The Danny Five Year Plan

(click to enlarge)

I’m not one to dwell on the bad old days. I’ve probably mentioned the names “Bias” and “Lewis” twice each on this blog, and Pitino maybe three times. Mark Blount? Nary a mention. At the same time, I have been known to dabble in your Sidney Wicks and your Curtis Rowes. But those guys were not only bad, but funny, too.

I mean, how much better can you get than these two stories.

Asked for his thoughts after a close playoff loss, Sidney Wicks responded, “They don’t put wins and losses on my paycheck.” After Bill Fitch took over as coach in 1981, he watched Curtis Rowe loaf past him one too many times early in training camp and shouted at the uninspired Rowe “hey, Curtis, why don’t you just keep on running through that door, into the locker room, and out of the building…you’re cut!”

I haven’t gotten to the point where I can laugh at the follies from the Pitino and O’Brien Eras quite yet, and it’s possible I never will. On the other hand, I do have vivid memories of the befuddlement I experienced when reviewing the Celtics payroll.

Antoine Walker—locked up for big money and near-zero trade value.

Vin Baker—same.

Raef LaFrentz—same.

Mark Blount—same.

By contrast, the above payroll is a thing of beauty. Even owing Scalabrine $6m over the next two years really isn’t all that unreasonable, and not nearly as bad as what some other contenders are facing with their payrolls (we’ll take a look at some Laker pain later on this week or next).

So Danny’s five-year plan not only got us a championship, it resolved the payroll flexibility issues, too. This bodes well for stockpiling the roster with veterans to make a run a banner #18.