Wasn't it kind of ironic?

[Toine43]

Around the time that the Celtics signed Mikki Moore, I followed the conversation on this board closely, and there was a lot of discussion about how the Celtics should have gone about pursuing an extra big man for the bench. The major question was whether Boston could have landed Joe Smith had they played their cards better, or if he was headed to Cleveland no matter what. I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that question.

There were a lot of disagreements and arguments between posters at the time about this particular topic; in fact, I can only remember one thing that almost every poster agreed upon: The difference between Mikki Moore and Joe Smith will not make or break this team's season. Both players would be added bonuses to what is already a great team, so we should not worry too much about getting one or the other.

Everyone agreed with that last statement. Sure, we'd spend 10+ pages of posts talking about it, because there wasn't much else to talk about, but at the end of the day everyone agreed that this wasn't basketball life or death. And about 2 months later as game 6 mercifully came to an end, and the Celtics had fallen for the second time to Chicago in multiple overtime periods, that's why I found the Celtics' situation so ironic. The Celtics NEEDED Joe Smith, [dang]it! That's all they needed. One more playable big, and that series goes from a 7-game heart wrencher to, well, a 5-game heart-wrencher.

It's probably more of an insult to Mikki's performance so far than a compliment to Joe Smith, but I'd feel a lot better about the Celtics' chances against Orlando if Boston had gotten their hands on the latter instead of the former.

[Roy Hobbs]

There were a lot of disagreements and arguments between posters at the time about this particular topic; in fact, I can only remember one thing that almost every poster agreed upon: The difference between Mikki Moore and Joe Smith will not make or break this team's season. Both players would be added bonuses to what is already a great team, so we should not worry too much about getting one or the other.

I'll disagree with this.  A few of us -- myself, cordobes, etc. -- argued that Joe Smith was a difference maker, and Mikki Moore was no better than our 5th best big man, who added very little other than depth. 

That's why a few of us argued so vigorously that Danny should have waited before signing Mikki; there was really no reason to sign him so early, because the difference between signing him, and signing nobody, wasn't really that big.  The opportunity cost of passing on Smith (and then Gooden) wasn't worth the very, very small upgrade we got from Mikki.

So yeah, a couple months later, Mikki Moore is terrible, and Joe Smith is contributing for a contender.  This shouldn't surprise people, but based on the conversations at the time, I'm sure it does.

[PosImpos]

Our team with Smith or Gooden instead of Moore is a team in a much better position, there's no doubt about it.

It's kind of unfair to point a finger at people who didn't think that'd be the case because we're really in a worst-case scenario situation right now with Garnett and Powe both out for the entire postseason (definitely with Powe, most likely with KG).

[Rida]

There were a lot of disagreements and arguments between posters at the time about this particular topic; in fact, I can only remember one thing that almost every poster agreed upon: The difference between Mikki Moore and Joe Smith will not make or break this team's season. Both players would be added bonuses to what is already a great team, so we should not worry too much about getting one or the other.

I'll disagree with this.  A few of us -- myself, cordobes, etc. -- argued that Joe Smith was a difference maker, and Mikki Moore was no better than our 5th best big man, who added very little other than depth. 

That's why a few of us argued so vigorously that Danny should have waited before signing Mikki; there was really no reason to sign him so early, because the difference between signing him, and signing nobody, wasn't really that big.  The opportunity cost of passing on Smith (and then Gooden) wasn't worth the very, very small upgrade we got from Mikki.

So yeah, a couple months later, Mikki Moore is terrible, and Joe Smith is contributing for a contender.  This shouldn't surprise people, but based on the conversations at the time, I'm sure it does.

Whats even more annoying about the whole situation is that Smith reportedly wanted to come to Boston over Cleveland.

Should have waited. Oh well, Danny does very little wrong as a GM I think he has earned a break.

[Carhole]

Around the time that the Celtics signed Mikki Moore, I followed the conversation on this board closely, and there was a lot of discussion about how the Celtics should have gone about pursuing an extra big man for the bench. The major question was whether Boston could have landed Joe Smith had they played their cards better, or if he was headed to Cleveland no matter what. I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that question.

There were a lot of disagreements and arguments between posters at the time about this particular topic; in fact, I can only remember one thing that almost every poster agreed upon: The difference between Mikki Moore and Joe Smith will not make or break this team's season. Both players would be added bonuses to what is already a great team, so we should not worry too much about getting one or the other.

