Celtics sign Joe Johnson
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
Gotta imagine Al's backside is so big by now that it's a rim protector all on its own.
If Brad's goal is to undo all the bad moves from the past twenty years, then...who else can he bring back?
I apologize if I missed it in another thread, but why is it that the celtics are signing the likes of Joe Johnson & CJ Miles in order to play games, while other games are getting PPD?
The Celtics have the minimum 8 players healthy to keep playing games. The signings are to lengthen the bench, not get them up to the 8 player minimum.
I figured it was something along those lines, I just hadn't seen it spelled out...appreciate the quick info.
https://www.igtc.com/archives/celtics/2003/Apr/msg00079.html
excerpt:
NOTES
>
> O'Brien has faith in his long shots
>
>
> By Peter May, Globe Staff, 4/6/2003
>
> You watch the Celtics play these days and you wonder: Can Jim O'Brien
> actually enjoy what he's seeing? I'm not talking about the wins or
> losses or the good nights or the bad nights. I'm talking about the style
> they play, mainly on offense, which has them jacking up 3-pointers at a
> record clip.
>
>
>
> Isn't this the same Jim O'Brien who came out of ultra-traditional
> Philadelphia, like so many of his NBA predecessors and colleagues? Isn't
> this the same man who calls his father-in-law, Hall of Famer Jack
> Ramsay, for coaching advice? The answers are yes and yes.
excerpt:
NOTES
>
> O'Brien has faith in his long shots
>
>
> By Peter May, Globe Staff, 4/6/2003
>
> You watch the Celtics play these days and you wonder: Can Jim O'Brien
> actually enjoy what he's seeing? I'm not talking about the wins or
> losses or the good nights or the bad nights. I'm talking about the style
> they play, mainly on offense, which has them jacking up 3-pointers at a
> record clip.
>
>
>
> Isn't this the same Jim O'Brien who came out of ultra-traditional
> Philadelphia, like so many of his NBA predecessors and colleagues? Isn't
> this the same man who calls his father-in-law, Hall of Famer Jack
> Ramsay, for coaching advice? The answers are yes and yes.
Once Jordan retired in 98 the EC was pretty awful up until the Celtics Big 3 era, with LeBron coming into the fold as well. Outside of those Pistons teams the East lacked true top teams; save for that wacky Heat team that won the Finals thanks to some generous refereeing.
One of my all-time favorite teams in any sport. The quintessential overachievers. It helps I was going through a memorable period working part-time at MIT while re-taking Calc 4 at Tufts in order to stay on track to graduate with my class.
That's great. Not quite Ron Borges level non-prescient journalism, but up there.
are CJ and Joe good clubhouse, potential asst coach types?
maybe they hang around the team after COVID passes
maybe they hang around the team after COVID passes
Jeezus, I knew that Forte was a total bust, but I didn’t realize he only played 8 games and scored 1 basket for the Celtics (along with 4 free throws). He was a BUST. Thanks again, Red.
Wallace eats all sorts of shit for that draft. They can blame Red for Forte, despite Red having no power at the time, but Kedrick at #11...oof.
Floor angle. You haven’t watched an NBA game until you’ve watched it from the front row. The angles, the footwork, the spacing……what a beautiful game.
View: https://twitter.com/tedbuddy8/status/1473876354999279618?s=12
View: https://twitter.com/tedbuddy8/status/1473876354999279618?s=12
I don’t understand how Wallace gets hammered for that draft. Two mid-late lottery picks and one turns into a borderline HOFer. There were like a dozen complete busts in the Top-20 that year too. Kedrick didn’t pan out but that’s the ideal physical profile you want to be taking in the mid-low lottery…..not an Olynyk or Nick Collison. People forget that Kawhi Leonard left college being unable to dribble or understand how to create his own shot but was a freakish Kedrick Brown-like athlete. His draft rights were traded for George Hill’s when he was selected and nobody batted an eye. Success goes to the bold…….you succeed in this league picking Kawhi and Kedrick in the low lottery and not the so-called “safe” picks. Those guys are good for keeping the GM’s off the hot seat by picking “solid” players but you aren’t going to win crap.
