Its Cobra Commander

Did you ever watch GI Joe in the 1980's? Cobra commander was a bad dude. As was his successor at the top Serpentor, an early achievement of genetic engineering in the cartoon world. Everyone once in a while the Joe's would capture Cobra Commander, Destro, Dr. Mindbender, or Zartan. They would usually make some deal or mistake, that inevitably left the Joes in a bad way. The information they got was really a trap, there was some plot at play whereby their prisoner could do them harm, or the bad guys rallied and ran a jail break.

In Cartoon world this was OK, no one ever got killed by Cobra. Most likely it was due to a general incompetence, or the great training of the public at large, but as far as I can recall it was extremely rare for anyone to die in GI Joe cartoons. And I watched, a lot. I can't even remember a specific example. So it was not that bad to keep the bad guys in jail. Hey - they won't kill anyone if they escape anyways.

Now that cartoon has two things I want to point out. The bad guys are really bad. Any apparently altruistic move they make is only to save themselves. Cobra Commander gives you some intel? He wants to undermine Destro who is getting too big headed. Dr. Mindbender gives you the juice on Cobra Commander? Well it's only because he is going to use DNA to create Serpentor.

This is like real life. Bad guys are really bad. Al Quaeda is full of bad people, especially at the top. Ditto the Iranian mullahs and top military guys. Syria? Yes them too. Hezbollah and Hamas? Absolutely. They might be willing to work with you, but only out of fear or expediency. They are and will remain evil.

Now the second point: in real life, unlike the cartoons, people die. We can't compromise our responsibility, just because it would make us feel like better people. Leaving Saddam alive was one of these moments. There will be plenty more in the coming years. Over Christmas Eve dinner at my house, during the course of a much broader 'talk', my sister was ruminating over Bush's Iraq war. "Couldn't we have tried something besides WAR!? Why do we have to solve our problems that way? What about talking and negotiating?" My response was: "Despots like Saddam are like Cobra Commander, no matter what agreement they make with you, they will throw it out the window once it is no longer expedient. Unlike the cartoon, they will kill, lots and lots."

Sadly, I'm not sure the point came across, but at least I got this blog post out of it.

The State of Debtae

According to NPR this morning: The British police just spent over million dollars (pounds?) on an investigation into Princess Diana. The father of Dodi, Diana's companion, rejected the findings that the car crash was an accident, and instead claims that the Royal Family has Dodi and Diana killed so that the mother of the future King did not marry a Muslim. His support? "I'm the father who lost his son, I am the one who knows everything." [I'm quoting from memory.]

I don't mean to pick on a grieving father, but that is reason to spend over a million dollars on an investigation, when the French police already did one? (By the way the French and British police came to the same conclusions.) We've seen this before: think about the unfortunate mother in Michael Moore's "documentary" or Cindy Sheehan. Grief should be met with compassion and empathy. It should not be met with acceptance of the grieved parties claims. Facts, logic, empirical evidence: these are the things that should win out, not a rhetorical game of leveraging empathy for an emotionally harmed person.

Joel's Off Here

Joel On Software is one of the good blogs about Software to read. A riff about Lego Programming has me thinking. He quotes Brooks (always a good rhetorical move in an argument about software):

None of them believed Frederick P. Brooks, in 1987: “Not only are there no silver bullets now in view, the very nature of software makes it unlikely that there will be any—no inventions that will do for software productivity, reliability, and simplicity what electronics, transistors, and large-scale integration did for computer hardware.... I believe the hard part of building software to be the specification, design, and testing of this conceptual construct, not the labor of representing it and testing the fidelity of the representation.... If this is true, building software will always be hard. There is inherently no silver bullet.” Emphasis added by Joel.

I see things a bit differently. If the hard part is the specification, design, and validation thereof, then having your best people work on software - writing and testing code, is a mistake. The non-difficult parts - low level design (think class level instead of application architecture), implementations, integrations, test code, and the review of these artifacts - can be commoditized.

