BASKETBALL NOTES

Far from beasts of the East

Despite trade, Celtics still lack ingredients

By Peter May | July 8, 2007

"I think we can win the East next year." -- Danny Ainge

Did I miss the trade for Kevin Garnett or Amare Stoudemire? Did I miss the hiring of the new coach? Did I miss the change in ownership? The Celtics, who've won 57 games the last two years -- or four more than the Pistons won last season -- are now equipped to get to the NBA Finals, because they've acquired Ray Allen?

It's amazing to me how Ainge, Doc Rivers, and the owners have tried incessantly over the past few months to make the Celtics out to be something that, at least on paper, they patently were not. Some people buy the theory. Most people, if my e-mail is any judge, do not.

The theory goes that the Celtics were really, as Ainge put it last week to colleague Dan Shaughnessy, a 36-40-win team before all the injuries set in. The owners have said the same thing. So has Rivers. They're certainly entitled to their opinion, but some of the facts are these:

The Celtics were a sub-.500 team playing the easiest schedule in the NBA when Paul Pierce went down.

They proceeded to go on a franchise-record losing streak in part because all of the supposed great young talent Ainge had accumulated did not and could not win games. The coach couldn't figure out how to do it, either.

They were indifferent, at best, to the concept of defense.

Could they have made the playoffs had Pierce stayed healthy? That remains an unanswerable question, but I can tell you without question that very few people outside of Boston believed the Celtics, fully healthy, were a playoff team. I can tell you that some people within the organization felt the team was nowhere close to being a playoff team.

But now, after a 24-win season and the acquisition of a soon-to-be-32-year-old shooting guard -- whose scoring average pretty much was the same as the two players Boston sent away in the deal -- the Celtics can win the Eastern Conference? With their current roster? How can they have leapfrogged 14 teams, including Miami, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, New Jersey, etc.?

The arrival of Allen indisputably gives Pierce the best cohort he has had in several years. He will help balance the scoring load -- or he should -- but scoring was the least of the Celtics' problems last season. How does the arrival of Allen help in the areas in which the team was so deficient last season -- defense and rebounding to name a couple. How has the arrival of Allen helped the point guard position?

I was all for dealing the fifth overall pick, but if I had had to draw up a list of 10 guys, I don't think Allen's name would have been on it. Why did this team need another scorer? I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I would have dealt the pick for Andrei Kirilenko because he gives the Celtics something they sorely lack. Very few people liked that idea. I'd still do it. He's 26. He's not happy in Utah. He needs a fresh start. He can guard people. He can block shots. He could be an All-Star in the East.

And, yes, we have to acknowledge that the East is so bad Ainge could make those comments without a laugh track. When Cleveland made the Finals, 14 teams in the East looked in the mirror and said, 'Whoa, that could have been us.' Didn't the Celtics beat them in Boston late in the season when the Cavaliers needed the game a lot more than Boston did? (OK, LeBron James didn't play.) Didn't the Celtics lead them by 25 points in the third quarter in a game early last season in Cleveland? (OK, they lost, but you get the picture.)

The Cavs were not a very deep or particularly strong team and Western Conference observers felt Cleveland would have had to fight for a playoff berth in the senior conference. But Cleveland got where it did in large part because it became a decent defensive team and a terrific rebounding team. Everyone looks at the players beyond LeBron and sees almost uniform mediocrity. And while the Cavs' offense was painful to watch, their defense and rebounding were among the best in the league. That's how they made it.

I was talking to a veteran assistant coach about the Allen trade last week and his observation was particularly telling. He said that while he liked Allen a lot, it really didn't matter who the Celtics brought in because no one in the organization pays any serious attention to defense. And, he added, until that changes, the team will continue to struggle. He's far from alone in that sentiment.

Moving on after a Magic spell?

Whither Darko?

With the Orlando Magic opening the vault for Rashard Lewis, one of the casualties of the deal appears to be the jettisoning of Darko Milicic. The Magic had to renounce Milicic and make him an unrestricted free agent to be able to sign Lewis to such a large deal. Orlando general manager Otis "My Man" Smith says the team still would like to see if it can re-sign Milicic, but Milicic's agent, Marc Cornstein, did not sound like that was a possibility. Cornstein feels the Magic lied to him, reneged on an earlier deal, and basically conducted themselves in an underhanded and deceitful manner.

Other than that, everything was totally above board. But Cornstein now has a 7-foot, 22-year-old center who is on the open market. With so few teams having much salary cap space, the best Milicic is likely to get is the midlevel exception, worth around $5.5 million. But he could sign a three-year deal and then hit free agency again in 2010 as a 25-year-old with seven years under his belt.

You have to think more than a few teams would want to at least see what Milicic has to offer. He had some moments in Orlando last season (a 14-point, 16-rebound, 5-block gem against the Bulls in February, for example) but he ended up averaging only 8 points and 5.5 rebounds a game. However, he played only 23.9 minutes a game. I tried to reach Cornstein last week, but, according to his wife, Natasha, her husband was "swamped." Something tells me that Milicic won't have any trouble finding a home next season. Something also tells me it won't be in Orlando.

