"Red should of traded Bird+Co early, thats why we stunk yrs after"? #35 content

[nickagneta]

I have always likened the loss of Lewis and Bias to this:

Would the Chicago Bulls ever have become what they were in the 1990's if Michael Jordan overdosed on cocaine the night he was drafted and Scottie Pippen died after playing his 6th season?

I think the answer is rather easy.

As for those claiming that the Celtics should have rebounded sooner, I have three things to say. The Celtics never got salary cap relief for Reggie Lewis' death. They lost the Tim Duncan sweepstakes. And the Celtics were foolish enough to hire Rick Pitino to run the whole show. So yes, they should have been better sooner but a horrible decision by Stern, some bad lottery luck and a God awful hire of a President/GM/Coach combined that didn't know the intricacies of the CBA and was too prideful to adapt his game from college to pro also severely hurt the turnaround of the Celtics after those deaths.

[Celtics4ever]

We would have rebounded earlier without Pitino too.   He gave away Billups and Johnson for peanuts.   Filled our roster with KY flunkies like Mercer and McCarty and duds like Travis Knight and Potapenko.   Pitino was a huge reason it took so long he clung to his college system which struggled in the pros because he could not draft people for it.

Reasons we did not bounce back quickly:
1) Bias - Was a better player than Jordan, period.
2)Lewis - We lost a a great player and no cap relief.
3) Pitino - Worse GM ever
4) Stern - Celtic Hater all those practice draws on Duncan lottery.

[feckless]

We would have rebounded earlier without Pitino too.   He gave away Billups and Johnson for peanuts.   Filled our roster with KY flunkies like Mercer and McCarty and duds like Travis Knight and Potapenko.   Pitino was a huge reason it took so long he clung to his college system which struggled in the pros because he could not draft people for it.

Reasons we did not bounce back quickly:
1) Bias - Was a better player than Jordan, period.
2)Lewis - We lost a a great player and no cap relief.
3) Pitino - Worse GM ever
4) Stern - Celtic Hater all those practice draws on Duncan lottery.

Let's hope this inexperienced college coach works out better than our last one...or is Danny tanking and taking no chances?

[Celtics4ever]

Pintino the GM is what killed us more so than the coach.  Terrible personnel decisions that set us back year, Brad had DA at the GM helm, I think we will be ok.   He needs to to worry about X's and O's not personnel.

[More Banners]

Good points all around.

My confusion/annoyance with that sentiment was that because Danny told Red 18 years ago that he would have traded Bird etc that for some reason Danny had to take that comment to the grave regarding Pierce and KG.

Also aside from losing those 2 not getting any financial relief and continuing to be penalized after Reggies passing certainly added the insult to injury

Nah, the insult added to injury was Brian Shaw.

Bird on the outs, McHale hobbled, Bias not there, and then Brian Shaw refuses to play, goes to Italy, signs a deal, refuses to play anyway, ultimately forcing a trade to Orlando where he gets to be half of "Shaw/Shaq Redemption."

Imagine Shaw's shooting in the 90's along WITH Bias and Lewis; the floor would've been wide open.

And with Bird and McHale playing supporting roles in '90,
91, and 92, I suspect a couple more Finals appearances, at least.

[Mazingerz]

So who were the better players during our dark ages? Dino Radja was one of the better players then, Toine Toine also.

[gar]

Loosing Len Bias and Reggie Lewis was devastating - tragic loses both. That hurt us far more than keeping Bird and McHale. Remember feeling sick to my stomach for a week after Reggie Lewis died.

[Boris Badenov]

Good points all around.

My confusion/annoyance with that sentiment was that because Danny told Red 18 years ago that he would have traded Bird etc that for some reason Danny had to take that comment to the grave regarding Pierce and KG.

Also aside from losing those 2 not getting any financial relief and continuing to be penalized after Reggies passing certainly added the insult to injury

Nah, the insult added to injury was Brian Shaw.

Bird on the outs, McHale hobbled, Bias not there, and then Brian Shaw refuses to play, goes to Italy, signs a deal, refuses to play anyway, ultimately forcing a trade to Orlando where he gets to be half of "Shaw/Shaq Redemption."

Imagine Shaw's shooting in the 90's along WITH Bias and Lewis; the floor would've been wide open.

And with Bird and McHale playing supporting roles in '90,
91, and 92, I suspect a couple more Finals appearances, at least.

Interesting to also think, though, about the team we might have had if Red had pursued those rumored deals of LB for Person and McHale for Schrempf/Perkins.

Shaw/Brown
Lewis/Ainge
Bias/Person
Schrempf/Perkins
Parish/Perkins

If Bias ended up being a franchise player like people thought, that is a team that could have done some damage for another 5-10 years.

I would have been devastated of course to see Bird go, and wouldn't say I am in favor of doing that. It's just another version of the alternate history that's interesting to ponder...

[slamtheking]

Good points all around.

My confusion/annoyance with that sentiment was that because Danny told Red 18 years ago that he would have traded Bird etc that for some reason Danny had to take that comment to the grave regarding Pierce and KG.

Also aside from losing those 2 not getting any financial relief and continuing to be penalized after Reggies passing certainly added the insult to injury

Nah, the insult added to injury was Brian Shaw.

Bird on the outs, McHale hobbled, Bias not there, and then Brian Shaw refuses to play, goes to Italy, signs a deal, refuses to play anyway, ultimately forcing a trade to Orlando where he gets to be half of "Shaw/Shaq Redemption."

Imagine Shaw's shooting in the 90's along WITH Bias and Lewis; the floor would've been wide open.