Everyone agreed with that last statement. Sure, we'd spend 10+ pages of posts talking about it, because there wasn't much else to talk about, but at the end of the day everyone agreed that this wasn't basketball life or death. And about 2 months later as game 6 mercifully came to an end, and the Celtics had fallen for the second time to Chicago in multiple overtime periods, that's why I found the Celtics' situation so ironic. The Celtics NEEDED Joe Smith, [dang]it! That's all they needed. One more playable big, and that series goes from a 7-game heart wrencher to, well, a 5-game heart-wrencher.

It's probably more of an insult to Mikki's performance so far than a compliment to Joe Smith, but I'd feel a lot better about the Celtics' chances against Orlando if Boston had gotten their hands on the latter instead of the former.

There is a ton of revisionist history (a favorite of posers here) going on here - joe smith was not available. He was not being bought out, they went with mikki b/c mikki was the only option at the time. People say Joe "wanted" to come here but there was never any place where I saw him say that. Then he was used in a trade to get OK City a young big man but the physical was blown so that got reversed. Then Ben Wallace broke his leg and Cleveland needed a big man - Joe Smith and his agent then asked for a buy out. He knew the C's wanted him for ohhh probably 6 weeks and I am sure KG (if I can make an assumption of my own) made contact with someone he considers a good friend to ask him to come...and still Smith never asked for a buyout. He wasnt coming to boston, all verifiable signs point to that.

As far as chicago series goes. It would always be nice to have another big body but to say that having him ends the series earlier is impossible to prove. What we all know is that if PP hits the non pressure ft in game one (he hit the pressure one to tie the game with 2 seconds left, there is a lot less pressure when the options is hit to win, miss and you have 5 more minutes at home)or if PP and ray dont miss fts + Rondo going ofer at the line with a chance to put us up 13 followed by TA missing two layups and keeping the bulls alive...you could go on and on about things that you could reasonable expect this team to accomplish on a regular basis that prevent them from finishing off the bulls. But posturing that your knowledge of Joe Smiths importance, even when there was no way to get him here, relative to finishing out or round 1 series is at best a weak correlation but in the scope of things not ironic.

[EJPLAYA]

Sorry guys! Pretend all you want, but we were never in the running for Smith. He was always going to come back to the Cavs:

The Cavs lost the decisive game in Boston, a setback that still haunts Smith, who was traded last summer by Cleveland in the deal that brought All-Star guard Mo Williams over from Milwaukee.

“It’s something that I think about often,” Smith said of Game 7. “If the ball would have bounced in our favor on the last two possessions, then the outcome could have been different. But unfortunately it didn’t. They went on and won and that’s something that kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth and that was kind of another key aspect for me.

“I wanted to come back here and try and get that taste out of my mouth.”

Other teams expressed in interest in Smith, but the Cavaliers were his first choice because of his familiarity with their system, players and coaches. This was the perfect fit.

“I told my agent it felt like I was in high school again being recruited by colleges,” he said. “It’s a tough decision to make, but I felt more comfortable coming back here because I was used to the guys. I was here not too long ago. It made it a lot easier knowing that I was welcomed back here by guys that I’ve been around, been in the locker room with, went to war with, and they appreciated what I did for the team last year.”

That sounds like a savvy veteran that is smart enough not to burn any bridges, but had his sights set on the Cavs and them only all along. It does absolutely no good to complain about not getting a guy that was never coming here anyway. The only player that would be playing in Mikki's spot that we should have/could have gotten was Chris Anderson.

All that being said, Mikki isn't as bad as many on here would have you believe. Scal is playing better and POB is gone, so they have to pick on someone. I like Mikki's contribution just fine for a 3-5 min player. He gets completely SHAFTED by the refs for some reason so that makes it tough. It's just not right that they call him for things they call no one else for.

[Toine43]

There were a lot of disagreements and arguments between posters at the time about this particular topic; in fact, I can only remember one thing that almost every poster agreed upon: The difference between Mikki Moore and Joe Smith will not make or break this team's season. Both players would be added bonuses to what is already a great team, so we should not worry too much about getting one or the other.

I'll disagree with this.  A few of us -- myself, cordobes, etc. -- argued that Joe Smith was a difference maker, and Mikki Moore was no better than our 5th best big man, who added very little other than depth. 

That's why a few of us argued so vigorously that Danny should have waited before signing Mikki; there was really no reason to sign him so early, because the difference between signing him, and signing nobody, wasn't really that big.  The opportunity cost of passing on Smith (and then Gooden) wasn't worth the very, very small upgrade we got from Mikki.

