OT: Chris wallace

[Celts09]

Best transaction: Selected forward Paul Pierce (10th overall pick) in the 1998 NBA Draft.
Worst transaction: Traded guards Chauncey Billups and Dee Brown and forwards John Thomas and Roy Rogers to the Toronto Raptors for guard Kenny Anderson, forward Popeye Jones and center Zan Tabak on February 18, 1998.

sad thing is that his worst trade wasnt the pau gasol trade.

http://hoopshype.com/general_managers/chris_wallace.htm

[Ed Pinkney]

Both of those would have been Pitino making the decision.

[return2glory]

Both of those would have been Pitino making the decision.

Exactly.

Also the Gasol trade wasn't his idea. It was the owners and wanting to dump Gasol's huge contract. The Lakers had offered Odom in return initially, but the owner of the Grizzles didn't want Odom's contract in return because it had a few years remaining. That's why he chose K. Brown's contract instead because it expires after this year.

I still don't like Wallace and blamed him for the Gasol trade at first. But he was told by the owner to get rid off huge contracts.

[CelticsWhat!]

Best transaction: Selected forward Paul Pierce (10th overall pick) in the 1998 NBA Draft.
Worst transaction: Traded guards Chauncey Billups and Dee Brown and forwards John Thomas and Roy Rogers to the Toronto Raptors for guard Kenny Anderson, forward Popeye Jones and center Zan Tabak on February 18, 1998.

sad thing is that his worst trade wasnt the pau gasol trade.

http://hoopshype.com/general_managers/chris_wallace.htm

I can think of a few transactions worse than the Billups trade. Billups didn't break through until he went to Detroit, which was about 5 years after the Celtics traded him.

1. trading for Vin Baker
2. drafting Kedrick Brown
3. drafting Joe Forte
4. Pau Gasol (that WAS worse than the Billups trade)

[John Locke]

Drafting Kedrick Brown is the worst. Because if he would've waited that pick would've been Carmelo.

[sully00]

That is a real "people are dumb" comment but you hear it all the time. Billups was a bust plain and simple. He flopped in TOR, DEN, and ORL. Once his rookie deal had expired he signed on with MINN and his career turned around.

Kenny Anderson wasn't what he was before he came to Boston but he was a lot better than Billups was while he was here. Wallace did worse.

As far as Brown, the selection was clearly terrible but I don't think the decision to take the pick was. The pick had really complicated protection because it was Boston's option when to take it one of the last times a team got this in a deal. But when they took it was top 5 protected, I don't know if that protection ever reduced and I am sure it was never not top 3 protected. So they may have been able to get the Skita pick at 5 (which could have been Amare, screw Melo), I don't think they could have gotten the top 3 pick which was Melo.

Anybody know were you can find info on old trades like this?

[Ed Pinkney]

In terms of his decisions/moves here is some of the stuff I remember reading about the various moves.

In terms of the Gasol trade, he has said he looked around the entire league and Kwame was the biggest (9 million or something) expiring contract they could get. I thought what about Ratliff but maybe the Wolves didn't want to take on Gasol's contract.

As Sully said, Billups took several years and teams to become a good player and while Kenny had his limitations, he was probably (until Rondo) just about the best pure point guard we have had in the last 20 years. Plus this was another Pitino move.

Joseph Forte was Red's pick. Apparently he really liked the kid and because he was Red they let him make the pick.

There was a lot of interest in Kedrick Brown that draft, so it wasn't just us taking some random kid noone had ever heard of. He probably would have gone somewhere in the first round but it doesn't change the fact how bad a pick at 11 that was though.

The Joe Johnson and Vin Baker trades both come from Gaston. As did the decision not to give Rodney Rogers a new contract the next year (which probably wasn't that bad of a decision anyway as he only ever seemed to play well in contract years).



Again this is just stuff I remember reading so take it all with a grain of salt.