Develop a process, tools, and management capabilities to allow for managing the communication interfaces (which were Brooks big concern) with minimal effort and you are then getting maximum value.

Where is the BSG

Update: SG gets the article out before a trade gets done. SG's older stuff goes behind the page 2 wall, so that link will eventually not work.

Allen Iverson trade rumors are all the hoopla in NBA news these days. Head over to the Celtics Blog and checkout the posts on the main page, the posts on the cheap seats, and the forums. Back yet? No, OK I'll wait... OK, good. Notice anything? All about Iverson. So with Boston one of the teams in the running (according to the Internet rumor mongers, ESPN, and the local media) it would be nice to get some quick hits from the BSG - Boston Sports Guy. Unfortunately he's gone big media and is now "The Sports Guy." (Note he's not affiliated with The Sports Depot.)

ESPN tried to make a blog avenue, but clearly couldn't figure it out. Currently they are very column driven. But this is just the case where BSG could be blogging a storm. Look I get it that he has a national media following. I get it that he can't just write about Boston sports, but it's who he is. Not only that, but he apparently has some juicy front office sources with the C's.

What to do? Let's take a look at the Reiss' Pieces Blog on boston.com he is able to get tidbits out about the Patriots, but without killing his articles. I would like to see ESPN get some blog type content going. Perhaps they could tap local bloggers to keep a steady stream of small posts, plus have their national guys (who all have local origins) post on these blogs. This might keep a guy like Simmons from just writing a billion words a post on the unedited blog. At the end of the day, the guys making these decisions are probably worried about control, if The SG writes columns then they can edit and control, if he blogs, it threatens them. So we'll get his reaction to the AI rumors - where he thinks AI should go, what the C's are up to, and what he thinks the C's should do - later. If things move slow, it will appear timely. If not it will look late.

My take on AI? Why glad you asked:

Ainge should not sell out the future for AI: Jefferson, Rondo, Green are all upside guys, who are contributing now. You need to cleanup the wing situation.

Scenario 1: The Monster Deal - Perkins, Telfair, West, Allen, Wally, Theo for AI, Korver, Dalembert. Include up to 2 draft picks with certain protections: 2007 lottery, 2008 top 5, 2009 unprotected; The worse of our pick and Minny's pick the year we get Minny's pick.

Scenario 2: The Surgical Strike - Wally, West or Telfair, 2007 1st Rounder unprotected for AI.

Scenario 3: The Psyche Out - Trade Wally and Theo for Webber. It makes the team better now (our big men are depleted.) Puts you in great position if Pau Gasol goes on the market - currently the most likely big to be moved.


If the 76ers won't take Wally, add Portland to the mix, C's get Dickau, 76ers get Magliore, and Portland takes Wally. (Assuming POR would do that - which is the current rumor.) You can improve West or Allen by using Green, but if you do you should pull back a pick. The more I think about it, the more I like scenario 3:

Jefferson, Gomes, Pierce, Allen, Telfair (based on their current starters staying put)

Bench: Webber, Powe, Scal, Kandi are the bigs. West, Green, Rondo, Ray, are the smalls.

Would Philly do that? If you can get the POR leg involved, I think they would be happy. They are out of Webber deal, and only have to take on Theo (who might retire and costs half as much) and Magliore's (who fills in as a serviceable big) expiring deal. Then they can focus on moving AI for an expiring contract and picks only (possibly move Dalembert too). Their own pick would be top5, maybe they can pick up a late first round, and they are out of their two worst contracts.

Wrongly Politically Correct

Bruce Allen runs a great website, collecting the stories of the day in the Boston media, providing commentary on the ins and outs. He has a couple columns he carries and a blog for each team. All in all it's a nice site, I'm not sure if he makes money or not, maybe just a little, probably not enough to make all the time worth it. I read the site at least a few times a week.