So yeah, a couple months later, Mikki Moore is terrible, and Joe Smith is contributing for a contender.  This shouldn't surprise people, but based on the conversations at the time, I'm sure it does.

Of course there were those who thought Smith was far better, and I was actually one of those. However, you must admit that the only reason not having Smith "makes the difference" is that Powe and KG are both injured. Had either one of them been healthy, I wouldn't be making this post. If the Celtics have KG, Powe, BBD, Perk, and Scal all healthy, there's a good chance Joe Smith isn't a difference maker.

I was always a "Joe Smith is way better than Mikki Moore" guy, but I was also a "calm down guys, remember we're only talking about Joe Smith" guy. So I know that with the 12-man roster we have now, we could really use Joe Smith, and that's the point I made in the op. But I still maintain that if the Celtics were completely healthy, no one would be talking about Danny blowing a chance to sign Joe Smith.


By saying all I've said about Joe Smith, I did not mean to make it seem like I thought Danny could have signed him. Different people have different opinions about that, but I actually don't have one. For the sake of argument, my posts have simply been made under the assumption that Boston could have signed Smith. I don't pretend to know whether they actually could have.

[Toine43]

Around the time that the Celtics signed Mikki Moore, I followed the conversation on this board closely, and there was a lot of discussion about how the Celtics should have gone about pursuing an extra big man for the bench. The major question was whether Boston could have landed Joe Smith had they played their cards better, or if he was headed to Cleveland no matter what. I don't think anyone really knows the answer to that question.

There were a lot of disagreements and arguments between posters at the time about this particular topic; in fact, I can only remember one thing that almost every poster agreed upon: The difference between Mikki Moore and Joe Smith will not make or break this team's season. Both players would be added bonuses to what is already a great team, so we should not worry too much about getting one or the other.

Everyone agreed with that last statement. Sure, we'd spend 10+ pages of posts talking about it, because there wasn't much else to talk about, but at the end of the day everyone agreed that this wasn't basketball life or death. And about 2 months later as game 6 mercifully came to an end, and the Celtics had fallen for the second time to Chicago in multiple overtime periods, that's why I found the Celtics' situation so ironic. The Celtics NEEDED Joe Smith, [dang]it! That's all they needed. One more playable big, and that series goes from a 7-game heart wrencher to, well, a 5-game heart-wrencher.

It's probably more of an insult to Mikki's performance so far than a compliment to Joe Smith, but I'd feel a lot better about the Celtics' chances against Orlando if Boston had gotten their hands on the latter instead of the former.

There is a ton of revisionist history (a favorite of posers here) going on here - joe smith was not available. He was not being bought out, they went with mikki b/c mikki was the only option at the time. People say Joe "wanted" to come here but there was never any place where I saw him say that. Then he was used in a trade to get OK City a young big man but the physical was blown so that got reversed. Then Ben Wallace broke his leg and Cleveland needed a big man - Joe Smith and his agent then asked for a buy out. He knew the C's wanted him for ohhh probably 6 weeks and I am sure KG (if I can make an assumption of my own) made contact with someone he considers a good friend to ask him to come...and still Smith never asked for a buyout. He wasnt coming to boston, all verifiable signs point to that.

As far as chicago series goes. It would always be nice to have another big body but to say that having him ends the series earlier is impossible to prove. What we all know is that if PP hits the non pressure ft in game one (he hit the pressure one to tie the game with 2 seconds left, there is a lot less pressure when the options is hit to win, miss and you have 5 more minutes at home)or if PP and ray dont miss fts + Rondo going ofer at the line with a chance to put us up 13 followed by TA missing two layups and keeping the bulls alive...you could go on and on about things that you could reasonable expect this team to accomplish on a regular basis that prevent them from finishing off the bulls. But posturing that your knowledge of Joe Smiths importance, even when there was no way to get him here, relative to finishing out or round 1 series is at best a weak correlation but in the scope of things not ironic.

If you look at the portion of my last post under the horizontal rule, you'll see that the last thing I'm trying to do is attempting to revise history.

There were many ways that the Celtics could have won the games that they lost against the Bulls, but fact remains that they didn't, and I think it's fair to say that they probably would have with Joe Smith on the roster. The Bulls bench destroyed the Celtics bench in all games but game 7, and at the end of games 4 and 6 Boston just didn't have the personnel to be able to outlast the Bulls in OT.



In the future I'd ask that you attack my argument but not me. I don't like being called a poser.

[nickagneta]

My opinion then is no different than it is now. That being that Joe Smith and his agent were posturing putting out their love for Boston more for what they might need to get done this off season and not so much for what they wanted to do this season.

