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Re: Boston Sports Media Watch

Josh and all,
I am still on board with the Danny Ainge hiring and enthusiastic about the long term future of the team. I knew from the moment Danny arrived that Walker would be gone from the C's and that he would not be the only one. In fact, even though I liked Walker, I loved Danny because I knew he would do what was necessary. In viewing this trade and hows its all come about I do have a couple questions and concerns and would appreciate any of your best guesses to the answers:

1) If this is such a dramatic departure from the Wallace Pitino era, why did we just trade away a bad contract that has 2 years left for a different bad contract that has 5+ years left? Its my understanding of today's NBA that you need to get flexible when rebuilding so that you can either pull off a big trade or sign a marquee free agent. My biggest gripe with the Wallace and Pitino crowd was that they just did not seem to get this. When Danny came in, I thought we would do the right thing (if that is the right thing) and we have made a trade that I think 80% of the people on here would have been criticizing if Wallace or the Ricktator had pulled it off.

2) It seems we are now in possession of one guy we wont trade (Pierce) two guys we cant trade (Baker and LaFrenz) a bunch of guys who make too much but that we can probably deal but not for anything super great (Williams Battie) and other guys there wouldnt be much of a market for. Further, with the rising costs of the 2 max guys and the bumps in Raef's contract, it seems we will lose any short term financial flexibility we gain for Walker after next year. Havent we just rewrapped the cords around us for a few more years?

3) Are we rebuilding or trying to contend. My initial euphoria for Ainge when he came in was based upon the idea that he would blow things up and focus on the long rather than the short term. Trading Walker was a good long and perhaps short term move. Taking LaFrenz as part of it is not - or at least I worry so. To listen to Ainge, it seems he is hoping to be better this year (saying he would be extremely disappointed if this team won less than 44 this year) and make the playoffs. This appears to indicate a desire to have it both ways and I am not sure you can do this and succeed in todays NBA.

Josh Ozersky wrote:

this really is the greatest site. I use it every day now.

BTW, do you guys feel as excited as I do?  I can't wait
for Danny's next move.  I loved this tidbit from Mike Fine:

"Two days ago, when O'Brien stated that he might not have set lineups, Walker
begged to differ, saying the team would, indeed, keep a set lineup. Two weeks
ago, after O'Brien said that roles would change in light of the fact that the
team would be running more this year, Walker said that he'd continue doing the
same things he'd always done. "

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/

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