One thing he often calls WEEI (Boston 850 AM) morning guys, Dennis and Callahan (D&C), out for is their conservative shtick (my words.) For example he is calling them out for mocking sensitivity training. NB: D&C made a joke that was in bad taste, calling an escaped Gorilla from the zoo sitting at a bus stop a "METCO" gorilla. METCO is a program that buses inner city kids of minority background to suburban schools.

I happened to have disagreed with the uproar at the time and I disagree with Bruce now.

1. The joke could legitimately have not been meant to equate the Gorilla to minority students, but instead meant about the fact it was at a bus stop. [For example: "It has T Pass" line of joke.]
2. The radio station is under no obligation to "not offend." What FCC decency standards were offended? The morning shows on the FM music stations pull "pranks" where they call up and pretend to be someone that are more crass.
3. Just because D&C had to go to sensitivity training doesn't mean they had to like or agree with it. It was clearly a PR stunt to assuage the PC crowd (which is large and in charge in Boston.)
4. Regardless if the joke was in bad taste the PC environment has become much worse than the joke itself. It's also hypocritical, a black comedian could get away with about ten million times worse jokes about any minority than what they said.
5. Sensitivity Training, Sexual Harassment Training, Non Offensive Cross Talk Seminar on the Proper Avenue for Re-indoctrination Training, etc. are all silly. My company crossed some CT state legislated boundary (I live in MA, but my company is based in MA) and everyone had to get sexual harassment training. What a great use of the $400/hr we paid the lawyer, not to mention the $40k in wasted employee hours. Actually it was a bad use of our time.
6. The station can punish or censure D&C at any time if the behaviour is inappropriate. Maybe Bruce feels it is, but I think his sensitivity is a bit too sensitive in this case. Making fun of sensitivity training is always a good thing. Clearly the station has decided that their overall success far outweighs any bad from mocking the silly training.

BCS

I've said it before, but college football is a joke until D1 has a tournament. Bob Ryan has said it better.

To make things work:

All conferences with automatic bids should have to have the following:
+ a championship game or
+ league schedule where every team plays every other team

All the other teams, including ND, should have a very high barrier of entry. Every conference team (outside of the conference winner) will be assured one loss. Requiring a minimum number of games against teams from the BCS 6 and a record better than (or even?) to the runner ups.

Why? Take the Big East - Say Louisville and Rutgers are both top 8 teams. One of them will lose to the other. If they play late in the season, that is probably enough to knock them down. Furthermore when Louisville plays a non-conference foe, it does not matter as much. They can reach the playoffs without winning a single out of conference game, as long as they win in conference.

Non-related to championships, is the foolishness of better teams, getting worse bowls, because their fans don't travel well.

Ainge Year Two

See previous entries in this series: Ainge's Inheritance, Ainge Year One

Ainge's first year at the helm left an overwhelming feeling of sideways movement. Going into year two he had "stockpiled" a couple of extra first rounder, but they were not great picks. He had removed the allegedly poisonous presence of Antoine, but had inserted the sickly presence of Raef and his monstrous contract. He had replaced some roll players with upside guys like Ricky Davis and Jiri Welsch. Finally he had saved ownership a lot of money (short term.)

Just What the Doctor (Did Not) Order
In the first of his two worst Free Agent signings, he picked up Doc Rivers (on April 29th, 2004) - Doc's tenure in Orlando was questionable at best. Doc's gainful and non-intrusive employment with TNT guaranteed that Danny was going to pay a lot for that muffler. On the plus side his skills of looking good and sounding good would be useful in marketing the team. (As you can tell I'm no Doc fan, I wavered his first year and fell out of favor during the playoff loss to a seriously undermanned Pacers squad.) At $5 million per year, Doc was the fourth highest paid coach.