I think he gets hammered less for the Brown pick and more for his third pick. The Celtics went into that draft needing a PG and decided that the thing to do was to try to make a PG out of Joe Forte (a kid who was full of himself, was not a PG, and was not interested in being a PG) rather than look to available PG options such as... Tony Parker. I think it is also reasonable to wonder what makes you take Kedrick over Richard Jefferson. But I'll grant that this wasn't a great draft and they certainly hit on Johnson.
I also think that, over the longer-term, the near-immediate decision to trade their one hit in that draft for generic veteran help has impacted perception of the draft.
It’s been awhile, but did Rick Pitino do anything right as GM? Trading away Billups and Johnson - do we have other examples of giving up way too early on young players. Did he draft Pierce? If I recall, Pierce really fell - so getting him where we did seemed like a no brainer at the time. Of course, that worked out really, really well.
He did very little right.
1. Drafted Billups (hit) and Mercer (miss), then gave up on Billups to acquire Kenny Anderson.
2. Draft Pierce, which was, as you say, a no brainer. The real gift to the Celtics in this draft was Milwaukee's desire to acquire Robert Tractor Traylor with the #6 pick. The Celtics' wanted Dirk, who went one pick ahead of Pierce and would also have been a great selection had he been the one to slip to the C;'s.
3. He picked up Tony Battie for Travis Knight, which is a modest win.
4. He traded the draft pick that became Andre Miller to Cleveland for Vitaly Potapenko.
Pitino was gone by 2001. The 2001 draft was all Chris Wallace.
One pre-Pitino mistake that doesn't get enough attention: during the terrible ML Carr year (1996-97), they signed a smallish-for-the-time center (6'9") who was very good for them in summar league. But they didn't view him as an NBA center - viewed him as a forward who could not function on the perimeter. They didn't sign him and he ultimately signed with the Wizards, where he barely played that first year.
The Celtics ran out this group of centers during the tankathon (15-67) year: Steve Hamer (7'0", their second round pick), Alton Lister (7'0" end of the trail veteran), Stacey King (6'11" end of the trail draft bust), Dino Radja (6'11"), Brett Szabo (6'11" rookie whose 662 minutes that year were his only NBA minutes ever), Marty Conlon (6'10" NBA end of bench big), Frank Brickowski (6'9" end of the trail vet), "Out of Service" Pervis Ellison (6'9", played in games that year and missed the next year completely).
Meanwhile, the guy who they cut because he was too short to be an NBA center went on to be Ben Wallace.
Great call-out on Ben Wallace.
One thing Miami does very well is win those end-of-roster type moves...they have all sorts of wins in the back half of the roster, and occasionally (Duncan Robinson) they become starters. Other times, it's getting Tyler Johnson-type value for nothing (and looking like Max Strus is another). Patriots of course do this exceptionally well in a different context.
How much of that is luck,how much is a 'better eye for talent', and how much is a different approach? I've always been of the view that you want to look at role players who have a plus skill you can manage around rather than mediocre generalists....so, I tend to prefer a Strus (one plus skill) or even a Tacko (protect rim) or Waters (can pass) over guys who don't clearly have an NBA skill. That is a different reason for a bench spot than a true upside guy, to be clear....I'm also ok with letting Tacko/Waters types go if you're instead going for guys who might be NBA starters.
One thing Miami does very well is win those end-of-roster type moves...they have all sorts of wins in the back half of the roster, and occasionally (Duncan Robinson) they become starters. Other times, it's getting Tyler Johnson-type value for nothing (and looking like Max Strus is another). Patriots of course do this exceptionally well in a different context.
How much of that is luck,how much is a 'better eye for talent', and how much is a different approach? I've always been of the view that you want to look at role players who have a plus skill you can manage around rather than mediocre generalists....so, I tend to prefer a Strus (one plus skill) or even a Tacko (protect rim) or Waters (can pass) over guys who don't clearly have an NBA skill. That is a different reason for a bench spot than a true upside guy, to be clear....I'm also ok with letting Tacko/Waters types go if you're instead going for guys who might be NBA starters.
