The Boston Celtics acquire Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk from the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Joe Johnson, Randy Brown, Milt Palacio and a first-round pick
You will be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't like the Celtics' trading-deadline deal with Phoenix. They got two players who should contribute while giving up three who either didn't contribute or couldn't contribute. They also unloaded a draft pick they didn't really want and still have two first-rounders in 2003.
What's not to like about it?
Well, as our mothers all warned us, if something is too good to be true, there's probably a reason. On paper, the deal looks terrific, and, if all goes according to Hoyle, it will give the Celtics added depth and flexibility. Undeniably, it makes them a better team now than they were before.
But there are some things to bear in mind as the season winds down and (hopefully for them) the playoffs come into focus.
Let's start with Rodney Rogers. First of all, he will be a free agent, and unless there's some new TV deal we don't know about, or a clandestine expansion plan about to be implemented, or some team willing to take Vitaly Potapenko for a draft pick, there is little to no chance he will stay in Boston beyond this year.
The new NBA economics, not Rogers's ability, is the culprit. Owner Paul Gaston, like most of his peers, does not want to be a luxury-tax payer, and that means free agents are not in next year's budget. The nine players already under contract for 2002-03 are to receive around $52 million (Paul Pierce's numbers aren't set yet) - and that represents the luxury-tax threshold as best as can be projected. Anything over that results in a dollar-for-dollar payment to the league, which can run into millions.
So it's best not to fall hard for the intriguing Rogers. He's not the only free agent who is going to feel the luxury-tax pinch in Boston. You can include Erick Strickland and Mark Blount in that group as well.
The Celtics would love to re-sign the battling Strickland, who is playing for pennies on the dollar this season. (His bad. He opted out of a contract that guaranteed him $2.5 million.) Would he do so again next year? He may have no choice if he wants to stay here. It also will be interesting to see how he and Tony Delk are used. They have similar styles, and that could be viewed as duplicative down the road. Both are regarded as excellent defenders, 3-point threats, and tough cookies. The Celtics might well decide they need only one of them next season - and Delk is already under contract through 2006 at manageable numbers.
You also would not be cynical to wonder how much time and opportunity the new guys are going to get. As Jim O'Brien noted, this deal was done without disrupting his eight-man rotation. Whose time is Rogers going to get? We already have seen power forwards (Danny Fortson) who wasted away because Antoine Walker had that spot locked up. We have to assume that while Walker and Pierce may not keep logging big minutes (both are averaging 40-plus), they aren't going to turn into cameos. That will be O'Brien's challenge, and it may not be an easy one.
At forward, Rogers competes with Walker, Pierce, and Eric Williams for minutes. O'Brien loves all three of those guys. Williams is the toughest front-line defender they have. We may see times when Rogers will be spotted at center, but that will come at the expense of Tony Battie or Potapenko. So, in other words, we'll have to wait and see. Rogers averaged 25.1 minutes a game for Phoenix. He'll be hard pressed to match that in Boston, which might make him unhappy in a contract year.
Delk may well cut into Kenny Anderson's minutes (31 a game), and we can easily envision a Delk-Strickland backcourt down the stretch in close games. He may even be seen as the post-Anderson point guard, although he's your classic shooting guard in a point guard's body. Does Delk also eat into Kedrick Brown's minutes? The guess here is yes. The Celtics want to make the playoffs, and it's very hard to win with rookies.
Which leads us to Joe Johnson. Are we going to have to wait for the book to come out to find out what happened? Has anyone fallen harder and faster, other than Kenneth Lay? We had a Rookie of the Year candidate in November, a bench-warmer in January, and a goner in February.
Johnson's well-documented laid-back disposition might well have been his undoing, but that was hardly a trade secret at draft time. The Celtics clearly expected bigger and better things from him. They thought he'd get the time and opportunity to be a serious Rookie of the Year candidate. They loved his ballhandling abilities, his 3-point shooting. Just go back to the files on the day after the draft. O'Brien used the word "ecstatic" on more than one occasion. Boston thought it had struck gold.
But Johnson also was, and is, an asset, which made him trade able, just like Chauncey Billups and, to a lesser extent, the lamentable Jerome Moiso. That obviously wasn't how the Celtics saw Johnson last June, but two things happened. First, he didn't develop as they had hoped. Second, they found themselves in a serious scrum in the Eastern Conference, the end result of which could range from a top-four playoff seeding to another trip to Secaucus.
If they are going to survive, they have a better chance with established veterans who've been there. The price for those guys was, in effect, two first-round picks: Johnson and the one in June.
O'Brien has been going more and more with his veterans, especially at crunch time, so chances are Johnson would have done more watching than playing anyway. Brown may start, but Williams or Strickland (or Delk) is going to get his minutes in a close game.
There also is the obvious depth advantage, should Pierce, Walker, Williams, or any other regular go down for a spell. In that event, there would not necessarily be a precipitous drop-off with Rogers and Delk in reserve.
In short, the Celtics looked at the lunar landscape in the East and decided they had a better chance with the new guys than with the old guys. There's nothing wrong with that. They have upgraded the talent level, added playoff-tested veterans, and even done some budget cutting in the process.
Now, if it also works out in the standings, then it will be a slam-dunk.
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