Oops I Did It Again
Danny's other worst signing ever: six-year, $42 million contract. (Ed: some reports have it as a 5yr/$25 million deal - according to hoops hype the deal is gaurunteed in the 6th year, so I'm assuming it was either a player option or part of the trade kicker. Even if it's part of a trade kicker, it has the same effect - since it will make trading Blount harder. Since the C's are over the cap in the next few seasons, any savings are marginal.) Mark Blount. No fun. No refund. Like acquiring Raef, this is a deal that will force Danny's hand in future trades still to come. The thing is Blount continues to produce at about expectations. Blount is a one dimensional pivot man, best suited to backup minutes. Unfortunately, he will be a starter in Boston. Finally Danny makes a tactical mistake by giving Blount a contract one year longer than Raef's. Ideally he could have lined up their contracts so he could be under the cap in 2008/9. Now he will have one more big contract one more year.

The Draft
Ainge takes HS big man Al Jefferson (the inverse of Perkins) with the Celtics picks and two role players in Delonte West and Tony Allen. West is definitely an undersized shooting guard, a PG lacking some of (vision, passing, handle), or a combo-guard: it just depends on who you ask. Allen is athletic with a checkered past. His athleticism is promising. Justin Reed is taken in the second round.

Get a Glove Kid, You're In
I'll let Wikipedia do the honors:

Prior to the 2004-05 season, the Lakers traded Payton and Rick Fox to the Boston Celtics for center Chris Mihm, small forward Jumaine Jones and point guard Chucky Atkins. While Payton expressed displeasure with the trade, he ultimately did report to Boston and began the 2004-05 season as the Celtics' starting point guard.

Unmentioned is that when Payton did not report Aing got Jumaine Jones switched with Marcus Banks, making the deal much better for the C's. The deal saves Boston cap space in 2006 and 2007. Of course the team would have been better off just letting Blount go (or doing a sign and trade for a pick) and then keeping Mihm. They probably still could have got the deal done, by replacing Mihm with Banks. Anyways this deal was a fairly decent salary cap savings. Additionally it means that Banks (West) will play a backup roll he is more suited to. The Celtics also get a draft pick.

The Celtics also pick up Tom Googs for a one year deal at 2.7 million. One year deals are basically not worth analyzing since they will not effect the team's future. (Unless the team is in title contention.)

The Season First Half
The Celtics play three months of ball and are three games under .500. Delonte West gets injured on Nov. 1 and misses significant time. Jefferson and Allen are contributing. The depth chart looks something like this:

Starters: Blount, LaFrentz, Pierce, Davis, Payton
Bench bigs: Jefferson, McCarty, Gugliotta, Perkins
Bench smalls: Allen, Banks, Welsch, West, Reed

In February they move McCarty to Phoenix for a second round pick and some cap space, a good trade, but not one likely to have a big impact. The team is positioned to make a mini-run at the Atlantic. They clearly need some front court help and have a bit extra in the back court. Then the inexplicable happens.

Re-Walker
The Boston Herald pulls the band aid quickly:

Feb. 24: Re-acquires Walker from the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for Gugliotta, Payton, Stewart and future first-round draft choice.

Huh? Really? This makes sense how? I thought Walker was a bad guy. The draft pick sent is the Lakers pick from the Payton deal. I'm not what the protection on it was, but it now belongs to the Suns in 2007, and looks like it will not be a lottery pick. Salary cap-wise the deal has no effect, and the salaries are basically a wash. Talent wise not only do the C's get Walker, they also get Payton back, when Atlanta cuts him and they resign him. (Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge.) Atlanta saves a million or so in 2004/5 salary and gets a draft pick. On the same day the Celtics move Jiri Welsch to Clevland for a first round pick. This evens out salaries for the 2004/5 year, and saves the C's money in 2005/6.

Of course the C's go on to do nothing against the Pacers again. A veteran team gets crushed in game 7 by the undermanned Pacers. Doc seems completely out coached. Pierce makes a fool of himself, but is rightly outraged at the officiating.

Summary
Danny made the mistake of signing Blount to a long term deal. Not only was the deal too much and too long, it also had trade clauses that make it hard to move. By half way through the season people were calling for Blount to be moved. By the end of the playoffs, people were doubting Doc's coaching ability and some Pierce's heart.

