The Bottom Line

[Bob McChesney <rwmcches@xxxxxxxx>]

The Bottom Line for this deal is clear: if this deal puts the Cs in 
position to be legitimate contenders for the NBA title, it can be defended. 
(The Cs may have overpaid still, but that is quibbling.)

For this deal to make the Cs legitimate contenders, all or almost all of 
the following must happen:

1. Vin Baker has to pull his head out of his butt, bigtime. He is going to 
have to become a 6th man of the year finalist, if not winner. He is going 
to have to play like he did five years ago.

2. Kedrick Brown has to emerge as a quality NBA starter. Sorry, guys, I 
like Eric Williams' attitude as much as the next guy, but he is not a 
starting caliber NBA 4 on a championship team. Kedrick needs to become a 
defensive stopper and a guy who can finish the break and bury open Js. If 
he doesn't, Paul is going to have a much harder time when defenses stack 
against him as in the NJ series.

3. Delk and/or Williams have to have career years. Someone is going to have 
to play well at the point.

4. Walker's game has got to grow dramatically, to second team or third team 
all-pro levels. That means fewer bonehead shots, a higher shooting %, and 
more assists. A lot more. When Antoine gets 6 or more assists, the Cs win 
80 percent of their games. He becomes a genuine superstar. at 3-4 assists 
per game, with a sub 40 fg %, he is a mixed blessing.

5. Paul Pierce has to continue to improve. History is cruel but clear: to 
win an NBA title you need to have one of the three or four best players in 
the game on your roster. It has been that way in 21 of the last 23 years 
(Detroit in 89 and 90 the exception), and all but four or five years in the 
thirty years prior to 1980. Paul needs to make first team all-NBA. He is 
close, but he is not there yet.

Now the chances that all of this will happen, in my view, are well below 
50-50. Indeed much closer to zero. My problem is that we could run this 
type of speculation for a good 20 teams in the NBA and get them to the NBA 
finals as well. So the question then becomes, if the Cs hit on all 
cylinders, and every other team hits on all cylinders, who wins? I think 
the Cs general talent level is no better and probably worse than several 
teams in the East, and possibly half or more of the teams in the west. That 
is the cold hard truth and why this is such a dubious strategy.

For those content with a playoff appearance or two, and maybe an advance to 
the second or even third round, the chances are quite a bit better, 
especially due to the weak quality of the east at present. But that is not 
my standard, and it has never been the operating logic of the Cs or any 
other championship team in NBA history.

But this is the path Wallace has chosen. It leaves us no cap room for four 
years, and an environment where there is no patience to develop young 
players. It is, to be frank, a recipe for mediocrity and decline, unless 
most or all of the above five conditions are met.

Bob McChesney



Robert W. McChesney
Your Man in Urbana
Institute of Communications Research
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
www.robertmcchesney.com