Before the ink dried on the KG trade contract, sports fans and journalists began to question the merits of this goliath move by Boston and Minnesota.  There is no question that in my mind that Boston overpaid for Kevin Garnett, but it brings up an age old question.  It is the same question the Lakers have been faced with since the departure of Shaquille O’Neal and it is a question that every franchise will face at some time in their future.  Should you build for the future by developing young players or should you try to win now by trading for high priced free agents? 

Danny Ainge is being criticized for trading away Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, and two first round draft picks.  No one really cares about his trade of Theo Ratliff or Sebastian Telfair, but overall this trade was brilliant.  Ainge has been a terrible GM up to this point.  Some of his draft picks and trades have been very questionable, but he had amassed some very good young talent.  Al Jefferson is capable of a double double every night and is a wonderful talent along with Gerald Green.  Ryan Gomes also added depth to the Celtics bench, but the simple fact is that Boston was not winning with these guys.  By trading for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, the Celtics are guaranteed to win more games than they have in the past five years while they were developing all of that young talent.  The name of the game is winning.  If you lose as a coach or GM, then eventually you will be fired.  The Celtics are now very relevant in the East and they will win more games.

The Timberwolves are now loaded with young talent, but will they win in the West? They have lost Kevin Garnett which was bound to happen after this year anyway, so Kevin McHale did a masterful job of swindling Danny Ainge into giving him essentially an entire team for one player.  McHale now has enough pieces to trade for a Shawn Merriman or another free agent in the future.  One would assume they will let Ratliff go and Telfair’s days are numbered.  With two more draft picks the Timberwolves are in a great position for rebuilding, which is something they had to do once KG departed.  The problem is that McHale wasn’t winning in the West with KG and the players he received from Boston were not winning in the East with Pierce.  What makes anyone think that the T'Wolves will win with this Celtic team minus Pierce in the West?  Still, for McHale it appears to be the best he could get for KG from anyone.

The first knock against the Celtic GM is that the players he acquired, Garnett, Pierce, and Allen, are aging while Jefferson, Gomes, and Green are all very young.  Kobe and Iverson are also aging, but wouldn’t you trade for one of those guys if they were available.  Mitch Kupchak took a lot of heat for not pursuing an aging Jason Kidd, but the fact is that superstars tend to stick around longer than young talent that never develops.  Garnett, Allen, and Pierce are not that old and Ainge now has 5 years to develop more raw talent or trade for new players in the future. 

The second problem some have with this trio is that their combined salary is  around 60 million and that leaves very little room to work with under the cap.  To me this is a moot point, because teams like New York and Dallas spend well over the salary cap.   Their payrolls are the two largest at 89 and 83 million respectively.  Spending more does not guarantee a playoff spot, (Just ask the biggest spender of all, Isiah Thomas, and let's see what it brought him), but for the Celtics if they open up the checkbook and bring in a few roll players this team should be very good. 

So do you win now or win later?  It all depends on your team and your situation.  Boston needed to win now and it appears they will.  Minnesota, because of the eventual loss of Garnett, needed to rebuild which means they will win later.  Without the trade both GMs would be on the hot seat this year, but now both will get a temporary reprieve.  Boston overpaid for KG which makes McHale look brilliant, a hard thing to do these days, and Ainge pulled off acquiring two superstars.  The Celtics will win more games in the East than they did last year and they should make the playoffs where they will have a chance to advance.  Winning will put fans in the seats, sell more merchandise, and cure all that ails this once proud franchise. I say it was a Win-Win for both teams. 

SoCalSportsFan

*The Boston Red Sox did not win a World Series until they finally opened up their pocket books and started spending like the Yankees.  It also appears they are well on their way to winning another title, but they had to spend 100 million on Dice-K to get there, and they are still spending like mad picking up Eric Gagne.  Sometimes, spending does  equal wins.*

Edhardiman wrote an excellent post this morning basically trashing Schilling for his rants on Barry Bonds.  I'm not sure why Schilling can't leave Barry alone, but me thinks he loves being in the spotlight.  He can't pitch right now being on the DL, so his only way into the news is to say something controversial, at least it is controversial to me.  I won't try to tear apart all the hypocrisy in what Curt said, but there is one point that I think no one has addressed that I shall try to set the record straight upon.

Schilling says that you or I would sue someone if they made false allegations against us.  This is purely not true.  Let me elaborate on the reasons why you would not do this, especially if you are in Barry's position.

• If you are in already under investigation, the one thing you do not want to do is bring more attention to yourself by suing someone on the prosecution's witness list.  That would look malicious and give the witness credibility.  It would give Bell sympathy in the court of public opinion because Barry is already the bad guy.
• What is there to gain?  Some would argue that by suing someone for false and misleading information you can set the record straight.  No one believes Bonds right now, so why would they believe him if he sued her and won? 
• Then there is the issue of monetary gain.  Many lawsuits by celebrities against the "rag" magazines like Enquirer have huge punitive damages attached to discourage those editors.  The celebrities know that these magazines have deep pockets, but in Barry's case, Kim Bell does not have anything he can go after.  In the end, he would probably win a libel or slander suit against her but end up owing court costs with nothing to gain.  His good name can not be restored by winning any lawsuit and certainly he will not win a huge award from her.
• Barry is busy trying to break "THE RECORD" in baseball, and distractions like a lawsuit can take a backseat at this time.
• Lastly, you only sue i fyou can win.  In order to win, Barry would have to prove what Kimberly Bell said was untrue.  That is being decided in his grand jury investigation right now.  If they can't figure it out in the two years they have been balking over it, what makes anyone think a jury trial would proceed any faster. 

