Don't judge rookies too soon and other stuff

["Stathis Avgoustiniatos" <stathisa@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I remember a couple of years ago when people in this list were salivating at
2 "awesome" rookies that had escaped the Celtics' attention on draft day:
Tinsley (Ind) and Haywood (Was).    Both of them have not shown much
improvement since then (and in the case of Tinsley, he has fallen out of
favor with the Pacers).  In other cases teams give their rookies more time
to adjust, even when they deserve to play more from year one.  Remember how
much Stojakovic was playing during his first year, subbing for Williamson?
It seems that many Celtics fans expect that every relatively high pick (if a
#16 can be considered such) delivers from day 1.  We gave up too early on
Billups (because he wasn't a "PG") and Joe Johnson, and some people are
ready to give up on Kedrick Brown and Banks (!) too.  Brown is currently the
biggest hope for improvement among the active Celtics players.  Banks has
shown some good signs, he has great speed, give him some time to adjust to
the NBA game before you design trades bringing another Brevin Knight to save
the Cs.

Regardless of making the POs or not, or making it to the East or even the
NBA Finals, I do not think that anybody thinks that this Celtics team is
CURRENTLY Championship material.  Does it really matter whether some shots
will drop and some balls will bounce our way so that we make it a round
further into the POs than the year before, when we can not really win the
title?  Maybe our best chance was 2 years ago when the Lakers came out of
the West, and had we made it into the NBA finals we could hope that Shaq or
Kobe broke a leg (literally) in the first game of the finals.  That's how we
want to win?  What I wish is that the Celtics won't continue to be a
perennially mediocre team, good enough to make it into the POs but not good
enough to win a title.  Many teams fall in this trap, and that's the kind of
team we were with Antoine.  And, unfortunatly, unless Brown gains the
confidence that Pierce has and Perkins or some other future draft pick
proves to be a big steal, I don't see how this Celtics team can become a
Championship team without going through the Lottery.  And the faster this
happens, the better, because Pierce is fast approaching the -theoretically-
most productive years of his career and he needs to get support from another
superstar before he starts going downhill.

The Nets, even without Martin, outhustled the Cs on the boards last night,
plain and simple.  And they were fortunate to have Slay, on his first game
this year, hit some crucial shots (9 points in 13 min) when they were
sinking to keep them afloat.

Pierce is not a PG, and when he tries (or has) to assume this role as well
with the entire opponent defense focused on him, more times than not the
outcome won't be good.