Pollard

[mark at 10thumbs.org]

I've always like Pollard --- esp. his game in SAC --- having played there
with that fantastic passing/veteran team of Webber/Peja/Miller/Bibby I
think he'll understand and excel in his role as a banger, a hustler on the
break and a glue guy.

I read recently where he was excited to move on from CLE --- that he
wanted to get to a more uptempo offense. I continue to believe that with
Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, we'll have a more uptempo offense.  It won't
be shoot in 7 seconds like Phoenix, but both those guys --- as well as
Pollard, House and to some degree Scal --- understand playing quickly,
using early/opportunistic offense like the old Celtics teams of the 80s
did.

This is a decent signing and, if i'm not mistaken, preserves the $3.8M of
the MLE we have to use on a guy like PJ Brown.  I still would like to add
a "true backup PG" like Keith McLeod (i think i was the only guy to vote
for him on the Boston.com multimedia slide show) or Randy Livingston.

my guess is that Ainge is adding these smaller signings to turn up the
pressure on the guys he really wants.

(the other) mark