Re: The Trade that won't go away

["James A. Hill" <jahill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Right after the trade happened the Celtics front office called a number of
season ticket holders for feedback.  I never saw any results posted about
the opinions of those polled.

Anyone else hear anything about those results?

<Jim

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Bob gave a strong opinion:

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