Re: ". . . you have to admit Wallace has stones" - RealGM

[Alexander Wang <awang@xxxxxxx>]

I hate reading these pseudo-professional articles who have important
factual details completely wrong:

> We waited
> that long to get Kenny off the books just in time to land a big time free
> agent right? Well we got one, according to the Celtics brass anyway. They
> essentially added a third maximum contract to the team that could have been
> offered next summer to players such as: Andre Miller, Baron Davis, Jermaine
> O'Neal, Jason Kidd and perhaps Tim Duncan. However, that's assuming they
> eventually traded either Vitaly Potapenko, Eric Williams or Tony Battie
> sometime this season. With this trade, it basically means that the Celtics
> front office felt that they had no real shot at getting any of the
> aforementioned players. Either that, or they didn't want to try that hard.
Just because we added Baker (who has a max contract) through trading
does NOT mean we could have added a max contract player next year
through free agency. And a sign-and-trade would have required both the
agreement of the player in question AND the other team - unlikely unless
we gave up major talent. In any case we can still acquire guys through
sign-and-trade next offseason - Baker doesn't preclude that.

What we do lose out on is the ability to add players using the middle class
exemption (unless Gaston sells the team to someone willing to cross the
luxury tax threshold). If we had kept Anderson and Vitaly and allowed their
contracts to expire, we probably could have added two or three of those
types of players instead of Baker. The types of players available tend to
be solid but not star-quality, but adding two or three of them could really
solidify the rotation.

As it is, it is a really big gamble. I guess what you have to decide is
whether the previous rotation with the addition of draft picks and
middle-class players was ever going to be championship contending
material, with no inside presence - and whether the current rotation with
Baker has a better possibility of contending. I really don't have enough
information - all we have are the observations of disgruntled Sonics fans.
The parallel, maybe, is the firm conviction of many on this list that Antoine
would never improve. I have a feeling we're going to know the answer
within the first season though... if Baker bombs, the crowds are going to
get on him, and from reports on his personality he'll just go into a
downhill spiral. I don't think this is the guy who can "learn from the boos"
like certain Boston fans evidently thought Antoine could (I never believed
in the idea myself).

Alex