[chavopepe2]

Chris Wallace is a puppet. I mean, has he ever actually made a decision. The guy is clearly lacking in the testicular fortitude department. Every move that has been made while he was GM was made by someone else:

1. Pitino traded Chauncey
2. Red drafted Forte
3. Gaston traded Joe Johnson
4. Memphis ownership traded Gasol

Excuses, Excuses. He's terrible. The Celtics gave up a second rounder to get Wallace from Miami and it's been all down hill from there. Every move he's made (or didn't make or someone else made for him) has hurt the celtics - whether he worked for the c's or Memphis.
_________________________________

And by the way.... The pick from Denver would have been top 5 protected in 2002 and top 1 protected in 2003. Since Denver drafted 5th in 2002, we would have gotten the 3rd pick in 2003 had we declined to take it in 2001.

[TheCelticTruth]

chris wallace... whether by his own mistakes or weakness to not really do his own job, i can sum up the man with a simple phrase of the internet age...LOL

[KobeFarmarEra]

4. Jerry West traded Gasol

.

Fixed.

[KobeFarmarEra]

Did you think Jerry would let the Celtics have the last laugh before he dies? Please.

[TA42]

As far as the Kedrick pick....

They could have kept extending it to the point that it would have been unprotected in the year Carmelo and LeBron came out.

So, in theory, they could have had Carmelo instead of Kedrick.

Of course, didn't Denver tank the year before Carmelo came out in hopes of getting the top pick? It's questionable whether or not they would have been as bad had the C's gotten the pick instead of them.

[Fencer reregistered]

You're very right about Denver tanking when they knew they had their own pick. In particular, they traded McDyess for cap space and the pick that became Nene. This may also be when they traded Lafrentz and baggage to Dallas.

But there's no excuse for Wallace to say "Oh, I don't want Odom; give me Kwame instead", if that's what he supposedly was ordered to do. That's when you start making multi-team deals to get the most value.

[celtxman]

The beauty of being Chris Wallace is that you just keep continuing to do a terrible job and nobody fires you a la Isaiah Thomas. Wallace made the basketball decision on Vin Baker - the ownership only told him they would not go into deep luxury tax territory to keep Rodney Rogers. It was Wallace who figured out that they could pick up Baker's obscene contract without going into luxury tax territory. Ownership set the parameters, but Wallace made the basketball decision that would sripple any ability of the Celtics to improve during the Pierce/Walker years.
In a year where the Celtics already had two #1 picks to fit onto their roster, Wallace blundered terribly. It was apparent that Denver did not have the roster to make the playoffs the following season, yet like a kid whose eyes are bigger than their stomaches, just fell in love with Kedrick Brown and the cost was losing the opportunity to draft Amare Stoudemire. If you want to blame Joe Forte on Red Auerbach (because Auerbach did indeed love him) you can give Wallace a pass. But somehow had Wallace drafted Tony Parker, the obvious choice, I think Red would have forgiven him.
Wallace deserves to be even a notch ahead of John Y Brown as the worst executive the Celtics ever had. The reason he slips through is that Celtics fans don't really realize when he had control of personell decisions and at the same time the Celtics on the court were doing well with Pierce and Walker whom he inherited.
In regards to the Gasol trade once again he gets to hide behind ownership. Heisley may have wanted to get rid of Gasol and dump salary, but once again was that really the best deal he could have gotten under the circumstances. He really got nothing for a 26 year old All Star big man.

[Pogue Mahone]

Boston had a three year window to use the pick: 2000-2002.

After foregoing the pick in 2000, 10th overall (Keyon Dooling), Boston either had to use the pick in 2001, 11th overall or roll the dice and hope that 2002 was a better pick but not in the top-5.

In 2000, outside of top-9 (as stated they would have been picking 10th if they conveyed the Nuggets pick), there really wasn't a lot of choose from, draft-wise.

