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Subj: Just got off the phone 
Date: 2/24/02 11:25:43 AM Pacific Standard Time 
From: jozersky1@nyc.rr.com <mailto:jozersky1@nyc.rr.com>  
To: celtics@igtc.com <mailto:celtics@igtc.com>  
Sent from the Internet (Details) 



with Chris Wallace.  He was waiting to hear from me!

I'm going to put most of it into the column, but here's the salient
facts:

-- don't bet on signing Omar Cook right away.  The team may bring him in for
a look, but they're mostly concerned with bringing Delk and Rogers onboard.
They don't seem overly worried about losing a chance of picking him up, for
whatever reason.  Maybe because he's such an asshole.  I don't know.

-- Wallace had to get out of the luxury tax, and Joe was "the price of doing
business."  Couldn't give away the pick, couldn't use it, and nobody would
take Randy Brown off our hands -- or Vitaly, contrary to reports.

-- Joe's departure was made easier for Wallace, as he puts it, by the team's
belief in Kedrick Brown as a special player who has come an enormous way in
just a few short years.  Johnson may or may not "max out" in terms of his
talent; Wallace says most guys don't, and if Joe doesn't, he won't be THAT
much better than Tony Delk.

-- We might re-sign Rogers.  Wallace doesn't believe Rogers will get offered
a lot of big money by teams as limited by the cap / luxury tax as we are.
He points out that only Dallas, Portland and maybe New York are unencumbered
by it. Even the Lakers traded away Eddie Jones, Elden Campbell, Glen Rice,
and other good players because they could only afford two max-salary stars
and a bunch of role-players. (They just happened to have the two best
players in the league.)

-- the 9 or 10 million we will clear when Kenny goes off the books still
won't bring us under the cap.  We are capped out for the foreseeable future.
"Paul and Antoine were our free agents" was how Wallace put it.  The draft
is key, however, and Wallace stresses how in 2003 we "will be back in the
multiple pick business" with Philly's choice.

-- Wallace believes that though this year is being touted as the point guard
year, he thinks the following year may be even better, and has his eye on a
couple of guys he feels might be available where we're picking (esp. if we
trade up).  He points out, too, that none of the team who select a point
guard this year will be likely to compete with the Celtics for a point the
following year.

--  Rookies won't get much run this year.  Making the playoffs is too
important, and they don't know the game the way veterans do.  Kedrick, I
gather, may be unleashed for his defensive athleticism, which Wallace said
was much better than Johnson's; but don't expect to see him brought online
in the offense the way Delk and Rogers will be.

More to come in interview, though that's the substance.  I still think
giving up Johnson was a long-term disaster, but it sounds more like it was a
financial necessity. Personally, if I owned the Celtics, I would rather have
gone into a short-term cash hole rather than lose a long-term asset.  But
then I know something about basketball.  Maybe we blame ownership on this
one and do our best to forget it.

Josh

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CeltsSteve 





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