Re: '01 draft revisited and O'Brien's culpability

[CeltsSteve@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 6/1/03 2:11:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
Eggcentric@AOL.com writes:

> <No, the #1 reason that two years ago the C's didn't draft a PG wasn't 
> because of a "vision" on the part of O'Brien;  it was because of the hard, cold, 
> reality that the C's already had a veteran PG under contract that was still 
> owed $15M over the next two years and who had little trade value coming off an 
> injury (broken jaw) which limited his PT and was going to get the bulk of PT 
> if the C's had any hope of breaking the drought of playoff appearances.. - 
> CeltsSteve
> 
> Steve, it simply is not true that because we had Kenny, we didn't draft a 
> PG.  In fact, it is utter nonsense, especially since we drafted Forte with the i
> ntention of converting him to PG.


There was no doubt the C's hoped that Forte could be groomed to play some 
minutes at the PG position (ala Tony Delk) but even the May article you cite 
states:

"The Celtics were looking for a point guard to groom for the departure of 
Kenny Anderson."

OK. So they wanted to groom Forte to learn the position while they still had 
Kenny.  The thought process was no doubt to use the next 1-2 years to allow 
him to learn on the job in limited minutes behind an established veteran, 
starting, pure PG. Nowhere does that state that Forte was drafted with the intent of 
making him a full time PG and the C's long term starting PG to succeed 
Anderson, does it? Do teams typically carry only one PG, Egg?


> And by the way, who do you think Red is referring to when he states ''It 
> was a collective pick?''  


My definition of 'collective pick' would be that of input from multiple 
individuals. And at the end of the day, someone has to make the final decision 
based upon that input. That "someone" wasn't Jim O'Brien, who was the interim head 
coach and on the job all of 6 months. He didn't have the clout to make the 
final call.                
    
CeltsSteve