Eagle Tribune: Time For Larry Legend

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Lawrence Eagle Tribune

Sunday, January 5, 2003
Time for Larry Legend's return
John Tomase
Staff writer

Celtics ownership mercifully changed hands this week. The first order of
business for Wycliffe Grousbeck and Co. should be simple:

Clean out Chris Wallace's office and make room for Larry Bird.

The former Celtics legend is a man without a team after getting shut out
of the Charlotte expansion sweepstakes. The current Celtics GM is a nice
guy who has inexplicably received a free pass in the media and with the
fans despite mauling the 2001 draft and Vin Baker trade.

Bird's already a Hall of Fame player. He was on his way to being a Hall
of Fame coach. Does anyone doubt he'd make like Jerry West in the front
office?

If that means Wallace must go, so be it. Were he GM of the Red Sox, he
would have been fired long before he had time to hamstring the
organization with Baker's monstrosity of a contract. That baby's going
to be leaking carcinogens into the front lawn for the next four years.

The evidence against Wallace is damning. And that's even if he's let off
the hook for the entire Rick Pitino Era, when Wallace held the title of
GM, but Pitino called the shots.

That means we won't hold the GM accountable for the Travis Knight
signing, the Chauncey Billups-Ron Mercer 1997 draft, the failure to
select Tracy McGrady in the 1997 NBA draft, the subsequent trade of
Billups for Kenny Anderson, the botched Danny Fortson trade, the
ludicrous Walter McCarty, Vitaly Potapenko and Tony Battie contract
extensions, or the Jerome Moiso draft pick, to name a few. That's a lot
to ignore.

When you get right down to it, Wallace has had almost nothing to do with
the Celtics' semi-return to prominence. It takes two stars to win in the
watered down NBA, and Wallace deserves credit for neither of Boston's.

Antoine Walker is an M.L. Carr draft pick, and a lemur could have
selected Paul Pierce at No. 10 in 1998. Who else were the Celtics going
to pick? Bonzi Wells? Nazr Mohammed?

Wallace has done more harm than good since Pitino stepped down on Jan.
8, 2001. And Bird has merely turned around franchises as a player and
coach. Executive is next on his list.

It's doubtful Bird would have overseen the colossal failure that was
Boston's 2001 draft. The Celtics owned the 10th and 21st picks and also
had the option of taking Denver's first rounder, thanks to the 1999
trade that sent Ron Mercer to the Nuggets for Danny Fortson and Eric
Williams.

Denver's pick was lottery protected. The Celtics couldn't take it if it
was in the top five in 2001, top three in 2002, or No. 1 overall in
2003. They had to use it by 2004, when there were no restrictions.

The Celtics, inexplicably, took the pick in 2001, with the Nuggets
slated to pick 11th. The Nuggets are to the NBA Lottery what ... the
Nuggets are to the NBA Lottery. They're the standard for this kind of
incompetence. Their crapulence can't be overstated.

It seemed a safe bet the Nuggets wouldn't choose worse than 11th in the
next three years. But that didn't stop Wallace. He took the pick, then
convinced junior college player Kedrick Brown not to work out for other
teams so Boston could select him 11th.

Only problem is, the Celtics didn't foresee Arkansas forward Joe Johnson
slipping to the 10th pick. Instead of taking a badly needed big man like
Vladimir Radmanovich or Troy Murphy at 10, as they had originally
planned, they took Johnson.

Brown and Johnson play the same position, but neither plays it as well
as budding All-Star Richard Jefferson, whom the Celtics bypassed twice
in a row, allowing him to slip to the Nets.

So the draft was already a mess when the 21st pick arrived. The Celtics
passed on French point guard Tony Parker and assist machine Jamaal
Tinsley to take North Carolina guard Joe Forte.

Forte wore a Lakers jersey at a Celtics practice and a Mickey Mouse
shirt on the bench. He was the definition of useless, a mediocre
shooting guard in a point guard's body.

Parker, conversely, stepped in at age 19 to start at point guard for the
Spurs, one of the best teams in the West.

Wallace then had the audacity to label Forte, "Red's pick," in reference
to octogenarian Red Auerbach, instead of shouldering the blame himself.

Ugh. And for the record, the Nuggets currently own the worst record in
basketball. The Celtics could have been looking at the second pick in
the draft. Sigh.

That brings us to the oft-panned Vin Baker deal. Kenny Anderson's $9
million salary, an albatross for so many years, finally had value.

The Celtics could keep Anderson on the books for the final year of his
deal and use the slot to woo a free agent like Darius Miles this
off-season, or they could deal Anderson to a team hoping to open cap
space to make a run at Tim Duncan or Jason Kidd.

About the only way they could screw it up would be to bring in a
contract worse than Anderson's that still had three or four years left.
But how many of those guys were out there? Vin Baker, Anfernee Hardaway,
Damon Stoudamire. That was about it.

But the Celtics looked at Baker's four years and $56 million, realized
they would leave themselves zero flexibility during Pierce and Walker's
prime, and pulled the trigger anyway.

Baker has been a bust so far, a poor fit for Jim O'Brien's system and a
shell of the player who was an automatic 20-10 five years ago.

Wallace defends this deal by noting Shammond Williams came aboard as
well and has proven productive. That's great. But Williams becomes a
free agent after the season. And thanks to Baker, the better Williams
plays, the less likely Boston will be able to keep him.

Wallace's two best deals would be trading Knight to the Lakers for Tony
Battie in 1999, as well as netting Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk at the
trading deadline last year for Joe Johnson and filler.

But even this aren't exactly highlighting material for the resume.
Battie is what he is -- a maddeningly inconsistent big man who has
outperformed the maxed-out Baker.

While the other deal helped the Celtics reach the Eastern Conference
finals, it wouldn't have been necessary had the Celtics drafted someone
who could have cracked their rotation. Someone like Jefferson.

The jury's still out on Brown thanks to injuries, but with Rogers
departing via free agency, all the Celtics have to show for what could
have been the No. 1 pick in next year's draft is Delk, a backup point
guard.

ESPN's Bill Simmons, one of Wallace's most outspoken critics, thinks
he's the worst GM in the NBA. His moves don't do much to dispel that
notion.

Bird's stated goal is to run a team. The only thing keeping him out of
Boston in the past was the presence of owner Paul Gaston. That's no
longer an issue.

The Celtics' new owners say they're committed to Wallace, who received a
contract extension last year. Here's hoping they come to their senses.

Wallace had his chance. He failed. It's time to bring back a legend.


John Tomase is an Eagle-Tribune sportswriter. E-mail him at
jtomase@eagletribune.com