RE: You're not going to believe this

["John Lyell" <jlyell@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just got back from Orlando and the papers there were ripping their
management on the Celtic brass like impotency in trades and draft selection.
It sounded like other than McGrady pretty much everyone is available. Any
interest in a move for an Armstrong or Mike Miller?



john





-----Original Message-----
From: owner-celtics@igtc.com [mailto:owner-celtics@igtc.com]On Behalf Of
Kestas
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2003 2:36 PM
To: celtics@igtc.com
Subject: Re: You're not going to believe this


At 03:23 PM 2/13/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Ok, so we don't want to spend the money to keep Mark Blount, now he
>is worth a guard and a draft pick. This is absolutely ridiculous. If
>they want to deal Shammond or heck pretty much anyone else other than
>Pierce in my opinion fine, but get something back for it.

Here's a transcript of the BDT's statement on the Blount/Shammond Williams
and #1 pick trade, read by GM Chris Wallace over the phone to a local radio
station from an undisclosed location where he's currently scouting:

We are ecstatic to be able to obtain a player of Mark Blount's stature. As
his dominating performance in the Shaw's Summer League a few years ago
showed, Mark is on the verge of entering his prime. His averages of 3.1 pts
and 2.7 rbs. earned him the nickname "The Shaq of the Shaw's League", or
simply "Shawshaq".  Mark would have been picked in the Top 5...err, make
that Top 3, ahead of even Bruno Sundov,  in the last year's draft had he
been eligible. We turned down some incredible offers for Mark last season
before we had to let him go to make room for Vin Baker.
[CW's extemporaneous comment: Just to give you an example, Seattle was
offering Vin Baker - a four-time All-Star! - for Mark, but the league nixed
the trade with some lame excuse about salaries not matching or somesuch. If
you ask me, I think they were just trying to protect Seatle from being
fleeced. Ha, we got 'em anyway, even if it cost us Joe Forte, who's going
to be a very good player in this league. Anyway, speaking of Vin Baker...]

This move will enable Vin to play his natural position - which is shooting
guard, as the two midrange jumpers that he made the Seattle game made
obvious. Vin's strong rebounding at center (4 rpg) will be more than
adequately replaced by Mark's 3.4 rpg, which, if you extrapolate his
performance over 48 minutes, is double-figures rebounding. This "Shawshaq
redemption" [CW giggles: that's pretty clever of me, don't you
think?]  also enables us to present some major matchup problems in the
backcourt while Paul Pierce is out. In addition to a 6-9 PF, 6-10 SF, and a
7-2 C, we will have a 6-11 SG launching threes. The benefits don't end
there. This trade will give Kedrick - of whom we still think very highly -
more time to develop his game [CW's extemporaneous comment: that is, learn
to make more than 1 out of every 13 three-point attempts, which should
happen some time before Walker and Pierce retire, if we don't trade him for
a protected 2nd round pick and a bad contract first. Oh, did I say that out
loud? Back to the statement.]  The fans of the championship-driven Boston
Celtics will discover very quickly what kind of player Mark Blount is.
Welcome back, Mark, we missed you! [you can hear them hugging in the
background].

Kestas