In this life, when someone who doesn't matter talks bad about you the thing to do is to ignore them.  That is what Barry is doing to Kim Bell.  Giving people like Bell the time of day feeds their need for attention.  Barry is wise to leave his ex-mistress alone.  Sometimes taking no action is the best course of action there is.  If we would all do as Schilling says and sue anyone for saying something untrue, then there would already be half a dozen lawsuits on this blog site.  I read false accusations every day.  Let's see Schilling  sue everyone for saying his bloody sock was a fake.  It won't happen because he knows he can't win against someone like you o rme.  His comment that we would sue is just like many of his other statements, pure fiction.

SoCalSportsFan

Remember last season when Johnny Damon said that he wanted to stay with the Red Sox?  Well we saw what happened when George Steinbrenner opened his pocket book and soon Damon was swayed.  Will the same thing happen to Curt SChilling?  He says no, but then again why should we believe him.  The Red Sox spent 50 million just to talk to the new Japanese pitcher and then signed him for another 50 million.  That is a 100 million for one pitcher.  Don't forget they also just signed J. D. Drew for 70 million and they still have Manny on the payroll for 17.5 million a year.  I really don't think they are going to pony up for Curt, but I bet George will.  So who thinks he will go to the Yankees?

I do.  His denial was like a giant wake up slap in the face to George.  What Curt is really saying is, "George, if you open that pocket book up wide enough I will wear the pinstripes along side of Andy Pettite."  Do you think George was listening?  We shall see.

SoCalSportsFan

“Sports” is all about the rules.  I remember as a child when we would go across to the ball park and play a game, you first had to establish the house rules.  Without rules it would be chaos, but as long as there has been a competition athletes have been trying to skirt the rules in order to gain an edge.  Is this right?  Of course not, but it is a natural part of the game.  Scuffing balls by pitchers, using corked bats, steroids, and who knows what else maybe illegal in the near future.  Where is the line drawn between enhancement of performance and what is cheating.  We all know about the steroids which are banned, although many still consider the fact that they were not banned until 2003 and were not even tested for until 2004 irrelevant, I am going to focus on external enhancements in this post.

There is a player by the name of Brian Roberts who up until last year had a career .255 average.  He had hit as low as .227 and as high as .273 and then last year he magically jumped to .314.  What was the secret to his hitting success?  Roberts is one of the first to use a new type of contact lens designed by Bausch and Lomb and marketed by Nike to aid a batter by helping him to see the seams on a fastball sooner.  (Ken Griffey Jr., Mike Timlin, and Danny Almonte also used them.)  The lenses are red and when on your eyes make you look a bit like a demon, but they filter out certain shades to allow you to see the seams on a fastball.  The idea is that if a batter can pick up the ball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand he will be able to follow it sooner and react to it more quickly than he otherwise would be able to do.  Does it work?  Well of the players who used them, they all agree they can see the ball sooner and they had improved batting averages.  These lenses are not only for baseball players but Bausch and Lomb are making them for golfers too so that they can read greens better.  Justin Leonard says he can now see every blade of grass on the greens.  Is this a fair enhancement for batters?  What if these are outlawed in the near future?  Would that mean you have to throw out Brian Roberts accomplishments from the record books?  Would his stats be tainted?  Where do we draw the line on personal enhancement tools?  Are nightvision goggles soon to be allowed.?

How about batting armor?  I have to say that I think all the padding that players are allowed to wear gives these batters a mental edge when they step up into the plate.  The old school pitchers would throw in very close to move batters off the plate.  This was their defense.  Today with the array of pads some batters choose to wear, i.e. Barry Bonds, pitchers have lost that advantage.  This brings me to another point, the mental advantage!

A large part of any game is mental.  Many physicists have written papers to prove a corked bat does very little to enhance the swing speed of a bat.  So how does it help?  The consensus is that it gives them a boost in confidence while they are at the plate.  Confidence can do strange things to a player.  When I was in HS and I was confident, I could drain long range basket after long range basket, (There was no three point line when I played and I am still bitter about that!)  PGA golfers who have confidence say the cup looks like a huge hole in the ground when they putt.  So how does this apply to enhancements?  What about the sports psychologists that many pitchers bring to the games to help them perform?  You say you don’t believe that is relevant.  Ask the players that employ these guys.  Players are by and large a very superstitious lot.  They go through the same routines before games, wear hats that have not been washed in years and even dirty socks that are lucky.  The mind is a powerful tool and learning to harness its positive vibes gives players an advantage.

Lastly, I can not end this post without mentioning my personal favorite, cortisone shots.  Cortisone is a steroid that is derived from cortisol which is produced in the adrenal glands during moments of high stress.  It aids in the healing process and is used in pain injections for athletes.  Who can forget Curt Schillings performance during the World Series?  There is no way he could pitch without a performance enhancing shot into his ankle.  Should this be legal?  In my book it is a performance enhancing injection and should not be allowed. 

Just some thoughts about where is the line drawn.  We all know about the lines in taking banned substances, although new substances are added all the time as we develop new enhancements.  I still think Raffy tested positive because of all the Viagra in his system, and rumor has it that it did help his BAT.