RE: Matt Geiger

["Noah P. Evans" <ishbak@conknet.com>]

> I may get alot of heat for this post, but it has to be posted. I don't
> know what everybody is raving about Geiger. He isnt that good.

No but he isn't bad either. He's merely mediocre, and even mediocre centers
are hard to come by.

>First of
> all, the guy wants 4-6 million a year and we cant really afford that.

We should have that much cap room. If you look at similarly priced
centers(i.e. McCillvane), he's a bargain.

> For a guy that wants that much money with litle talent should not be
> paid that money.

How does he have little talent? Elaborate. Geiger is a good shooter out to
22 feet, rebounds well(9-10 a game), and can finish off feeds. That's more
than most NBA centers can attest to.

> geiger is a guy that is a mediocre rebounder at best,

How do you support this conclusion? Geiger, when given the starting
position, grabbed ~10 rebounds in the front court with Mason, an excellant
rebounder.

>he may have the
> size at center, but he not a shot-blocker, basically his defense is
> poor,

It's foolish to equate poor shotblocking with poor defense. Geiger may not
block shots but he bangs and fights for position well. He's not
aweinspiring, like his teammate mason, playing post defense but he's
competant and the celtics need that.

>Matt is slow, and he cannot compete with the better centers in the
> NBA.

Yes but he can abuse the Ervin Johnson's and Mccillvanes of the league and
his jumper will keep the shotblockers from camping in our lane. That's
better than Celtics could do before. Great centers are almost impossible to
come by. Geiger may be the only solution.

>Matt Geiger would not fit in our system at all, he is not a guy
> that runs the floor well, and his defense alone would make him not a
> good choice for us.

Geiger has run the floor well when I have seen him. As for his work on the
press, I(and probably Pitino) could overlook some error on his presswork if
he battleaxes whoever got past him(which, again, is more than we can say
now). See my response earlier in this posts regarding his defense.

>Matt geiger doesnt even have a good shot, and he is
> mediocre at the free throw line.

Again I ask you for basis for your conclusions. Everything I have seen
contradicts them.

> On top of all this, he has a crappy
> attitude, he gets injured, and he DOESNT want to come here.

Questions about his attitude and health are warrented, but when asked Geiger
has said, to paraphrase, "I'll probably be with the celtics next season".

>Matt geiger
> isnt even a starter and Rick wants him, I cant understand this. The fact
> that Falk owes Rick a favor is FUCKING BULLSHIT, in fact Rick owes him
> favors.

How does Pitino owe Falk favors? Pitino has repeatedly steered his players
at Kentucky toward Falk as well as acting as a mediator between Falk and
Toronto. Sounds like Falk owes Pitino a favor to me.

>So i will ask you, why pay 4-6 million for this guy, when we
> havent even taken care of the Walker situation,

Geiger's signing has no bearing on whether Walker resigns or not. If
anything it would be better to sign Geiger before Walker. That way Walker
would know that he would have a better team next year, that might persuade
him to take less money.

>Just because he has
> size doesnt mean shit.

It doesn't? I recall the Nets drafting Yinka Dare. If Yinka was a guard, he
wouldn't have been drafted. So size counts for something.

> European players have size but they cant
> contribute to our team.

Zydrunas Illgauskas proved himself to be a pretty nice center out of Europe.
Vlade Divac has as well. What about Arvedas(sp?) Sabonis?

> Why pay him when we can get another guy
> like Stewart or any other talented center, and when we  havent taken
> care of the others.

Because Geiger, other than Austin and Divac(both in the 10mil range), is the
best defender of the bunch. Shotblocking(i.e. Stewart) does not a defender
make.

Noah