Wallace Defends Pick; C's International Players

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Double D from Greece will be attending the C's summer league along
with 3 other international players:

Jaka Lakovic, who looks like David Letterman and is 6 foot, 24 year old
Slovenian PG/SG.
Yup, O'Brien's favorite, a combo guard,.

Milan Gurovic is a 26 year-old 6-9 SF from Greece via Yugoslavia playing
for Pal. Trieste in
Italy.  A good scorer and a big small forward.

Martin Muursepp is a 6-9, 28 year-old Estonian, who already did a tour
of
near-anonymous duty in the NBA. For AEK Athens, Muursepp
averaged 8.8 points and 4.9 rebounds earning the nickname: the Estonian
Tony Battie.



GM defends option call

Notebook/by Steve Bulpett and Mark Cofman
Thursday, June 27, 2002



Celtics general manager Chris Wallace admitted last night he is not
clairvoyant. He accepts whatever heat comes his way for exercising the
option on Denver's first-round pick last season instead of waiting until
this year.


Wallace explained the reason for taking the No. 11 choice in 2001
(Kedrick Brown) and not rolling the dice on this year (the Nuggets
picked No. 5 last night) or next. He used the same reasoning he did last
year before the draft.

``We were looking at a team that had 35 and 40 wins in the previous two
years,'' Wallace said. ``They were moving up. And they had three very
capable scorers in (Antonio) McDyess, (Raef) LaFrentz and (Nick) Van
Exel. And they were a hell of a home team - better than us at that point
(29-12 to 20-21 in 2000-01). So the odds of them just imploding we
didn't think were great. They'd have to have an injury, and that's what
happened with McDyess.

``So not knowing he was going to be hurt, we figured they'd probably be
at the back end of the lottery again and maybe better. And even if we
were able to get the same player this year, he'd be a year further away
from his developmental clock kicking in.''

Wallace also admitted to there being a bit of pressure on the club to
make a move into the playoffs.

``We had just finished ninth basically in the Eastern Conference, and
our regime did not have, as I call it, untimed testing,'' he said. ``So
it was a very difficult decision, but we needed to get moving and
acquire as much talent as we could.

``But if we knew in advance that McDyess was going to go down and that
they were going to trade LaFrentz and Van Exel at the deadline, then
sure we would have waited. But we just didn't know that.''

Seniors outclassed

The NBA draft is clearly a young man's game. Just four college seniors
were taken in the first round last June - Shane Battier (sixth,
Memphis), Brendan Haywood (20th, Cleveland), Jeryl Sasser (22nd,
Orlando) and Jamaal Tinsley (27th, Memphis). Another run on youngsters
and foreigners occurred last night.

While Duke and Stanford, as expected, had two players each drafted in
the first round last night (Blue Devils Jay Williams and Mike Dunleavy
went 2-3 and Curtis Borchardt and Casey Jacobsen of the Cardinal went 18
and 22), St. Edward High School in Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of
Cleveland, had a pair of former teammates - Sam Clancy of USC and Steve
Logan of Cincinnati - selected in Round 2.

Borchardt, by the way, isn't the first pro from his family. But is the
first pro basketball player. Borchardt's dad, Jon, played nine seasons
in the NFL as an offensive lineman with Buffalo and Seattle.

Slippin' and slidin'

There are many basketball followers who believe Caron Butler is the
draft choice most prepared to play immediately at the NBA level. But the
UConn star was passed over by nine teams before Miami selected him with
the 10th pick. Consider Butler this year's biggest slider.

Paul Pierce knows the feeling, perhaps better than any other
star-quality player in the league. Four years ago, the Celtics star was
one of the draft's most polished all-around talents. An All-America at
Kansas, he was considered a lock to be taken within the first five
picks. Yet Pierce saw nine players selected before the Celtics finally
gave him the nod.

``It's an agonizing feeling,'' said Pierce, asked recently to recall his
draft-night experiences slipping down the ladder. ``You know better than
anyone you're sliding because you're hearing those names called out one
by one, loud and clear, and you're still out there looking for somebody
to rescue you.

``I feel for the guys who go through it every year, because I've been
there and it's definitely nerve-wracking.''

For Pierce, there's a silver lining to his memories of an anxiety-filled
1998 draft night. ``I wasn't going to let it get me down, or alter my
confidence in my abilities to play at this level,'' he said. ``I looked
at it as nine other teams drafting on (positional) need, and tried not
to take it personally. But I admit at times I did use it as an
incentive.''

Pierce could be heard on the court often during his rookie year spouting
off names of players picked before him.

Four on floor


Although the Celtics have yet to announce their roster for next month's
Shaw's Summer League, Wallace said the team would include four players
currently overseas - Demos Dekutis (AEK Athens, Greece), Jaka Lakovic
(Slovenia), Milan Gorovic (Spain) and Martin Muursepp (Russia). . . .

Since 1957, when the NBA began listing draft picks chronologically, the
50th pick has produced few recognizable names. Among those who made
their marks were Steve Kerr (1988) Geoff Huston (1979) and Larry Kenon
(1973). Locally, the 50th pick produced Celtics draft choice and
ex-Merrimack star Dana Skinner (1979), UConn's Corny Thompson (1982) and
Tony Hansen (1977).