/confidence/whatever to ever be more than
average. Our disappointment happened a while ago, when we realized the Celts
wasted the 10th pick. Others still believe Joe eventually will toughen up
and become a versatile, all-star-caliber player. Their disappointment hits
now at losing such a player. When we find out which side was right, we'll
have the final answer on the trade.

Here's SG's take. Mark


Quick thoughts on the Celts trade...
Good God, who woke up Chris Wallace??? The more I'm thinking about it, this
was the most one-sided Celtics trade (in favor of the Celts) since they
swapped Robey for DJ back in 1983. When was the last time a team make a
6-player trade and ended up with the two best guys in the deal?  Can you
imagine being a Phoenix fan right now? 
You might remember when I wrote last week that Boston didn't have another
above-average player on the roster other than Pierce and Walker... now they
have two above-average offensive players coming off the bench. If they had
these guys from the start of the season, they would have 5-6 more wins right
now. The Celts also lopped off about $3.5 million off next year's salary cap
(Johnson, Brown, Palacio and next year's pick add up to around $6 million,
whereas Delk makes about $2.5 and Rogers leaves after the season).
Before they pulled the trigger on this deal, they had a deal on the table
with Denver-Johnson, Brown and Kenny Anderson for Nick Van Exel and Cal
Cheaney-that both sides had agreed on, but the Celtics wouldn't make the
deal unless Van Exel agreed to opt out of the final two years of his
contract (which he said he would do for the right team). So after waiting
for Van Exel to make up his mind, Team Wallace decided they couldn't wait
anymore, so they moved in another direction and started talking to Phoenix.
Plus, they were a little scared of Van Exel only because he's known to be a
little moody and a little hard to read, and this year's team doesn't have a
single head case on it (the old chemistry thing). So maybe it worked out for
the best.
Four things interested me about the Phoenix trade:
1.	The Celts didn't give up anyone in their current nine-man rotation,
but they added two players who immediately become their first two guys off
the bench (and occasional crunch-time guys). And the best thing about these
guys is that they're hit-or-miss-when they don't have it, you know right
away, but when they have it, you ride them for as long as they're playing
well. Check out Delk's game log on ESPN.com 
*	http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/gamelog?statsId086 -- it's not
like he averages 10 points every night. One night he'll have three, the next
night he'll have 25. Same with Rogers. And that's what this Celtics team
needed, a little unpredictability off their bench and two guys who could
occasionally carry this offense for a quarter or a half at a time.

2.	We knew they were souring on Joe Johnson... remember in the
pre-season, when they were saying how he was going to play 30 minutes a
night and potentially become the missing third piece? Hey, I bought into it
hook line and sinker. But JJ was wayyyyyyyyy too soft and he couldn't guard
anybody - within 2 months, he had lost his spot to Kedrick Brown, and then
when Kedrick got hurt, Williams, Strickland and even McCarty moved ahead of
him. It's one thing not to be confident; it's another thing to be
non-aggressive, and that was Johnson's problem-as I've written before, he
had way too much Cal Cheaney in him. It's going to take a couple of seasons
before he puts it together, if he ever puts it together. It certainly wasn't
going to happen here, not with Kedrick Brown consistently out-playing him in
practice and during games. I'm really surprised Phoenix thought so highly of
him-don't these teams have scouts? And weren't they a little curious as to
why the Celts were offering Johnson around the league?
3.	The Celts officially admitted that they mangled that #10 pick last
summer. Throwing in the Forte pick, the Celts had three of the top 21 picks
and went 1-for-3. Not good, even if everyone has the highest of high hopes
for Kedrick Brown (including me). At least they rectified one of those picks
before it became a full-fledged disaster. The fact remains that they could
have taken Richard Jefferson or Troy Murphy, or even traded up for Eddie
Griffin, and any of those guys would have really helped them this season. Do
you realize that this is the fourth top-ten pick the Celts have either
squandered, traded or given away in the past five years? #3 and #6 in '97,
#8 in '99, and #10 in 2001.  Again, at least they did the right thing and
tried to salvage something for the #10 pick before Johnson's stock dropped
through the floor. Maybe he can turn things around in Phoenix.

	One wrinkle which potentially worries me: This trade vaguely
resembles the Billups-Anderson trade from '98 in the sense of "Not being
patient with a young draft pick who could pan out." And if you've noticed,
Billups turned into a helluva player-he's the starting point guard for a
top-five team, he's putting up big stats, and many insiders think he's
better-suited to run their offense than Terrell Brandon. But there's one
difference between Billups and Johnson: as a rookie, Billups was always
aggressive and always showed flashes from time to time. When they traded
him, the feeling was, "This kid will probably make it some day, but he
wasn't Pitino's ideal point guard" and not "This kid is soft and there's a
good chance he will never pan out." That's the difference.
4.	Was anything funnier than the Globe bringing in Bob Ryan from
Utah-where he's covering the Olympics-to help with their coverage of the
trade? It's like Don Skwar said, "Okay, we need a real basketball writer for
this one... can you call down to the skeleton competition and page Bob?"
High comedy. 

	Let's look at the new guys:
	Delk: His contract runs through 2006, but it's manageable ($2.5 a
year) ... he's a throwback to the 70's and 80's, when every team had one sub
who could come into a game and drop 25 points out of nowhere ... an okay
three-point shooter who's deadly from that 15-20 foot range ... good
defensive player ... played with Antoine and Walter at Kentucky (and he was
their crunch-time scorer on the '96 title team) ... unstoppable when he's on
- he scored 53 points in a game last season ... immediately becomes the 6th
man and the occasional crunch-time guard when he's in a groove ... probably
takes minutes away from Strickland and Kenny, which isn't a bad thing.
	Rogers: Free agent after the season ... 6-foot-7, 255 pounds,
lefthanded and can play inside or outside - a tough matchup for teams who
aren't used to playing against him ... another streaky guy like Delk-every
2-3 games, he'll give you 16-20 points and 6-8 boards off the bench ...
known to mail it in from time to time, especially on the defensive end and
on the boards ... Boston's a great team for him because he's a terrific
outside shooter with three-point range (35% this year, 43% back in '99-00)
... he's going to be hard to keep off the floor at crunch-time ... also
gives the C's insurance in case anything happens to Antoine (knock on wood)
- they finally have an NBA-caliber backup power forward ... I wouldn't be
surprised if they played Battie, Walker, Pierce, Rogers and Delk down the
stretch more than any other lineup, if only because teams couldn't
double-team Pierce if the Celts spread the floor correctly (you simply can't
leave Delk and Rogers open when they're feeling it). 
	Great trade. Last week I thought this was a 42-to-45-win team that
might sneak past the first round if Pierce and Walker were smoking-hot...
now I think they could sneak out 50 wins, get a top-four seed and
potentially win a round or two in a conference that doesn't have a single
great team. Would you have taken those odds at the start of the season? Me,
too.
	One more thing: Tuesday's win over the Lakers was the best win
they've had since they best MJ and the Bulls on Opening Night in '97. The
thing that amazed me-and of course, none of the local writers mentioned
this-was that the Lakers were RED-hot for most of that game. At one point
midway thru the 4th quarter, LA was shooting 61% and out-rebounding the
Celts by 15. And yet the Celts kept hanging around and hanging around... and
when LA finally started missing shots, Pierce started willing himself to the
line (big-time, superstar game by him on an off-shooting night - 20 FT
attempts!), Antoine made a big three and suddenly it was a ballgame. Then
they got lucky at the end to pull it out. I haven't been that fired up about
a sporting event at 1:15 in the morning in years... it was like the old days
back in the 80's! 
Good times. The Celts are back.