He had nearly five million dollars locked up on players that did not contribute: Marbury, Moore, Walker, Pruitt, Giddens, Allen, and O'Bryant. It would have made more sense to spend that five million on one player who could get it done. Instead, we saw a multitude of scrubs.
We couldn't just spend the combined salaries of those players. Of the above listed players, only Marbury and Walker were signed using the MLE. The rest were signed using exceptions: Moore - minimum salary; Pruitt - already under contract; Giddens - rookie scale; Allen - Bird rights; O'Bryant - minimum salary (despite erroneous reports to the contrary).
Overall, though, I agree that the team wasted a lot of money last season on players that didn't produce. The Tony Allen example, of course, is the best one; we could have had a player who is just as good (Quinton Ross) for the minimum.
I never understood the Tony Allen signing - Tony's complete failure this season makes me feel a helluva lot better about my own intelligence, because it was COMPLETELY expected! He's a bad player with ongoing offcourt issues who still plays like a rookie in his first Summer League game.
Ross is one that might have been a better fit; I was floored when Phoenix snagged Matt Barnes at the vet min. Not a great player, but tough, energetic, good defender, not a bad 3-pt shooter, and cheaper! Wouldn't have ultimately made any difference, though.
Probably wouldn't have been able to sign Joe Smith anyway, but I guess there was no need to rush the Mikki Moore signing...
Overall, it was just kind of a chintzy offseason. If we had Pose and PJ Brown, I think we probably could have gotten by Orlando - but I can't see how we would have gotten past Cleveland. It would have been five or six tough-fought games, but it would have been five or six tough games with us disappointed after four of them. Given how much better Cleveland looks this year, I'm not sure how the '07 - '08 Celtics, fully healthy, would have fared versus the '08 - '09 Cavs.
