Chad Ford Yells At The Celtics Owners

[wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Wait until he finds out they're planning to signing a mid-level free agent....

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Do the Mavs really need a center?
By Chad Ford
NBA Insider
Send an Email to Chad Ford 
Tuesday, October 21


The shock of the Antoine Walker-for-Raef LaFrentz swap wore off in the shower this morning. 

Philosophy and wisdom often come in those quiet early morning hours spent in the bathroom, and you have to wonder whether that's where this deal was hatched for Mark Cuban and Don Nelson. 

Cuban and Nelson have been shucking conventional basketball wisdom from years. You don't do creative thinking in a board room. You do it in the bathroom. 

So it took me several hours to get there and figure out what's going on in Dallas.

The scuttlebutt on Monday was that the Mavs ignored an obvious need for a blue collar, tough rebounding center (like say Kurt Thomas) and traded for yet another free-shooting forward who thinks defense should be left to Donald Rumsfeld. 

Who was going to guard Shaq? Or Tim Duncan? Or Yao Ming? 

The answer? No one. Certainly not LaFrentz. 

Shaq will drop 40 a night on the Mavs every time he plays them. Ditto for Duncan. Yao? Maybe 25. 

The Mavs weren't going to get any of those guys for LaFrentz, or even Dirk Nowitzki . . . so you move on. Create a different game plan. Figure out how to structure the pace of the game to mask an obvious weakness. 

But what about the rest of the league? Can Dirk guard Rasho Nesterovic? Or Dale Davis? Is Marcus Camby really going to light up the Mavs? What about Jake Tsakalidis? Is Nellie losing any sleep over Tom Gugliotta or Jake Voskuhl? What about Melvin Ely or Chris Kaman? You think Erick Dampier will lead the Warriors to victory over the Mavs? Greg Ostertag? Stop me when I get to someone else in the West who you think strikes fear in the heart of the Mavs? The closest guy is Michael Olowokandi. Physically he's a concern. Mentally, no one's all that worried. 

So, why this obsession with having a "true" center? By my count there are three in the league who everyone should be worried about and one of them, Duncan, spends most of his time at the four. 

Sure there are some other decent bigs around the league. Ben Wallace is a menace, though he's technically not a center. If Alonzo Mourning was healthy he'd belong with Shaq and Duncan. If Dikembe Mutombo were 10 years younger you could put him there. Ditto for Vlade Divac. Eddy Curry might get there in another year or two. Jamaal Magloire may make it some day too. There are another handful of players who are decent power forwards make a living at the position. 

Who cares? Cuban and Nelson spent a lot of time and effort wooing Mourning this summer -- hoping that the aging big man with a kidney disorder who hadn't played in a year was the answer to all of their problems. 

That's conventional basketball "wisdom." Spend all of your money and cap room on a risky, over-the-hill, broken down 7-footer because you have to have a big man to win. 

Instead of weeping and wailing for the entire season (Cuban's done his fair share the last few months) the Mavs moved on. They will be, without question, the most lethal offensive team in the NBA. The will put constant pressure on all five defenders. They'll field the best perimeter shooting team in the NBA. They'll have size, speed and even some depth now that Antawn Jamison has agreed to come off the bench. They should be the most entertaining team in the NBA to watch. 

Chemistry may not come. The Mavs may never get tough enough. The bold experiment may blow up in their face. But credit Cuban and Nelson for trying something different. For thinking outside the block. For acting on a bathroom revelation. 

Here's one guy who's hoping that the Mavs, and the NBA, are better for it. 

Around the League 

Of course the Mavs aren't the only teams that have decided to forego using a center this season. Both the Suns and Pacers traded away their best big man this summer and will use a number of hybrid lineups instead. 

The Heat will go with Brian Grant in the middle. The Magic are counting on Juwan Howard and Drew Gooden to play center. The Raptors are still using Antonio Davis, a power forward, to play in the middle. The Nuggets will rely on Nene and Marcus Camby. Neither is a "true center." The Clippers will go with Predrag Drobnjak. The Blazers are using Dale Davis and little else. 

Meanwhile, a number of other teams are paying a heavy price for lusting after giants. 

The Celtics will owe LaFrentz around $63 million for the next six years. When you tack on the $44 million they still owe Vin Baker and the $14 million that's due Tony Battie you wonder why Danny Ainge hasn't learned his lesson. 

The Nets will be paying off Mutombo's $27 million buyout for the next two. The Sixers owe $24 million to a guy, Todd MacCulloch, who may never play again. The Hawks are paying Theo Ratliff and Nazr Mohammed $37 million over the next three years. Erick Dampier and Kelvin Cato are both due $24 million over the next three. The Grizzlies are paying Lorenzen Wright $21 million not to play center the next three seasons. The Kings have sunk $19 million into the combined salaries of Divac and Brad Miller this year. And they'll owe Miller $60 million for the next six years after that. The Spurs sunk $42 million over the next six into Rasho Nesterovic. The Raptors still owe the 34-year-old Antonio Davis $37 million. 

And my personal favorite -- the Sonics will sink $46.9 million over the next four years into the combo of Jerome James, Calvin Booth and Vitaly Potapenko. 

Speaking of money, don't believe the ridiculous savings Peter Vecsey claimed the Celtics got in his New York Post column today. According to Vecsey, the Celtics saved $13.4 million next year by making this trade. He even goes a step further and says that they actually saved $26.8 million (double that amount) because of luxury-tax savings. Here's his logic: "How? Mills' pay ($6.6M) comes off the Celtics' cap next season, they hoard an additional $1.3M on the difference between Delk's deal and Welsch's and, because LaFrentz earns $9.087M in '04-'05 and Walker pockets $14.625M, an extra $5.5M can be saved. In dollars and sense, that adds up to an alluring $13.4M. Bearing in mind, the Celtics' payroll next season would've been almost $59M, well above the luxury tax, the trade saved them double the above amount." 

Of course, you can't do NBA math that way. The Celtics actually saved around $5 million next season in salary and about $1 million in luxury-tax penalties (assuming that the league's luxury-tax threshold stays at $57 million as projected). 

Next season, the Celtics had $58 million worth of guaranteed salaries before the trade assuming they picked up Kedrick Brown's fourth year option. Subtract Walker's $14.625 million and Delk's $2.7 million deal from the books. That takes the Celtics down to $41.5 million in payroll. Now add in the salaries of LaFrentz ($9.3 million), Welsch ($1.4 million) and low first-round pick (let's just say a $1 million). That takes the Celtics to $53.2 million in payroll. 

However, I'm still not sure how you can financially justify this trade for the Celtics. First, there were strong indications that Walker may have opted out of his contract after this season and hit the free-agent market. That would've saved the Celtics $14 million next season. 

Second, while the Celtics payroll number does go down next summer, it goes way up for the next five summers after that. Boston was looking at a $40.8 million payroll for the summer of 2005. With LaFrentz in the fold, that number is now $51 million. 

With this deal, the Celtics won't see significant cap room until the summer of 2006. Even then, their $30.5 million cap figure assumes that the team doesn't re-sign Brown, doesn't extend Marcus Banks or Kendrick Perkins and signs no free agents with their mid-level exceptions during the next two summers. If they do any of that, they won't see real cap relief until the summer of 2008. Of course, that's the year Paul Pierce comes off the books. 

In other words, while the owners will save a little cash here and there, the Celtics didn't free up enough space to pursue a top-flight free agent for a long, long time.