Hindsight being 20/20, Danny could have done the following. Negotiate for a shorter length on the deal and no trade kicker. This would likely have meant a higher salary earlier. If you cannot get it done, keep Mihm, try and do a sign and trade with Blount. You could still do the LA deal: Stewart and Jones were both expiring deals that could have made it work. This would have left you in a position of maximum flexibility salary cap wise. Nonetheless, outside the signing of Blount, Danny greatly improved the teams cap picture. He moved guys with multi-year deals, for expiring guys. He also added a draft pick to his arsenal, picking up two likely late rounders from LA and Cleveland, and giving up one of them.

The frustrating part is Danny's bringing back of 'Toine. It was the classic oscillating approach to team philosophy. If he had never made the first 'Toine trade. The salary cap could have been in great position by the end of 2004/5 season. I believe that both of these moves were precipitated by impatient owners. It is just my theory, but the 'Toine trade saved money immediately. LaFrentz was also signed for cheaper than 'Toine would have resigned for (presumably.) The second 'Toine trade, cost nothing, and put Fanny's back in the seats when people got worried. The Blount signing is not that bad ($25 million / 5yr for a backup big man) from an operational standpoint, but the kickers are death from a competitive standpoint.

It's impossible to tell if the Detroit deal that brought in Tony Allen would have bee there. Or if Jefferson and Green would have been available - we almost certainly would have had different draft pick order. The problem is - Allen and West - are just role players. The draft is a crap shoot for acquiring stars - if the C's had just played it out they could have created serious cap room, and had expiring deals.

One word for the year: Sideways.
(Same result, a loss to the pacers. Still no hope of getting under the cap. Added another first round depth pick, CLE's 2007.)

Here is the excel I used for my salary cap analysis.

Next up: Ainge Year Three

Ainge Year One

See part one: Ainge's Inheritance

Second in a series documenting Danny Ainge's tenure with the Celtics. The first post described the situation Danny inherited. One other thing I will add: The fans had gone many years without much success. The 2001 Eastern Conference Finals team did enough to raise hopes and build attachments to some of the players, but not enough to satiate.

The Draft 2003

Draft night 2003 Ainge moves the 16th and 20th pick for the 13th and 27th picks. He picks up defensive G Marcus Banks from UNLV and raw high school C/PF Kendrick Perkins. The second round pick is used on undersized rebounding power forward (this will be a theme) Brandon Hunter. These three draft picks put the Celtics at 12 players for the 2003-4 season. Generally I would consider this a good draft. The C's got guys who could fill in their roles. Banks never meets his potential - but he is currently playing backup PG to Nash in Phoenix, so it's hard to call him a bust. Perkins likewise earned a second contract, but with the Celtics. He has shown consistent continued improvement, but no breakouts. Hunter was out of the league a year later. A couple of players taken later in the draft, standout as notable, such as Boris Diaw, and Josh Howard, but both have looked good on teams with superstars (Dirk, Nash, Marion, etc.). Banks and Perkins were both guys who had the chance to be very good, and at worst be solid role players, i.e. they were the right kind of picks. (For comparison legend Jerry West got Troy Bell and Dahntay Jones - I'm sure Memphis would rather have Banks and Perkins in retrospect.)

I'm Mike James
To sure up the back court Ainge signs journeyman Mike James to a "one year deal for the year minimum". You figure out why that makes any sense

The Walker Trade, Part One

During preseason Danny made what I consider his biggest and worst trade. In fact as of Dec 2006, he is still under the weight of this trade. The trade:

The team acquired center Raef LaFrentz, forward Chris Mills, guard Jiri Welsch and a 2004 First Round draft choice from the Dallas Mavericks, in exchange for Tony Delk and co-captain and seven-year Celtics star Antoine Walker.

As you'll see going forward, I believe first and foremost trades should be evaluated on their salary cap effects. This trade was positive for the C's money wise in 2004 and 2005, but negative for the next four years.