We'll see what happens in Vegas with game's newest stars

Las Vegas will be the place to see many of the top rookies for the next week or so.

Seven of the first eight picks and 11 of the 14 lottery picks in last month's draft are playing for their summer league teams in the mammoth enterprise. The only lottery picks who won't be there are Al Horford, Joakim Noah, and Acie Law. That's because Atlanta (Horford, Law) and Chicago (Noah) do not have teams in the tournament.

Greg Oden (who played against the Celtics Friday night) already has been given permission to miss a game this week so he can be in Los Angeles for the taping of the ESPY Awards. (Hey, first things first.) But he is expected to be back to play against Seattle and Kevin Durant a week from today.

Twenty-one of the 30 NBA teams have fielded squads and there also is the Chinese national team, for which Yi Jianlian is playing (as opposed to the Milwaukee Bucks' entry). Las Vegas has turned out to be the NBA's summer home, not only for the Summer League, but also for USA Basketball, which will have a brief training camp July 20-22 before reassembling next month in preparation for an Olympic qualifying tournament, also being played in Vegas.

Oden and Durant might well claim Nevada residence this year, as they have been invited to participate in the Olympic practice sessions and conceivably could be back for the second round of training sessions next month.

Etc.

It figures
Although teams have been negotiating with players and agreeing to deals, nothing official can be announced until Wednesday. That's when the 10-day moratorium on signings is scheduled to expire. It's also when the NBA is scheduled to release the salary cap for 2007-08 and, more important to many teams, what the luxury tax threshold will be. The latter figure may in turn reopen some trade talks as teams try to get under the threshold to avoid paying the dollar-for-dollar tax. Or, as the Knicks see it, the cost of doing business.

Walker's legacy
Former Providence College star Jimmy Walker was known for being the father of NBA player Jalen Rose. But he also was father of at least four other children -- Brian Grant, Sonia Harrison, Sonya Malloy, and Steven Malloy. According to Sonya Malloy, all are older than Rose (who is 34) and all but Harrison, who lives in Florida, are in the Greater Boston area. Wrote Sonya Malloy by e-mail, "It was very sad to hear of his passing, but as always God will continue to bless his children."

Summer jobs
It's always fun to search the Summer League rosters for familiar names. The most surprising may be that of Lamond Murray, who is one of a handful of eyebrow-raisers on the Nuggets' roster. The others: DaJuan Wagner, Will Blalock, and the player the Nuggets picked over Amare Stoudemire a few years back, Nikoloz Tskitishvili. Old reliable Randy Livingston (he's 32) is on the Bucks' roster, while Milt Palacio is scheduled to play for the Hornets and George Karl's son, Coby, is on the Lakers' roster. Former Celtic (for a spell, anyway) Kevinn Pinkney is playing for the Wizards, while Marcus Banks, who dazzled in Summer League before his first year in Boston, is on the Suns' roster (as he was during the 2006-07 regular season, in case you forgot).

If it ain't broke . . .

It sure looks like the Spurs of next season will look a lot like the Spurs of this past season. Matt Bonner of Concord, N.H., and Jacque Vaughn re-upped with the defending champions; the deal for Bonner may be worth as much as $9 million over three years. With Fabricio Oberto, who opted out of the final year of his deal, expected to return as a free agent, it means the San Antonio roster of 2007-08 will be almost identical to that of 2006-07. The one possible change: Melvin Ely, acquired during the season in an inactive-list-for-inactive-list trade, is not under contract for next season. The big change for the Spurs will come after next season, as Brent Barry, Bruce Bowen, Francisco Elson, Michael Finley, Robert Horry, and Beno Udrih all are in the final year of their contracts.

Fishing for a new team

Derek Fisher left $21 million on the table when he decided to leave the Jazz to hopefully join a team in a city that has the eye-care facilities his daughter needs. Fisher has always been a class act on and off the court and this was merely the latest example. He'd be a great fit on the Celtics (and Boston certainly has the requisite medical facilities) but he may opt to return to the Lakers, for whom he was a big part of their three most recent championship teams. The Jazz can now divert the money they were to have paid Fisher into Deron Williams's direct-deposit account. Williams is eligible to sign a contract extension after next season and, if he keeps improving, the new deal will have a lot of years and a lot of zeros.

Financial security

Ryan Gomes and Allan Ray are now assured of guaranteed money next season, according to information from the NBA Players Association. Gomes's third year was not guaranteed but if he was on the roster July 1, 2007, the year became fully guaranteed. Given the way Gomes has performed, that was never really a big decision. And, by NBA standards, he's making short money ($770,610). Ray was pretty much in the same category. If he had been waived by June 30, the second year of his two-year deal would have been voided. But he now will receive $687,456 this season. Leon Powe, meanwhile, is a step closer to getting the full $687,456 for the second year, but he still has work to do. He gets $150,000 for being on the roster as of July 1 and that figure will increase to $200,000 if he's on the roster Oct. 1. But he didn't meet the contractual criteria to guarantee a deal for all of 2007-08; he had to make the All-Rookie team or have his points, rebounds, and assists averages total 14. They totaled 7.8. In other words, his roster spot for the entire season is anything but secure.

Peter May can be reached at p_may@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.

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