Geesh, PSquared, one guy says some colorful anti-Toine stuff and that's hatred?
Well.....I certainly think it is. But hey...it's only my own [dang]ed opinion, you know.
You take exception with the criticism of Toine being worthy of a max contract and yet criticize the very same management that you say accurately evaluated Walker as a max contract player. If they weren't a "REAL" front office that "THAT HAD AN IQ HIGHER THAN A JELLYBEAN" then they must have made tons of mistakes by hiring bad coaches, getting bad veterans and as an extension of your opinion, stupidly and mistakenly signed players who weren't max contract quality type players to max contracts.
I was referring to the management BACK THEN(PRE-Danny Ainge and Grousbeck&Co.) with ThanksDad and Chris "I need another Twinkie" Wallace. I definitely believe Toine could've and should've been developed better than he was(obviously!) while in Beantown if it wasn't for Incompetent Management/Coaching all around....But that's just my opinion.
The Celtics gave him that max contract but it was fairly obvious that Antoine was way more valuable to the Celtics than any other team in the league and if thy had played hardball with Antoine, probably would have found out that there wasn't a max contract market out there for his services at the time.
You may be right about that but at the time, I'm pretty sure he would've found a good number of Teams willing to take him off the C's hands; just not at the "Max" price, of course but something a bit less. It really all came down to the Financial-aspect of it all....as it always does in Sports(*cough*Manny*cough*).
As for a couple of your other points, Cassell is coaching this team. That is his contribution to the 2008-09 Celtics.
And what is Doc doing? Twiddling his thumbs? Reading a book? Drinking a bud? Give me a break! Sam is just sitting on his azz on the bench doing what he's been doing for a while now :
NOTHING! If that's what's called "Coaching", then sign him up 'cause I can certainly do "NOTHING" better than Sam.
He is on the roster because the Celtics thought it financially prudent to have the league pay half his salary to coach the team by technically making him a roster player that is never activated.
Keep it up. If you continue to believe that garbage, then perhaps you'll find someone who believes it, too. Sam is nothing but WASTED....ROSTER....SPACE, PERIOD. He's just along for the ride to get a ring(another one) while letting others do the "heavy lifting", so to speak.
I think that's pretty clever and think Cassell and Doc have a lot to do with Rondo's coming out party this year.
Don't know about "clever" but I do know it's very sneaky of Sam to Pretend to come over to the C's saying all the right things and then ending up doing NOTHING to back up whatever he said he was going to do. I'm sure he can tell a very mean Joke on the Bench but that's all just wasted Money tossed away(OUR wasted money that we PAY TICKETS for), all in all.
I'm not going to go back and look up every guy who retired before the age of 32 but there are tons of guys who lost it or just weren't good enough to play beyond the age of 32.
Okay...Maybe I was too broad in that. I'd narrow it from the 90's(Jordan Era) to now. Perhaps there were players BACK IN THE DAY who wouldn't have it after 32. Problem is, it was a different Era and the types of medical treatments and technology didn't exist then that exist now which allow players to extend their playing days.
But again, that's just an assumption.....and my own [dang]ed opinion, naturally.
As one example of a former All-Star who's skilled declined so rapidly he was done at 32 how's Derrick Coleman? It happens a lot more than you might think.
Good one.

Is there another? You *did* say it happens a lot more than I think.....DC is one. Anyone else? Just curious....