Joe Smith back to CLE?

[Texstyles]

Look I was big on Smith coming to Boston,  but Boston jumped and didn't want to wait and got Moore.  Now I do think Smith is a better player then Moore is,  but Moore like someone said earlier brings that passion that Smith I don't think brings.  In last nights game Moore took a Offencive foul and you could see those dreads bouncing up and down in excitement.  Next play down the court Powe is dunking on someones head and yelling to make sure everyone knew,  shortly after Baby doing the same.  I think Moores passion with this bench team could be very helpful,  All of our bench guys will thrive off of it, I think.

[cordobes]

CLE would then have a  huge hole in their front court and no way to fill it...

True. I think the importance of Cleveland getting Joe Smith is going to be overlooked by those who are not aware of the impact of Ben Wallace's injury, conjugated with the fact that Pavlovic will probably need a training camp to get back in game form (he always does) and Big Z basically being unable to play for more than 27/28 minutes per game. I think we'd be favourites to beat them with the current rosters. Adding Smith allows everything to fall in place for them.

[footey]

Look I was big on Smith coming to Boston,  but Boston jumped and didn't want to wait and got Moore.  Now I do think Smith is a better player then Moore is,  but Moore like someone said earlier brings that passion that Smith I don't think brings.  In last nights game Moore took a Offencive foul and you could see those dreads bouncing up and down in excitement.  Next play down the court Powe is dunking on someones head and yelling to make sure everyone knew,  shortly after Baby doing the same.  I think Moores passion with this bench team could be very helpful,  All of our bench guys will thrive off of it, I think.

passion without talent = bad signing.

[winsomme]

Look I was big on Smith coming to Boston,  but Boston jumped and didn't want to wait and got Moore.  Now I do think Smith is a better player then Moore is,  but Moore like someone said earlier brings that passion that Smith I don't think brings.  In last nights game Moore took a Offencive foul and you could see those dreads bouncing up and down in excitement.  Next play down the court Powe is dunking on someones head and yelling to make sure everyone knew,  shortly after Baby doing the same.  I think Moores passion with this bench team could be very helpful,  All of our bench guys will thrive off of it, I think.

I'm with you, Tex. I like his enthusiasm. and I think it could help us in the regular season....hopefully to the point where we get home court...

but enthusiasm becomes less important in the playoffs. then it is all about match ups at that point. and I'm worried about some of the people he is going to be lining up against...

[angryguy77]

Yes it would have been nice to have smith, but we dont and we have to live with what we have. I for one think that with the addition of marbury and getting healthy again, we are going to be very, very strong. Moore may have his downside but he adds length which we needed on the second unit and it he will help us once he is used to to our style of play. With Marbury we now have a guy that can score on the bench. I dont want to sound to over confident, but I really think by the end of the season, we will see that this team is going to be much more dominate then what it already is.
Just have some patience and this puzzle is going to come together.

[winsomme]

CLE would then have a  huge hole in their front court and no way to fill it...

True. I think the importance of Cleveland getting Joe Smith is going to be overlooked by those who are not aware of the impact of Ben Wallace's injury, conjugated with the fact that Pavlovic will probably need a training camp to get back in game form (he always does) and Big Z basically being unable to play for more than 27/28 minutes per game. I think we'd be favourites to beat them with the current rosters. Adding Smith allows everything to fall in place for them.

If they get Smith, then i think we are going to need home court to get by them.

like you said, Smith puts a lot of order back in their rotations. they actually might start him to keep Varejao in his intense bench role....

It also allows them to not be as exposed by Wally's defense because they will still be able to have a decent front court tandem on the court at all times...

[EJPLAYA]

Had Joe Smith been wanting to come to Boston, and been really optimistic about getting the buyout done, he would have let one of the big 3 know that so that we would have waited for him. Had we not signed Mikki Moore and Joe Smith either didn't get bought out or went to Cleveland for more money everyone would have been complaining that DA did nothing like the Posey situation. From what I have seen so far Mikki has improved our depth at the big spots and plays with the same type of energy and hustle that fits right into what we do. Yes I would have preferred Joe Smith, but the gap isn't big enough to have taken the risk. I like what we have here and when we get KG and Scal back we will have a lot of depth and talent, and a lot of options for matchup advantages.

yeah, but Smith coming here also would have kept him from going to CLE. so the effect is double.

