Answering Josh and calling out Chris Wallace (long)

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

Lots of stuff to cover on a Monday morning. Here goes...
 
1.	Joe Johnson in Phoenix... Let's see what happens. Remember his first
seven games here? He wasn't suddenly dumped on the bench after seven games.
He played his way onto the bench all by himself. Let's see what happens
after he gets past the "I'll show them I'm not passive..." reaction to the
trade. Remember when Kenny Anderson looked like Tiny Archibald in his first
two weeks after joining the Celts? 
2.	If Josh is right and JJ continues his strong play in Phoenix, then
it's time to break up Pierce and Walker. Because if that happens, then you
just add JJ to the long list of guys-Vitaly, Kenny, JJ, Fortson, etc.-who
have come to Boston and shriveled in the shadow of the two "stars." If
Pierce and Walker dominate everything to the point that no one else can
flourish, then you have to break them up. Because they're not good enough,
on their own, to win a championship. We have heard for so long that they
don't have any help... maybe they just aren't accepting any help. Great
players make the guys around them better. If Pierce and Walker aren't doing
that-if they're even making them appear worse-then they're not nearly as
good as any of us would like to think.
3.	Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk... If this trade was made to insert Tony
Delk as the starting shooting guard and make Rodney Rogers a
six-minute-a-game backup power forward, then I retract my support for the
deal. But I can't believe Jim O'Brien is that dumb. If that's the way he
sees it-Tony Delk and a backup PF-then he's an idiot. He has to use them
both off the bench, Delk spelling Kenny and Kedrick/Pierce, Rogers spelling
Antoine/Pierce and Battie. They both have to get 20-25 minutes per game.
They have to. Get Eric Williams out of the rotation. If Rodney Rogers wastes
away on the bench while Eric Williams continues to play (and the Celts
continue to get brutalized on the boards) then O'Brien is a bigger fool than
he showed at Dayton. I can't believe that's true.
4.	Jim O'Brien... I wouldn't show the Dallas-Houston tapes to any
prospective employers. Terrible game management. Awful. Let's move on...
5.	Kedrick Brown... I'm not opposed to him sitting the bench per se.
For all his athleticism and energy, he's still a detriment on the offensive
end, where he seems to not know exactly what to do. He's a good defender and
rebounder for his position, though, and if you're going to get killed by
Cuttino Mobley and Michael Finley, maybe you should give the kid a chance.
But the minutes for Delk and Rogers are going to come at someone's expense,
and Kedrick is the likely suspect. That's fine in general, but don't forget
about the guy.
6.	Chris Wallace... OK, here we go... I'm going to tackle these in the
order Josh presented them: A.) Omar Cook... why not get him in here now?
What's the harm? "they're mostly concerned with bringing Delk and Rogers
onboard..." OK, and that's done. Is another injury list body going to hurt
the chemistry on this team? I checked some Omar stats from the NBDL Web site
last week, and he's been getting better and better. Had an 18-point,
19-assist game a couple of weeks ago. There was no "90 assists in five
games" stretch, though. B.) "Joe was the price of doing business..." OK,
Gaston is a cheap jerk and we all want Larry to buy the team. That's out of
the way. Still, did this take Wallace by surprise last week? And next year
we're "back in the multiple picks business..." We did so well last time, I'm
just brimming with confidence. C.) "Johnson may not 'max out'... blah, blah,
blah..." Will he or won't he? That's your job to know. It's your job to know
before the draft, and it's definitely your job to know after you've seen the
guy up close for seven months. I mean, come on, this has to be the most
absurd remark I've ever heard. He pretty much backed up the "pick three and
hope one pans out strategy." Is this how we're approaching the draft now?
It's a crapshoot, so let's take a lot of the same players and hope we get
lucky with one of them? D.) We might re-sign Rogers... I believe he's right
and there might not be a lot of big-money offers for Rodney out there. But
there's no way he stays here for less if Obie just gives him Antoine's spare
six minutes every night. E.) Capped out forever... Antoine and Paul combine
for $20 mill. The remaining contracts after next season: Vitaly, Battie,