And with Bird and McHale playing supporting roles in '90,
91, and 92, I suspect a couple more Finals appearances, at least.

first off, Shaw was traded to Miami, not Orlando. 

second, he couldn't shoot worth a [dang].  his offense was primarily driving to the basket. 

[freshinthehouse]

Also aside from losing those 2 not getting any financial relief and continuing to be penalized after Reggies passing certainly added the insult to injury

this is another point that's often forgotten.  That ruling by the NBA screwed the C's for years after Reggie passed.  there was no logical or business excuse for it except an opportunity to screw over the Celtics organization

I actually think the league would have made the same ruling no matter which team was involved.  The Celtics basically petitioned the NBA to make an exception to salary cap rules in their case and the league said there would be no exceptions.

Agreed.  A lot of Celtics fans like to gripe about this, but the C's got treated like any other team in that spot would have.  It was the rule in place, and when they ended up changing the rule, we were able to drop Lewis' contract off the books.  People forget we had cap room in 94-95.  We just decided to spend it on Dominique and Pervis Ellison.

[freshinthehouse]

Nah, the insult added to injury was Brian Shaw.

Bird on the outs, McHale hobbled, Bias not there, and then Brian Shaw refuses to play, goes to Italy, signs a deal, refuses to play anyway, ultimately forcing a trade to Orlando where he gets to be half of "Shaw/Shaq Redemption."

Imagine Shaw's shooting in the 90's along WITH Bias and Lewis; the floor would've been wide open.

And with Bird and McHale playing supporting roles in '90,
91, and 92, I suspect a couple more Finals appearances, at least.

Shaw played here for 2-3 years.  Dude was nothing special.  There's a reason he was pretty much a career backup.

[Celtics4ever]

Shaw didn't kill us at all.   I didn't like seeing him playing overseas instead of for us but dude was not a Hall of Famer or anything.   That being said, I did not want to see him as our coach, period after what he did.

Imagine Shaw's shooting in the 90's along WITH Bias and Lewis; the floor would've been wide open.

Shaw was a poor shooter.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/shawbr01.html

.40% FG and .30 % 3p for his career.   

[Edited.] He was a below average player and a poor shooter.

====================================

Please watch your tone.  -RH

[slamtheking]

Shaw didn't kill us at all.   I didn't like seeing him playing overseas instead of for us but dude was not a Hall of Famer or anything.   That being said, I did not want to see him as our coach, period after what he did.

Imagine Shaw's shooting in the 90's along WITH Bias and Lewis; the floor would've been wide open.

Shaw was a poor shooter.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/shawbr01.html

.40% FG and .30 % 3p for his career.   

agreed -- he never lived up to the hype.  rumor at the time was that the Lakers wanted him badly.  should have let them have him and we should have taken Elden Campbell instead of them taking him.  would have worked out much better for us -- not that Campbell was all that good but he was much more serviceable than Shaw ever was.

[CelticG1]

Also aside from losing those 2 not getting any financial relief and continuing to be penalized after Reggies passing certainly added the insult to injury

this is another point that's often forgotten.  That ruling by the NBA screwed the C's for years after Reggie passed.  there was no logical or business excuse for it except an opportunity to screw over the Celtics organization

I actually think the league would have made the same ruling no matter which team was involved.  The Celtics basically petitioned the NBA to make an exception to salary cap rules in their case and the league said there would be no exceptions.

Agreed.  A lot of Celtics fans like to gripe about this, but the C's got treated like any other team in that spot would have.  It was the rule in place, and when they ended up changing the rule, we were able to drop Lewis' contract off the books.  People forget we had cap room in 94-95.  We just decided to spend it on Dominique and Pervis Ellison.

I don't know about others but I just think it was a stupid rule (clearly the nba thought so to by changing it) regardless of what team was getting screwed.

So whether another team would have gotten just as screwed (which we will never know anyway) it still would have been an unfair stupid pointless rule

[Jon]

The deaths were a huge, huge blow.  By many accounts, Bias would have been even better than Lewis (an elite, elite superstar--one of the best in the NBA).  Adding him to the '86 title team (going into the '86-87 season), would have potentially been something for the ages.  Imagine what adding another star player to what arguably is the greatest team of all time could have done.  One also has to wonder if the Big Three would have held up longer had Bias been around to lighten the load (like would McHale have pushed through that ankle injury?). 

Also, that Red story is clearly a bunch of B.S. and Danny know it too.  If he really believed that, the Big Three would have been traded years ago. 

First and foremost, even in the late '80s/very early '90s, the Big Three weren't that old and the Celtics were still pretty darn good.  You don't go and blow up a contender so you can maybe get another contender later. 

Second, who exactly would they have landed?  There were rumblings of them acquiring Detlef Schrempf, Sam Perkins, and Chuck Persons.  All were certainly good NBA players.  But none of those guys were going to be the core of the next Celtic dynasty. 

Quite frankly, Red knew better than to trade one of the greatest players of all time for several good NBA players.  That never works out.  Look at what Wilt Chamberlain and Charles Barkley netted their former teams.  And while his gamble to try to win one more with Larry towards the end of his career didn't pan out, it's the smarter move to go for the title when you still have a chance than to trade that away in hopes that you might eventually contend again.  Because in almost every single instance, the future reward doesn't work out. 

So I am quite happy with what Ainge has done at this point.  We almost won another title in 2010.  I think 2011 with a healthy Shaq was the most talented team of the new Big Three era.  And in 2012, we almost made it back to the Finals.  While it didn't pan out, when you have a team like that, you don't deal it away for hopes of what might happen in the future.