CLE would then have a  huge hole in their front court and no way to fill it...

The assumption I made though was that Joe wasn't too high on coming to Boston or that he wasn't too optimistic he'd get bought out. I know that he knows our guys real well and if he wanted to come here he would have gotten them that message so we waited. Especially once the Mikki rumors started. He could have told one of them that he was going to be bought out and that he'd prefer to come to us. If he didn't, which he didn't, that insinuates very strongly he either wasn't optimistic or he was in favor of going to Cleveland, or he was going to the place with the most money. Cleveland would have offered him more than we could due to them having it, and losing Big Ben. I don't think we were going to get him no matter what. Cleveland would have done the same and offered him more cash to keep him from coming to us.

[winsomme]

Had Joe Smith been wanting to come to Boston, and been really optimistic about getting the buyout done, he would have let one of the big 3 know that so that we would have waited for him. Had we not signed Mikki Moore and Joe Smith either didn't get bought out or went to Cleveland for more money everyone would have been complaining that DA did nothing like the Posey situation. From what I have seen so far Mikki has improved our depth at the big spots and plays with the same type of energy and hustle that fits right into what we do. Yes I would have preferred Joe Smith, but the gap isn't big enough to have taken the risk. I like what we have here and when we get KG and Scal back we will have a lot of depth and talent, and a lot of options for matchup advantages.

yeah, but Smith coming here also would have kept him from going to CLE. so the effect is double.

CLE would then have a  huge hole in their front court and no way to fill it...

The assumption I made though was that Joe wasn't too high on coming to Boston or that he wasn't too optimistic he'd get bought out. I know that he knows our guys real well and if he wanted to come here he would have gotten them that message so we waited. Especially once the Mikki rumors started. He could have told one of them that he was going to be bought out and that he'd prefer to come to us. If he didn't, which he didn't, that insinuates very strongly he either wasn't optimistic or he was in favor of going to Cleveland, or he was going to the place with the most money. Cleveland would have offered him more than we could due to them having it, and losing Big Ben. I don't think we were going to get him no matter what. Cleveland would have done the same and offered him more cash to keep him from coming to us.

there's a lot of assumptions in there, though...I mean, there  were also rumblings that he wasn't terribly excited to go back to CLE after they traded him away...

and i just see no logic to OKC not buying him out. he hasn't even been playing. why wouldn't they want to buy him out?

i don't think expecting Smith to get bought out was that much of a roll of the dice. It always seemed pretty certain to me. It's more likely that they just have been quibbling about money.

deadlines tend to iron out those stumbling blocks...

[TatteredOnMySleeve]

Am I the only one here that could (or is it couldn't?) care less if Smith goes to the Cavs or not?

Joe Smith is way better than Mikki Moore, who we can all see adds nothing to our roster. So in the sense that we could have gotten Joe Smith if only we had waited longer, it is very disappointing to me.  

Joe Smith is Bill russell.
Cmon now, give me a freakin break
first of all when PJ brown joined this team, he brought nothing, NOTHING in the regular season, Moore in his little action hes seen thus far has done more than PJ did for us in first few months and can bring everything both those guys can...energy, length, midrange jumper. Some celtics fans are turning Joe smith into Hakeem Olajuwon for crying out loud, what a joke
THE GUY ISNT EVEN BOUGHT OUT, obviously has little to no passion to win a championship and is content staying with the thunder. Screw Joe smith, he couldnt guard a chair

Again, the only player we could've gotten that would've been in a different league than Joe smith, Mikki, and even PJ wouldve been Antonio Mcdyess, but he chose to go back to detroit

[KungPoweChicken]

Am I the only one here that could (or is it couldn't?) care less if Smith goes to the Cavs or not?

