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Re: OK, here's what might be happening

On Feb 19, 2004, at 10:03 AM, Berry, Mark S wrote:

Both these trades work on RealGM.



First, the Detroit/Atlanta trade:



Boston would send out Mihm to Atlanta and Jumaine Jones to Detroit, and
take back Chucky Atkins and a first-round pick.  Atkins has two more
years on his deal after this. I don't consider this a great deal, but
it's not terrible. First-rounders are valuable, and Ainge still would
have the Mills contract. Which leads us to...



Mills and McCarty to Houston for Mo Taylor and Bostjan Nachbar. This
gives Houston the outside shooting power forward they want and some
salary flexibility. It gives the Celtics Taylor, who immediately becomes
the starting power forward, and Nachbar, a promising young player.



So you'd be turning a lot of players Mills, Mihm, Jones, that don't
figure into the future, into Taylor, Atkins, Nachbar and a
first-rounder. I think that's a pretty good job by Ainge. Suddenly the
team goes into the summer with three first-rounders, Lafrentz coming
back, the mid-level exception to use, and Mo Taylor adding to the
frontcourt. I like that. And I think Nachbar could be a huge addition.
He's a small forward with size and perimeter skills, something the Celts
haven't had in a long time.

I was going to say what about McCarty -- but then i remembered he is a Power Forward (ha ha).

Nice work Mark. On first glance, I like this better than the Atkins for a pick straight up. I'm not a big Mo Taylor fan -- thought he looked soft the few times i saw him play (he had real nice numbers on a bad Clippers team a few years bakc playing for a contract).

However looking at the longer term salary implications of this deal i'm a bit less enthusiastic and in fact would be against it:

-- assuming for a moment we DO lose Baker's salary from the cap, adding Taylor's $27mil/3yr contract puts us right at the luxury tax level, so it would (with adding 2-3 #1 picks) rule out adding a Mid Level Exception FA this year or next (barring future trades). If Taylor's contract weren't so long I wouldn't mind, but its got 3 years after this one. So Taylor is our starting PF for a few years. Taylor is IMO not as a big an improvement over Mihm + Poss. MLE FA to warrant the huge jump in salary. IMO i'd rather add Howard for less money -- and i didn't want to do that. Even when you factor in Nachbar, Taylor's deal makes resigning him and/or Weslch nearly impossible down the road.

-- Our front line of Taylor/LaFrentz are on the hook for big money, long term, which means less wiggle room if neither works out. If we didn't have LaFrentz i'd be less worried, but Taylor is a big contract to take on when we don't know if LaFrentz is going to come back and how well.

-- Vin Baker: there is still no guarantee that we lose his salary. Billy Hunter (Players Assoc. head guy) said something like "we're going after the Celtics with all we've got" yesterday. The Players Assoc. have a lot to lose if the C's win -- it's a big gamble. ON the other hand i can't imagine Ainge, et al, would be moving forward if they didn't think they had a tight case (i.e. the side agreement Baker signed last year -- which we really don't know the specifics). But if we lose AND add Taylor -- we're sunk salary cap wise for 2 years. SUNK. its too big a risk i think.

(the other) mark