Smith is a lot of things but dumb is not one of them. He's a very intelligent guy. He knew that the best chance of him winning a title this year was to return to Cleveland where he was already acclimated with the system and coaches and players. That's where he wanted to go, THIS YEAR.

But he is a free agent at the end of the season and he also knows he is not in Cleveland's long term plans as they have already sent him packing once. Saying that he liked Boston and would like playing here was more to let Boston know that he might want to come here next season as Boston is going to be needing some veteran big man help in the future for what will be the last 2 years or so of the Big Three window.

Joe might think that the best chance of him winning a title in the future might be in Boston. So he makes public his love of the idea of someday playing in Boston but makes sure he manipulates the situation so as to go to Cleveland this year. Joe Smith was in no way , shape or form coming to Boston this season.

That said, Danny could have been more patient and seen who else was going to shake free from the tree of buyouts before committing to the Mikki Moore signing. Of course there was a lot of deals going down between the Maloofs and Danny this season and maybe, conspiracy theory forthcoming, Boston did those deals and sent Sactown all that cash so that they would buyout Moore and the C's could get him in the open market with all this being made known to Moore's agent ahead of time. It would have circumvented the salary cap and gotten Moore here with both teams saving cash rather than having to trade for him in a trade.

Who knows?

But Moore is here and hopefully Doc can use him sporadically for a minute or two here and there to help the team because like Tony Allen, his value on the court is maximized by using him in short stretches and not leaving him out there for long periods of time.

[CoachBo]

There were a lot of disagreements and arguments between posters at the time about this particular topic; in fact, I can only remember one thing that almost every poster agreed upon: The difference between Mikki Moore and Joe Smith will not make or break this team's season. Both players would be added bonuses to what is already a great team, so we should not worry too much about getting one or the other.

I'll disagree with this.  A few of us -- myself, cordobes, etc. -- argued that Joe Smith was a difference maker, and Mikki Moore was no better than our 5th best big man, who added very little other than depth. 

That's why a few of us argued so vigorously that Danny should have waited before signing Mikki; there was really no reason to sign him so early, because the difference between signing him, and signing nobody, wasn't really that big.  The opportunity cost of passing on Smith (and then Gooden) wasn't worth the very, very small upgrade we got from Mikki.

So yeah, a couple months later, Mikki Moore is terrible, and Joe Smith is contributing for a contender.  This shouldn't surprise people, but based on the conversations at the time, I'm sure it does.

Which was back in the time when Danny was still unbeaten as a GM, Joe Smith was overrated, Mikki Moore was a defensive mastermind and Marbury was an all-star.

Oops, eh?

[connerhenry43]

whether he had joe smith or mikki moore, the road to a title became very, very bumpy when kg went down. joe smith is better than MM, but the loss of KG is, unfortunately, going to be what ended the 2009 season, not which bench player we got a few months back.

[get_banners]

well, yeah, joe smith would have been a much better option. we kind of all knew that back then. but...i can't say for certain, but based on all his comments, his only intention was to go to cleveland. the boston love was just talk. so, had we waited on joe smith possibly being released back then, if and when he came loose, he'd sign with cleveland. moore would have signed elsewhere, and we might have been stuck with 3 bigs in our entire freaking rotation (perk, baby, scal). at least moore gave us some minutes during the season, even though they weren't that good. i think he can contribute something, but he just needs to stop the stupid fouls and learn how to take a charge. but yeah, if we waited on smith, we would've been burned worse...because we would have landed nobody.

[PosImpos]

My opinion then is no different than it is now. That being that Joe Smith and his agent were posturing putting out their love for Boston more for what they might need to get done this off season and not so much for what they wanted to do this season.

Smith is a lot of things but dumb is not one of them. He's a very intelligent guy. He knew that the best chance of him winning a title this year was to return to Cleveland where he was already acclimated with the system and coaches and players. That's where he wanted to go, THIS YEAR.

But he is a free agent at the end of the season and he also knows he is not in Cleveland's long term plans as they have already sent him packing once. Saying that he liked Boston and would like playing here was more to let Boston know that he might want to come here next season as Boston is going to be needing some veteran big man help in the future for what will be the last 2 years or so of the Big Three window.

Joe might think that the best chance of him winning a title in the future might be in Boston. So he makes public his love of the idea of someday playing in Boston but makes sure he manipulates the situation so as to go to Cleveland this year. Joe Smith was in no way , shape or form coming to Boston this season.

That's an interesting take on the situation, I could totally see that being the case.