Re: The Boston Celtics Mailing List Digest V10 #145

[ADavis1031@xxxxxxx]

Newbie here. Long time lurker. 45 year Celts fan. Like many of you, I'm happy 
to see our boys prevail in the last round and play their best bb of the 
season. However, also like many of you, it's not hard to see that this team 
has limited upside. Clearly, the best this group can hope for is a bad 
whipping in the finals if we could ever made that far -- which I doubt. 
That's not enough. I don't want to be teased with hopeful but really hopeless 
playoff appearances for the next n years. However, what to do with the Vin 
situation, luxury tax considerations, etc. to find away around this 
situation, IMHO, will take some bold and aggressive action.  Here's my 
antidote for hope.

1. Obviously, Wallace must go. If you have 3 draft choices in a critical 
draft year and arguably don't get 1 right with plenty of good choices 
available and then compound the situation with the worst trade in Boston 
sports history (except the Babe), you can't stay around no matter what your 
other small finds, i.e., Bremer. We need someone to tackle this whole 
situation with a fresh eye and fresh approach, and has clout with the owner. 
In short, we need someone like Larry Bird to take over the basketball 
operation. If he wants Obie, that's fine with me. If he doesn't so be it. But 
what we don't need is keep Wallace and extend Obie's contract, or fire 
Wallace and not let the new guy, whoever he is, not hire his own coach. 
Either is a recipe for disaster.

2. This team needs either a superstar big or a dynamic distributing point 
guard to get to the next level. Realistically, we have no chance of getting 
both. In my view the only chance of making this happen is thru the draft. The 
chances of this happening with a 16th or 20th draft choice is small. I think 
Kedrick could be a good, maybe even a fine player someday, but he plays the 
wrong position, And if we keep Walter and continue to give Eric Williams 
minutes, he has no more chance of developing next year than this year, no 
matter his potential. Therefore, let's package Kedrick, 16 and 20 and see 
what we can get. I'm hoping its around 8-10 where there's some hope of 
getting a real player in a position of need.

3. The major fallout from the Vin Baker fiasco is that filling the mid-level 
exception now has bitter luxury tax implications. However, Wyc et al need to 
understand that the Celts are going nowhere unless we can fill the mid-level 
exception next year. If he's willing to do that, he can bring all the 
relatives he wants into the locker room.