The Trade that won't go away

[Bob McChesney <rwmcches@xxxxxxxx>]

I think the past four months has provided a clear example of why the press 
coverage of the Celtics in Boston media is so horrendous. For months we 
have had to read story after story praising Chris Wallace for his brilliant 
trade to land Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk. That trade, the consensus went, 
was the key that vaulted the Cs deep into the playoffs. Happy Days Are Here 
Again!

The problem is, true or not, that trade took the Cs further away from ever 
being on the position to win a title again. That's the truth. That's the 
bottom line. Yet that seems to have eluded these management shills.

No one wants to talk about how terrible this trade was, but, like the 
Potapenko deal and the Anderson deal, it will gradually become commonly 
accepted.

In effect, the Cs traded Joe Johnson, Casey Jacobsen, and Erick Strickland 
for Tony Delk and Rodney Rogers. I include Strickland, because by adding 
Delk, Strickland becomes redundant and will probably now leave. If he stays 
we will be hard pressed to find him playing time unless we bench Delk. 
Since Delk is no better than Strickland -- in fact, he was a step down much 
of the time -- the deal becomes Johnson and Jacobsen for Rogers.

If we lose Rogers, it means we gave away Johnson and Jacobsen for nothing. 
Nothing. Unbelievable. But even if we keep Rogers, the deal smells like 
last month's dirty underpants. The Cs still need an infusion of talent to 
contend for a title, and we gave away two very young prospects for a 
journeyman who has two or three years left. He is such a hot commodity that 
the Cs think they can bag him for a ridiculously low salary, like a million 
bucks a year, becaasue no other team team is willing to pay him more. Earth 
to Celtics: you could have kept Johnson and the no. 1 pick and still 
afforded Rogers in this off-season. Isn't that a pisser!

Why we gave up on Joe Johnson was never made clear. He has been a legit 
prospect for the Suns.  If JJ had to go, we should have gotten much more.

Even worse was trading the draft pick. Remember the propaganda emanating 
from the Cs and gleefully spoonfed to us by the Boston press: this was a 
crappy draft. We don't even want to use the no. 1 pick because then we have 
to pay a guaranteed salary. The implication was that the Cs were lucky 
enough to find someone dumb enough to take the pick off our hands.

Well, what a load of f**king crap that is! This is now considered a very 
deep draft. News flash to Chris Wallace, Leo Papile and the crack Celtics 
scouting staff: we are in the midst of an incredible foreign invasion. The 
size of the legit prospect pool is nearly doubling with the infusion of 
foreign talent. (It will be even better next year -- so, pretty please, 
don't trade any more draft choices.) There are very serious studs available 
to teams that scout well and get lucky -- even at the end of the first 
round. Gasols and Kirilenkos seemingly abound! That means that good US 
prospects who might have been picked 10-15 a decade ago, are dropping lower.

The Cs cannot sign free agents due to cap considerations and ThanksDad's 
pronouncements. That leaves the draft as the ONLY place we can upgrade our 
talent level, Wallace torched two lottery picks so we might do somewhat 
better in the 2002 playoffs, but leaving the team much less capable of 
competing down the road.

By the way, Red understands this. In a very gentle way he stated was did 
not like the idea of trading away no. 1 picks in an interview after the deal.

Don't worry, flamers, I won't write about this any more. We can all return 
to our fantasies that the Cs are on the fast track to another flag with 
Tony Delk and Rodney Rogers leading the way! But unless Walker and Kedrick 
Brown elevate their games to much higher levels, and Paul Pierce continues 
to improve, the situation is very grim.  Because those three guts are going 
to have to carry this team on their own. Look around the league. Teams in 
the West are swimming in talent. The teams below the Cs in the east are 
collecting talent. Our talent, after Walker and Pierce and (maybe) Brown is 
pathetic.

Bob McChesney