Sports Guy on the Celtics

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nothing new here, but he says what so many of us have been saying for
months.

BOSTON (10-1)
Let's say you're running the day-to-day operations for a business. You're
the man. Somebody else is signing the checks, but you're making the calls.
It's your dream job. And you have a pretty good business already in place,
but you have two crucial deals in a 12-month span. None of the other deals
matter. You just can't screw up these two deals. If you screw them up, it
will take five or six years for your company to recover. Repeat: You can't
screw these deals up.
So what happens if you screw them both up? I mean, really screw them up.
We're talking, "Driving the Titanic into an iceberg"-level screwing up. Do
you keep your job?
In the case of Celtics GM Chris Wallace ... yes. Wallace screwed up the 2001
Draft (airballing three picks in the top 21, with Richard Jefferson, Troy
Murphy, Tony Parker and Gilbert Arenas all on the board when he was picking,
and we won't even mention how he exercised an option to take Denver's pick
that year when he could have kept rolling it over and hoped it became a
Lottery pick some day). Then he botched the team's only chance at cap
flexibility this summer, somehow talking himself into acquiring Vin Baker.
Willingly. Without someone holding a gun to his head. When his coach was
begging him -- repeat: begging him -- not to make the trade (and you wonder
why they don't talk anymore).
Hey, you remember me venting about this trade when it happened. When you
love the Celtics, you write a sports column and your team inexplicably
mortgages its future for a highly-paid, deeply troubled, HBHC (has-been head
case) with four years and $56 million remaining on his contract ... well,
that's usually worth a column. Or six. And as the Baker Saga unfolded, and
as the problems mounted and the whispers grew, and when things finally
crested with Baker's bizarre "heart palpitations" and subsequent suspension
without pay, this baby grew from "Horrendous Trade" to "All Things
Considered, The Worst Trade in Boston Sports History" ... well, you can only
imagine my state of mind. If I had been in Boston all season, I would have
pulled a William Ligue Jr. by now. 
So the Celtics have two of the top 20 players in the league, Antoine Walker
and Paul Pierce, and they don't have a single player on the roster who could
even be considered "above-average" for their position. Remember, they've had
Walker and Pierce together now for five years. No help for them. Nobody.
They're playing 45 minutes a game, losing months off their career at a time.
Their team never gets any fast-break points because there isn't a true point
guard on the entire roster -- remember, they passed on Parker in '01 -- they
have to give 110 percent on defense at all times because they don't have any
other choice, they live and die by three-pointers, and they're about as fun
to watch as a sex scene with Dennis Franz. 
This never should have happened. Wallace was running a business, he messed
up two huge deals, and his company hasn't been the same since. What a shame.
By the time the Celts have enough cap flexibility to spruce up their roster
again, the "Walker & Pierce in their prime" window will be closed shut. Not
good times. Really, really bad times.
So I ask you again ... how does Chris Wallace still have a job? You tell me.