Joe Smith is way better than Mikki Moore, who we can all see adds nothing to our roster. So in the sense that we could have gotten Joe Smith if only we had waited longer, it is very disappointing to me.  

Joe Smith is Bill russell.
Cmon now, give me a freakin break
first of all when PJ brown joined this team, he brought nothing, NOTHING in the regular season, Moore in his little action hes seen thus far has done more than PJ did for us in first few months and can bring everything both those guys can...energy, length, midrange jumper. Some celtics fans are turning Joe smith into Hakeem Olajuwon for crying out loud, what a joke
THE GUY ISNT EVEN BOUGHT OUT, obviously has little to no passion to win a championship and is content staying with the thunder. Screw Joe smith, he couldnt guard a chair

That's a joke right? How dare you put Russell and Smith in the same sentence. Russell doesn't deserve to mentioned in the same breath as the great Joe Smith!

[CoachBo]

CLE would then have a  huge hole in their front court and no way to fill it...

True. I think the importance of Cleveland getting Joe Smith is going to be overlooked by those who are not aware of the impact of Ben Wallace's injury, conjugated with the fact that Pavlovic will probably need a training camp to get back in game form (he always does) and Big Z basically being unable to play for more than 27/28 minutes per game. I think we'd be favourites to beat them with the current rosters. Adding Smith allows everything to fall in place for them.

If they get Smith, then i think we are going to need home court to get by them.

like you said, Smith puts a lot of order back in their rotations. they actually might start him to keep Varejao in his intense bench role....

It also allows them to not be as exposed by Wally's defense because they will still be able to have a decent front court tandem on the court at all times...

Agreed on all counts. Right now, my hope is Smith decides to stay in OKC.

Also agree with Cordobes: We match up decently with Cleveland sans Gumby as it stands today, assuming that Marbury contributes something and doesn't implode.

[EJPLAYA]

Had Joe Smith been wanting to come to Boston, and been really optimistic about getting the buyout done, he would have let one of the big 3 know that so that we would have waited for him. Had we not signed Mikki Moore and Joe Smith either didn't get bought out or went to Cleveland for more money everyone would have been complaining that DA did nothing like the Posey situation. From what I have seen so far Mikki has improved our depth at the big spots and plays with the same type of energy and hustle that fits right into what we do. Yes I would have preferred Joe Smith, but the gap isn't big enough to have taken the risk. I like what we have here and when we get KG and Scal back we will have a lot of depth and talent, and a lot of options for matchup advantages.

yeah, but Smith coming here also would have kept him from going to CLE. so the effect is double.

CLE would then have a  huge hole in their front court and no way to fill it...

The assumption I made though was that Joe wasn't too high on coming to Boston or that he wasn't too optimistic he'd get bought out. I know that he knows our guys real well and if he wanted to come here he would have gotten them that message so we waited. Especially once the Mikki rumors started. He could have told one of them that he was going to be bought out and that he'd prefer to come to us. If he didn't, which he didn't, that insinuates very strongly he either wasn't optimistic or he was in favor of going to Cleveland, or he was going to the place with the most money. Cleveland would have offered him more than we could due to them having it, and losing Big Ben. I don't think we were going to get him no matter what. Cleveland would have done the same and offered him more cash to keep him from coming to us.

there's a lot of assumptions in there, though...I mean, there  were also rumblings that he wasn't terribly excited to go back to CLE after they traded him away...

and i just see no logic to OKC not buying him out. he hasn't even been playing. why wouldn't they want to buy him out?

i don't think expecting Smith to get bought out was that much of a roll of the dice. It always seemed pretty certain to me. It's more likely that they just have been quibbling about money.

deadlines tend to iron out those stumbling blocks...

That's actually 2 assumptions. Either he didn't think he was going to be bought out, or he would have preferred to go to Cleveland.

HE knew whether or not he'd prefer to go to Cleveland yet he told our guys nothing. Not too difficult to come to the conclusion he wasn't dying to come to play for us. He WOULD have said something.