• 2003/4 - Trade is basically a wash
• 2004/5 - Save 6 million
• 2005/6 - 2008/9 - Trade costs 9.5, 10.9, 11.8, 12.7 million dollars, respectively
  

Talent wise: LaFrentz and Welsch are worse than Antoine and Delk, both short and long term. The draft pick is destined to be a very late 1st round pick, i.e. not a franchise guy. So its both a short term and long term loss.

Walker's "stranglehold" on the team is the given reason for the trade, but a year and a half later the C's bring this "choke" act back to make a playoff run. Furthermore, the team is filled with Vets, and the two young guys they do have (Banks and Perkins) seem like they could have developed just the same even with Walker around. Part of me wonders if this trade was made to save the new owners money in the short term.

The Ricky Davis Trade
Two months after the Antoine trade (ostensibly for Chemistry reasons) Danny would move "Good Guys" Eric Williams and Tony Battie for Ricky Davis:

[O]n December 15th, the team acquired veterans Ricky Davis, Chris Mihm and Michael Stewart (and a Second Round draft choice) from the Cleveland Cavaliers, in exchange for veterans Tony Battie, Kedrick Brown and Eric Williams

Salary cap-wise:

• Costs the C's $500k in years 1,3,4
• Costs the C's $2.9 million in year 2
• Adds one year of obligation (Ricky's deal is one year longer than Battie's and William's) in the amount of $6.8 million for Ricky Davis

I thought this deal would have been better for the C's than it was. It was sold as Clevland "dumping" Ricky Davis. but in reality the Celtics also took on a year of Mihm's deal.

Talent: Stewart and Brown were both useless. Battie and Mihm are both serviceable big men with injury issues. Williams and Davis were both role players, but Williams was in a hard decline and Davis was on his way up. Clevland looked to be on the bubble for a playoff spot, so the second round pick was not likely to be very valuable.

The Chronicles of Addict
Not a trade, signing, or draft - "Gin" Baker was placed on waivers for not complying with his alcohol treatment program. Eventually the Celtics would reach an agreement with Baker, resulting in some salary cap changes. I'm not 100% sure on this - as reports on the web are hard to determine, but as best as I can figure:

• 2003/4 - no change
• 2004/5 and 2005/6 - $5,333,333 of his $14,000,000 salary counts against the cap. Net savings of almost 9 million dollars on the cap.
• 2006/7 - $5,333,333 counts against the cap (as far as I can tell he had no cap hit before the agreement.)
• Baker is gone from the team, and not surprisingly ends up with NY, where he plays, and drinks.

The Eastern Conference is Due
Danny was not yet done trading. With the deadline approaching he made a deal with Atlanta and Detroit that enabled Detroit to land Rasheed. Ainge moved minimum man Mike James and expiring man Chris Mills. In return he got Detroit 2004 draft pick - likely to be in the mid 20's, Lindsay Hunter (who is waived immediately), Chucky Atkins - and Cash. The trade is essentially an expiring deal for a first round pick.

Salary Cap:

• 2004/5 and 2005/6 - Celtics add about 4.5 Million a year to the cap number with Atkins
  

This deal is basically Ainge buying a draft pick. The amount of cash going from Detroit probably helped balance out the salary operationally.



Season Record 36-46
The C's finish fourth in the Atlantic, but make the playoffs in the (l)East. It's all over in four games, as they are swept easily by the Indiana Pacers in the first round. (Did I mention O'B quit in January, the team got worse, and some random Asst. Coach Caroll became the 16th head coach of the Celtics.)

Year in Review - Salary Cap
For a team in rebuilding mode you hope for two things: high draft picks, low salary cap obligations.

• Due to the Walker move, the C's clear $6,056,184 from the 2005 cap.
• Due to the Detroit and Cleavland trades, the C's have added $7,698,352, $16,778,083, $18,631,250, and $12,722,500 to the cap figures for years 2005/6 through 2008/9.
• The Celtics only have five players signed beyond two seasons. One of those, Vin Baker is just a shell of a contract.
  