Kedrick, Delk, Forte... that approaches $40 mill. That's under the cap, but
probably not by a lot. But the important thing is it is WAY under the luxury
tax level. You should be able to get creative with trades to add a
significant talent. Especially if you trade a captain (which they should do,
if Wallace is being straight with the numbers). F.) Point guard draft...
Let's see, we didn't draft Tinsley or Parker because, as Wallace suggested
to Josh back then, this draft is going to be so rich with point guards. But
now, the next draft is even better, and all these teams who draft point
guards aren't going to need them next year, so a lottery point guard is
going to slide right down to the Celtics in the mid-to-late first round.
This is the infamous "Wallace Plan????!!!!" Remember when he said the point
guard of the future was probably in high school or college? At this rate, I
think grade school was more accurate. I'm assuming Wallace knows that Kenny
is gone after next season. But I'm sure Forte will be ready by then (yes,
that's sarcasm). G.) They're spinning it as fast as they can, but the fact
is they believe JJ was a bust, Forte was a bust and they're hoping Kedrick
salvages the disaster that was the 2001 draft. They either were wrong about
JJ at draft time or wrong about him now. Contrary to what they might say, I
don't buy for a minute that they would have made this trade if they still
had faith in JJ. Not for a minute. So either they were wrong then or they
were wrong now. Time will tell. In case you can't tell, I'm not a big Chris
Wallace fan.
7.	Things to watch the next few weeks... Can Rogers and Delk assert
themselves on this team? No more excuses about not enough help, the bench
sucks, all that crap. These guys are legit NBA players and scorers. If they
don't approach the same kind of production they were turning out in Phoenix,
then I lay the blame at the feet of the captains. If we still see Kenny
handing off to Toine at the 3-point line for a two-man game with Pierce,
while Delk, Kenny and EW watch and Rodney Rogers chats with Kedrick Brown on
the bench, then it will be time to make drastic changes to this team.
Massive, sweeping changes. And it should start with Chris Wallace and Jim
O'Brien. (Never happen, of course. Gaston has them on the cheap, they're
low-profile and good for the bottom line. Make the playoffs, keep the
natives happy and the payroll down. Perfect.)
8.	Having said all that... I still believe JJ will revert to his Boston
form. He's a great talent. None of us are denying that. But he had a lot of
opportunities in Boston and failed to take advantage. The knock has been
with him long before he came to Boston, so I'm not convinced his struggles
were the fault of this system. A player with his talent, capable of 20
points and six assists seemingly whenever he wants in the NBA, never should
have been a wallflower 15 ppg guy in college. He should have dominated. He
didn't. Nolan Richardson wanted more from JJ at Arkansas and Obie wanted
more from him in Boston. JJ never delivered. I don't think he will in
Phoenix either. Because of that, and because I just won't believe Obie is
stupid enough to waste Delk and Rogers in the roles he showed in Houston, I
still think this was a great "salvage" trade. They butchered the draft but
turned a bad pick into an instant NBA-quality bench that could help them
advance deep into the playoffs.
9.	And finally, everyone shrugs off the "advance deep into the
playoffs" thing. But I say there's a value to doing that. Your franchise and
your players are viewed differently and valued differently when they make a
deep playoff run. The Raptors legitimized themselves with their playoff run
last year. Vince Carter, once seemingly out the door at the first
opportunity, decided to stay. So did Antonio Davis. And Alvin Williams. And
Jerome Williams. And Hakeem hand-picked them as his end-of-career stop.
Philly made it all the way to the Finals and suddenly their role
players-even overpaid ones-seemed attractive. Guys like Tyrone Hill and
Jumaine Jones had real value. Eric Snow was coveted all over the league.
George Lynch got them a Derrick Coleman. Having playoff success increases
the value of guys who on lesser teams would seem very average. And it makes
your team an attractive place to play. Don't you think an up-and-coming
young center or point guard might look at the Celtics, after a trip to the
conference finals, and say... "I could be the missing piece"
 
Sorry so long. Just had a lot of thoughts. 
 
Mark