Ah yes I forgot that was the Forte/Parker draft too. I’ve told the story in the past of my roommate just out of college who had ties to the UNC program (told me of the McInnis and Mrs Phil Ford affair as it was in progress). He’s sitting next to me on draft night and says something like “I sure hope your team doesn’t draft Forte” as the next words from the television came……”with the (?) pick, the Boston Celtics select…..” He stood up, walked in front of me to leave the room and laughed. One of those moments you don’t ever forget.
Can’t really blame anyone for missing on Ben Wallace. He had bounced around 6 teams over a couple summers and the team he landed on didn’t even play him that one year.
Chris Wallace should be excoriated for that draft because he didn't need to exercise the Denver pick that year. It would have rolled over and been unprotected had he not exercised it, but he decided to use it anyway despite already having two other first round picks. Wallace knew he was likely a short-timer, so he did what was best for him, instead of best for the organization's long-term future.
That future Denver pick, of course, would have been Carmelo Anthony.
That future Denver pick, of course, would have been Carmelo Anthony.
You sure about that? My recollection is that the Denver pick was only top 3 protected in 2002 and top 1 protected in 2003, the Carmelo year. Thus, I believe the Celtics missed out on the Tsktishvilli 2002 #5 pick and not the Melo one the following year since it's highly unlikely that they would have turned down a top 5 pick in 2002 and rolled it forward. Could have landed Amare or Caron Butler though so definitely some pain with the Kedrick pick.
I think the play should have been to roll it forward until unprotected, thus landing Carmelo, who had just won an NCAA championship with the greatest individual performance I'd ever seen. I've been seething about it for two decades. Chris Wallace is the Notorious P.I.G.
The 2000-01 Nuggets looked like a team on the rise with 40 wins (up form 35 the year before and 14 before that) and a core of Antonio McDyess, Nick Van Exel, and Raef LaFrentz. Wallace sucked, but it was a solid gamble that the pick was as good as it would get for a while, I can’t fault him for not knowing all 3 would suffer moderate to severe injuries.
Let me add to the litany Pitino errors -
In 2000 he drafted Jerome Moiso, sophomore at UCLA at #11. Moiso was a raw, athletic power forward who would need time to develop and was actually 22 at the time. Of course the rick-tator was playing Antoine Walker 39mpg at power forward and would effectively block the rookie. A year later Moiso was traded for scraps
Wallace already had two first-rounders that year, though. Just roll it over, fer crissakes!
The year they traded Joe Johnson for Rodney Rogers was the peak of my emotional attachment to the Celtics as a 11 or 12 year old. That was a really fun ride, and I remember really liking Johnson as a rookie but Rogers was great for the Cs down the stretch.
They definitely should have rolled it over in 2001. That was just incredibly dumb.
Of course, he signed Travis Knight to begin with. I remember being very frustrated the Celts didn’t have any cap room to bring in good players and Pitino went out and gave a - at the time - huge contract to a back up center.
Meh. If you think the pick is as good as it will get, you exercise it, especially a somewhat high pick. More bites at the apple and all that. It’s not like they had a loaded team and roster spots were scarce.
Had the pick been Tony Parker would we still
Be discussing today how Wallace should have not exercised the pick? We don’t know how much influence Red still had then but we all know the story about Red and his desire for Forte too. Lots of moving parts here.
If I'm ever in legal trouble, I'll want a lawyer who defends me like you defend Chris Wallace.
He’s always done the job that he was hired to do very well and that is managing the bottom line, cap/tax implications and answering to his bosses. The GM job isn’t always about Championships or even Wins and Losses. He was also magnificent for many years in Memphis under circumstances so challenging that most wouldn’t have made it out of their second year.
For the record, this isn't second-guessing on my part. No hindsight involved. I was very pissed at the time of the draft. I could not believe that they decided to exercise the Denver pick when they already had two first-rounders that year, and watched in horror as that would-be pick eventually became Carmelo Anthony.
That they didn't draft Tony Parker only exacerbated the issue, then they conveniently blamed Red Auerbach for the Forte pick. Wallace sucks.
I'm not going to defend the Chris Wallace era, as results matter. However, keep in mind that he was working for one of the league's worst owners, an entitled prick that inherited the team and literally put zero money into it. At one point he forbade the GM from going above the NBA's bare minimum roster size, costing the team some wins as a result.