Talent

• Instead of Antoine, they have Raef. It's hard to know when who knew what and how, but in retrospect it seems like Ainge knew Raef was hurt, and might never get better.
• The other notable pickup was Ricky Davis.
• It's hard to get excited about any of the other changes.
• Out: Kedrick Brown, Tony Delk, Eric Williams, Tony Battie, and Vin Baker
• In: Jiri Welsch, Chris Mihm, Chucky Atkins, Micheal Stewart, and Jumaine Jones
  

Strategic Position
The Celtics were able to pick up two first round draft picks from elite teams, that turn into the 23rd and 24th picks. They also retained all of their own picks. However, they no longer have Antoine Walker and his 2005 expiring deal. They also have an Raef's contract added to 2005/6 through 2008/9 and Ricky's added to 2007/8. (The other years for Ricky and Raef are cancelled out by other moves.) The general change is that they have longer deals, and more money in fewer contracts, meaning they have contracts that are harder to trade.

Here's the spreadsheet with salary information.

Up next - Ainge Year Two

Ainge's Inheritance

On May 9, 2003 the Boston Celtics hired Danny Ainge as President of operations. This is the first in a series of posts looking at his transactional record: drafts, signings, and trades. The goal of a president/GM should be to position his team strategically. Sometimes this means cutting salary or losing talent in the short term. And sometimes this means gearing up for a run.

Here is the team that Danny inherited. (Note - the 2001 draft and the 2002 trade for 'Gin' Baker, did more damage than anything since Len Bias' death, both of these had already happened.)

A breakdown of the situation Danny inherited:

Salary cap-wise

• 2004 - 9 players are signed for a total of $55 million.
• 2005 - 8 players (everyone, but Mark Blount) are signed for $56 million.
  
• 2006 - 7 players (everyone, but Antoine Walker and Kedrick Brown) are signed for $41.5 million
• 2007 - 3 players (Paul Pierce, Eric Williams, and Tony Battie) are signed for $25 million

Needless to say this is not a pretty picture. Most of the contracts are several years long. The team is over the cap for the next two seasons. After factoring in draft picks it's likely the team will be under the cap in 2006, by a small amount. Substantial cap space will be available at the end of the 2006 season. (Here's the spreadsheet on Google that I used. Credit where it's due: I got most of the historical salary data from Basketball Reference and current data from Hoops Hype. Things like when a trade was made, or when someone was resigned, or what happened to Baker's salary, I got by googling various news stories: usually something in the Boston Globe or the NBA website.)

Draft picks

• 2003 Draft - Hold the 16th, 20th, and 56th round pick
• The Celtics have their picks (only) in all future drafts [Ed: I cannot confirm this - but I am 90% sure it's true]
  

Talent

• Pierce is a borderline hall of famer
• Walker is a borderline all star
• Baker is useless
• Everyone else ranges between marginal NBA talent to solid bench player.

i.e. The talent picture is ugly.

Summary, the Celtics were in tough shape. There was no immediate draft help. The talent was enough to prevent a high draft pick. But not enough to make it worthwhile to acquire some veterans for a run. Salary cap wise, they did not have the expiring deals or flexibility to be a good trading partner, nor were they anywhere near being under the cap to allow signing of a marquee player. Danny is smart enough to know he needs to get out from these long term deals and find a true superstar to pair with Pierce. As we all know - the C's go on to do nothing in 2003-4, 2004-5, and 2005-6 from a winning perspective.