Sure, Hedo Turkoglu, Desmond Mason, Q-Bitch, Jamaal Magloire, Mo Pete and Speedy Claxton would have still been on the board. Do you really think any of those players, at the time of the draft, especially, was considered top-10 material?

Magloire when then already had Potapenko?
Mo Pete, Mason, Q-Bitch and Turkoglu when they already had Paul Pierce?
Claxton or Mateen Cleaves when they had Anderson?

Keep in mind, as well, that Pitino was still calling the shots for all intents and purposes.

So they rolled the dice, hoping in the stronger 2001 draft that the pick was higher. It actually fell a spot to 11th, overall but in a stronger draft. I think it was a smart decision.

Now if you want to argue that Kedrick Brown was a bad pick, go right ahead ( I actually think it was a good pick but that is for another thread.) The choice to take the 11th pick in the draft, with only one year remaining before the pick expired combined with the possibility that the pick would be a top-5 and they would lose the pick entirely--- well, I would have enacted the pick the same way that Wallace did.

If they didn't use the pick in 2001 and attempted to let it roll over to 2002, they would have lost the pick entirely.

[chavopepe2]

Pogue -
Do you have a source for the details of the pick?

The reason I ask is that I am 99.999999% sure you are wrong. For one, I am POSITIVE the pick did not expire into nothing. That was against the rules in both the old CBA and the new CBA. Pick protection would eventually expire into no protection or an alternative form of compensation such as a second round pick.

It is certainly a difficult one to source one way or another, but I am positive that the pick had staggered protection down to none. I also specifically remember that in 2003 the pick was top 1 protected and if they got the top pick it was unprotected in 2004.

I'm not positive about this, but I think what you might be thinking of is having the option to take the pick. It is entirely possible that the C's last option was in 2002 at which time they would recieve the next qualifying pick.

[chavopepe2]

I also found a source that it was top 5 protected in 2001. I'm almost positive that it was:

2001: Top 5 protected (c's option)
2002: Top 3 protected (c's option)
2003: Top 1 protected (no option)
2004: Unprotected


http://www.nbadraft.net/2001trades.htm#1

[Pogue Mahone]

Chavopepe-

I stand corrected. I had no source and was operating purely off of memory. The general point remains, though, the pick had to be conveyed within three years, with protections. If not conveyed, the pick would be 2003.

The original trade occurred on 2 Aug 99. That means the three protected drafts were 2000, 2001 and 2002 and the ultimate conveyance, if needed, would be in 2003.

In the 1999-00 season, Denver won 35 games and, as I stated in my previous post, it was a pretty weak draft, overall.

In the 2000-01 season, Denver improved to 40 wins. If allowed to add the 11th pick in a pretty strong draft, it is fairly defensible to state that they would have likely improved further. Remember, we have the gift of hindsight and, clearly, at the time, it was pretty reasonable to think Denver was going to improve further.

Obviously, it turned out much different. I stand by the assertion that conveying the pick in the 2001 draft was the correct thing to do. I also think Kedrick Brown was the correct choice to make.

Boston was coming off of another losing season in 2000-01 but they went .500 over the last 48 games under, then interim coach, Jim O'Brien. The East was weak and the Celtics needed a defensively talented big running mate for Pierce on the wing. I think Johnson was the safe pick (and a good one.) I think they intended to pick Brown all along, though.

While I can understand the hate for Wallace, I don't agree with it. I think that he has been put into bad sorts by ownership directives in a lot of his moves. I do think that he has a penchant for swinging for the fences a bit much but if he hits on even one of those moves, we are likely not having this discussion.

[francishsu]

Wallace is one of the worst GM's if he was a decisionmaker, or one of the weakest in history by choice. Either way, he's useless.

In the end, I think the Gasol trade will be looked at as one that provided only financial benefit and nothing substantial towards their rebuilding. The fact that the Lakers are dominating so much with Gasol, with Bynum still yet to return to their roster, just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.