Definitely it appears no major FA signings, but I think one thing to consider is the evolution of the FA process over the years.
I believe Tom Chambers was the first ever unrestricted free agent in NBA history when he signed with the Suns in the summer of '88 (source:
http://www.nba.com/suns/history/chambers_93.html). So up till the early 90's the FA process was still very young and the C's were a championship contender with a high payroll so no major FA signings were needed. Once that team really fell apart after '93 (when McHale retired and Lewis died) they had a bad year, but then did make a few semi-significant FA signings (Wilkins, Never Nervous Pervis, Dana Barros, Chris Mills) in the next couple of years. Those guys are probably the more recent equivalent signings of Karl Malone/Gary Payton by the Lakers (Nique), Mike James for something like $30M by the TWolves (Barros), Jerome James by the Knicks (Pervis), and maybe Ryan Gomes re-signing with the TWolves (Chris Mills). Hindsight shows how those turned out, but all were somewhat sought after free agents, probably in that middle tier of available players, and alot of GM's had optimistic views on those players worth. Barros was coming off an All-Star year too, so that was a big deal, that was just his first All-Star appearance, why wouldn't anyone think there would be more?
The FA landscape probably had it's first huge market in '96 when guys like Shaq, Mutumbo, Larry Johnson, Reggie Miller, Allan Houston, Juwan Howard were all FA's. During that time we sucked and didn't really have cap room (due to the aforementioned signings) to land a big name guy. And ever since then we still sucked, showed no direction, and when we did have some brief success in the early 2000's we had no cap room (due to no direction again).
So from when the FA market really heated up in the mid 90's to now, we pretty much always sucked and showed no direction so who would want to come here? I think things will be different in the early 2010's when guys like Allen, Garnett, Pierce retire/sign lesser contracts and we may actually have some cap room. FA's may believe in Danny and be willing to sign here because they think we could be winners. I think overall the current FA market is more of a recent phenomenon in the NBA (over the last 12 years really), and how many teams have actually made significant FA signings over the years? (That's not rhetorical, I really have no idea, just kind of wondering out loud.)
Topic: Best Celtics Free Agent Signing Historically (Read 12170 times)