NB: The hypothetical Boston fans should consider when lamenting the early 1990s and 2000s: What if the Celtics had roled over Denver's pick from 2001 to 2002. They could have still drafted Johnson at 10, and probably had Brown at 21, or one of the better talents available (instead of Forte.) Then instead of sending Johnson, they could have sent Brown to the Suns. Finally in the 2002 off season, they could have resigned Rogers for 1/10th of what they ended up paying Baker. then just let Vitaly's and Kenny's deals expire. Finally with the Denver pick in 2002, they could have drafted Amare Staudemire (yes they might not have that pick if they had been able to pick 11th, but if you saw how Denver drafted back then, you'd know the 11th pick wouldn't have helped them much).

You'd have had Pierce and Walker on longer term max deals. Vitaly and Kenny with expiring deals at the end of 2003. A fairly deep bench, including two up and comers in Joe Johnson and Amare Staudemire. (Boston's salary cap problems will never come from an inability to move the 5 million / year guys, it will be the 10 million + / year guys that clog things up.) People lament the Duncan draft, but the C's didn't control the balls, the C's did control all their moves from 2001 and 2002 listed above - and they struck out on all of them.

Side note to the side note: one of the reasons Sports Guy has NBA credibility, is he shrewd about trades. He called BS on the Baker trade and the Walker trade early. One of the reasons he doesn't have credibility - he loved the 2001 draft.

Up next: Ainge Year One

Newspapers and Context

There are plenty of blogs out there that criticize the current state of MSM. Most specifically, they are looking at Newspapers (especially the NYT) and the nightly news (big3, CNN, etc.)

This quote was on my Google homepage today:

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
- Ben Hecht

(btw, if you haven't already - I love http://www.google.com/ig as my home page, add the quotes and dictionary word of the day)

It gets to the heart of matters for me. The problem I have with the "news" is that even with an unbiased media, individuals who follow the days news alone, tend to overlook trends. This may seem like a tangent, but stay with me:

In HS physics you study how location, velocity, and acceleration interplay. If I look at an object and see it's displaced on the X axis by ten units and has mass M, but don't know if it currently has a velocity (which measures rate of change in position), or if that velocity is changing (and thus we have an accelerating object), or even if that acceleration is constant, or itslef changing: then I know very little about the object's kinetics.

Newspapers are like that, and the local nightly news is even worse. Part of the reason the American public went so hard against Vietnam, is that the sensationalism of the news from Vietnam focused everyone in, so to speak, on the mass and position of the War effort. Without regards to velocity or acceleration. Or as Mr. Hecht says above, by reading the second hand only.

Have you ever been experienced?

One of my favorite Boston sports blogs, is CelticsBlog, which features a few (mostly one) blogger on the front page and some other content. There is currently a debate as to why the Celtics stink. The following reasons are the ones I see the most often:

1. Talent
2. Inexperience
3. Coaching
4. Roster Fit

Here is a chart that shows the experience of guys the C's have on roster, and how much they are playing. Google spreadsheet available here

NAME	Games	Min / Game	Total Min	Age	College Years	NBA Years	NBA Minutes
P.Pierce	15	38.6	579	29	3	8	22879
W.Szczerbiak	14	32.2	450.8	29	4	7	15893
R.Gomes	15	29.7	445.5	24	4	1	1375
S.Telfair	15	27.8	417	21	0	2	2974
K.Perkins	15	22.3	334.5	22	0	3	1918
D.West	14	22.3	312.2	23	3	2	2418
R.Rondo	13	17.7	230.1	20	2	0	0
T.Allen	14	13.4	187.6	25	4	2	2242
A.Jefferson	8	22.4	179.2	22	0	2	2113
G.Green	14	10.4	145.6	21	0	1	377
B.Scalabrine	12	12.1	145.2	28	4	5	4050
M.Olowokandi	6	13	78	31	4	8	12896
L.Powe	6	12.2	73.2	22	4	0	0
T.Ratliff	2	21.5	43	33	4	11	18566
A.Ray	2	3.5	7	22	4	0	0

Note that there are a couple of measures of experience. I've included season age (different from actual age), NBA Seasons, NBA minutes, and college seasons. NBDL and other non-NBA pro leagues are also measures, but only Gerald Green falls into that category on this team.