He also knew better than anyone whether or not he was likely to get bought out. If he didn't know then our risk was too high. If he did, see the paragraph above. Either way we made the right decision to sign Mikki Moore before someone else offered him a contract and we ended up with nothing.

[Cman]

what possible reason does OKC have to keep Smith.

like every team out of the playoffs, they are looking to save money and they aren't even playing the guy.

Quick question for the folks that understand this stuff better than I do, but is there a reason that OKC might keep Smith that we are overlooking:

Sign & Trade in the offseason?

[Bankshot]

Had Joe Smith been wanting to come to Boston, and been really optimistic about getting the buyout done, he would have let one of the big 3 know that so that we would have waited for him. Had we not signed Mikki Moore and Joe Smith either didn't get bought out or went to Cleveland for more money everyone would have been complaining that DA did nothing like the Posey situation. From what I have seen so far Mikki has improved our depth at the big spots and plays with the same type of energy and hustle that fits right into what we do. Yes I would have preferred Joe Smith, but the gap isn't big enough to have taken the risk. I like what we have here and when we get KG and Scal back we will have a lot of depth and talent, and a lot of options for matchup advantages.

yeah, but Smith coming here also would have kept him from going to CLE. so the effect is double.

CLE would then have a  huge hole in their front court and no way to fill it...

The assumption I made though was that Joe wasn't too high on coming to Boston or that he wasn't too optimistic he'd get bought out. I know that he knows our guys real well and if he wanted to come here he would have gotten them that message so we waited. Especially once the Mikki rumors started. He could have told one of them that he was going to be bought out and that he'd prefer to come to us. If he didn't, which he didn't, that insinuates very strongly he either wasn't optimistic or he was in favor of going to Cleveland, or he was going to the place with the most money. Cleveland would have offered him more than we could due to them having it, and losing Big Ben. I don't think we were going to get him no matter what. Cleveland would have done the same and offered him more cash to keep him from coming to us.

I totally agree with this.  We were not getting Smith. He did say he could play in Boston, but he at first said he would like to go back to Cleveland.  Cleveland would have outbid us anyway.  

I believe he wanted to play for Cleveland all along, because when we desperately needed a big, Joe Smith could care less about getting bought out.  Now that Cleveland is desperate, all of a sudden he's getting bought out.  

This whole thing seems orchestrated to me.  Say you don't want to get bought out and hold off until the Celtics sign someone else, then all of a sudden you become available.

[Redz]

Had Joe Smith been wanting to come to Boston, and been really optimistic about getting the buyout done, he would have let one of the big 3 know that so that we would have waited for him. Had we not signed Mikki Moore and Joe Smith either didn't get bought out or went to Cleveland for more money everyone would have been complaining that DA did nothing like the Posey situation. From what I have seen so far Mikki has improved our depth at the big spots and plays with the same type of energy and hustle that fits right into what we do. Yes I would have preferred Joe Smith, but the gap isn't big enough to have taken the risk. I like what we have here and when we get KG and Scal back we will have a lot of depth and talent, and a lot of options for matchup advantages.

yeah, but Smith coming here also would have kept him from going to CLE. so the effect is double.

CLE would then have a  huge hole in their front court and no way to fill it...

The assumption I made though was that Joe wasn't too high on coming to Boston or that he wasn't too optimistic he'd get bought out. I know that he knows our guys real well and if he wanted to come here he would have gotten them that message so we waited. Especially once the Mikki rumors started. He could have told one of them that he was going to be bought out and that he'd prefer to come to us. If he didn't, which he didn't, that insinuates very strongly he either wasn't optimistic or he was in favor of going to Cleveland, or he was going to the place with the most money. Cleveland would have offered him more than we could due to them having it, and losing Big Ben. I don't think we were going to get him no matter what. Cleveland would have done the same and offered him more cash to keep him from coming to us.

I agree with most of what you said here, but it's worth noting that Wallace was hurt after the Celts had signed Moore