Sports Guy North

Boston White Sox

In a stunning move today, there was a 7 player, 3 draft-pick deal between the Boston Celtics and the Minnesota T-Wolves. Going from the Celtics to the Wolves were Ricky Davis, Mark Blount, Marcus Banks, Justin Reed and two future second-round draft picks. In exchange, the Celtics receive Wally Szczerbiak, Michael Olowokandi, Dwayne Jones and a future first-round draft pick, which begs the question: there's a Dwayne Jones in the league? Wally might be better than Davis, or at least more consistent, and a first-round pick is certainly worth 2 second rounders. But the downgrade from Blount to Kandi is huge, and will likely result in Raef playing more minutes at Center again, where he is slightly more useless than he is playing forward. This is in no way a good trade for the Celtics, and only goes back to following their old Boston mold - bring in all white guys at any cost. This has been a Celtics tradition for as long as I can remember. I wouldn't be surprised to see a Pierce for Kirilenko trade by the end of the year. Maybe they can steal Ostertag or Harpring at the same time. The people in the front office in Boston seriously need to be questioned at this point. Kandi and Dwayne, whoever he is, clearly were not brought in to play serious minutes. 2 key players on the team this year have been shipped out for the prettiest man in the NBA, and it does not help the team. They can, however, now post a starting lineup as follows if they choose:

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PG - Dan Dickau SG - Pierce SF - Wally Szerb PF - Brian Scalab. C - Raefer


One of these things is not like the others. Give up? It's Paul Pierce, and the reason is that he is the only one who should be a starter on any NBA team. What is going on in Boston? Has Gerald Green even gotten into a game this year? Maybe they can pick up Darko for him, if they're lucky. That would definitely be true to the Celtics "pride". It's a shame what happened to this team, because only a couple of years ago they looked like they had a good young nucleus poised to give Detroit a run every year. And now they look like the soccer team in the pictures above. This team should slide below the Raptors by the end of the year, and if they do white-up Pierce, who knows just how far they'll fall. But hey, at least they won't have problems with the NBA dress code.

Utter Steals

In two separate moves today, the Edmonton Oilers acquired Jaroslav Spacek and Dick Tarnstrom from Chicago and Pittsburgh. Dicky is a power play specialist who lead the Penguins in scoring last year with 52 points, and much like all the Penguins is having an off year. Spacek is a solid 2 way defenseman, and has even managed to put up a plus 8 and 24 points on a very weak Hawks club. This is an unbelievable strengthening for an Oilers defense that could really use it. Did they have to margin their future to do so? Or give away some immediate talent? How about a bunch of draft picks? No, no and no. All the is leaving Alberta are Jani Rita (who?), Tony Salmelainen (what's that now?) and the always helpless Cory Cross (Someone wanted him? Has Babcock found a new job in the hockey world now?). Basically, in one day the Oilers have added two quality NHL defensemen, something in some short supply, without depleting their current or future rosters to any real degree. In fact, by unloading Cory Cross they have improved the current roster already, even before adding the new talent.

I remember back in the summer where the Leafs resigned Cross and Berg at the same time, I ran into Pat Quinn and we had a little heart to heart. I suggested to him that signing Berg and Cross like he did was a huge mistake, as neither one was able to play hockey so much as not play hockey, and that even I could do better. He "kindly" told me that if that was true, then I should go *expletive* try out for the *expletive* team again, and stood up and walked away. Really, though, why would anyone want Cross on their team? This trade is a disaster for a Penguins team that looked like it couldn't get worse. The same can be said for Chicago. I can't see a single reason why either team made these trades, except that their GM's are Oilers fans who are tired of watching the Flames beat them year after year lately.

Leafs Watch

That was horrible. Just horrible. Even McCabe can't fix what has happened to the Leafs. Disband and rebuild. There are no other options at this point. Just horrible. I will be sad to see Quinn leaving town, he is a great guy and has done wonders for this team over the years. If you don't believe that, just look at the Leafs rosters from 1999 and 2002. They weren't that good, plain and simple, and Quinn was able to coach them to the Conference Finals both years. His presence will definitely be missed.