OT: Chris Wallace

[Captain_Caveman]

It wasn't the paying of the tax it was getting the redistributed tax money. It was pretty substantial I want to say it was like 5 mil in Paul Gaston's pocket.

I get hating Wallace for being a weak GM who was overruled by everyone but that was essentially the point he didn't have the authority that is why it was easy for him to stay here after Ainge took over his job never really changed. He would scout some Euros and CBA guys and Ainge and the Coach would make the roster calls. That is why Memphis can bring in a guy like Hollinger and it doesn't affect Wallace because he is looking to find a consensus anyway not dictate.

I wouldn't go too far with that one. Getting players that actually fit your coach's schemes? Imagine that. Guy wasn't getting overruled by the likes of Obie, Papile or Lionel Hollins. We are talking about team owners and team presidents like Pitino and Red Auerbach. Your boss comes up to you right now and tells you to get the hell off RealGM and get back to work, you're gonna do it.

Plus, you say scouting like it's a bad thing. Player evaluation is the whole name of the game, and the most important thing GMs do by far. Just look at Red and Jerry West (both of whom thought/think highly of Wallace, and the latter of which hand-picked him as his successor in Memphis). Evaluating players and prospects and putting a value on them, and seeing who out there is undervalued or underutilized... it's a whole cottage industry now. Ask BfB.

Anyhow, what I am saying in this thread is basically three-fold.

1. Despite the criticism of the guy, his teams have actually been pretty successful in the NBA. That's not luck at a certain point. Just look at the team he put together in Memphis right now. A bunch of undervalued players who are straight killing it. Big, tough, talented and only the 25th highest payroll in the league.

2. Relative to being overruled, or his teams being unwilling or unable to take his advice, guy sure has a lot of killer I told you so's. Dirk, Pau, Jermaine, Parker, Randolph, etc. That's not CBA guys. You are implying this was all luck (Marc Gasol, Parker), but no one is that lucky.

3. No one called him a mastermind, or the Exec of the Year, or excused the Baker trade. I think it is more of a Jeff Green thing, where some people took it upon themselves to completely hate on a guy that actually turned out to be pretty damned good. At a certain point, it's just like, "Hey, look at the scoreboard." Hence this thread.

[celtxman]

3. No one called him a mastermind, or the Exec of the Year, or excused the Baker trade. I think it is more of a Jeff Green thing, where some people took it upon themselves to completely hate on a guy that actually turned out to be pretty damned good. At a certain point, it's just like, "Hey, look at the scoreboard." Hence this thread.
Nobody wants to look at any scoreboard when he did a lousy job for your team. The scoreboard on the Celtics doesn't lie. And if anything he flies under the radar of overall criticism in Boston because of all of the negative publicity that Pitino drew. He got a second chance when many with his resume would not have and he made the most of it.
Good point made by another poster - if Wallace was so brilliant to know about Marc Gasol from his playing in the Memphis area, why on earth didn't he trade a bag of marbles for any of the picks in the 40's to get him outright to begin with? He got lucky with Gasol. The rest of his work in Memphis has been excellent - but like I said before who cares when he did a bad job for Boston. If anything it's more frustrating.

[31to6]

I just love that MEM traded their 'star' midseason and now could conceivably give MIA a legitimate battle in the finals. Rudy Gay FTnonW! (and: max him out Toronto! nice!) (and: I've always liked Prince and am glad to see him out of DET purgatory and back where he can be valued).

[celtxman]

I just love that MEM traded their 'star' midseason and now could conceivably give MIA a legitimate battle in the finals. Rudy Gay FTnonW! (and: max him out Toronto! nice!) (and: I've always liked Prince and am glad to see him out of DET purgatory and back where he can be valued).

Precisely why you'de better be right in getting guys like Bledsoe and D Jordan for KG. How many people couldn't dump Jeff Green and other assets into a trade fast enough to get Josh Smith? It's about squeezing as much talent out of your cap money as you possible can. Wallace - as much as I hate his tenure with the Celtics - did a great job with this. I'm not sure how risky it was making the Gay trade in that he may have been told to do it - but he still put together a team that is a legitimate championship contendor.

[greenmachine_2849]

The rest of his work in Memphis has been excellent - but like I said before who cares when he did a bad job for Boston. If anything it's more frustrating.

But that is the whole point. The fact that he is succeeding in Memphis shows that maybe he wasn't the problem in Boston after all. Not that I agreed with everything he did, but by most accounts Paul Gaston was a penny-pinching tightwad of an owner, and it is difficult to imagine any general manager having much success under that type of ownership. I doubt Ainge would have lasted more than a couple of seasons under Paul Gaston either, to be frank.

Although, to be fair to Gaston, occasionally he would unexpectedly loosen the purse-strings, like when he signed Rick Pitino to his ten year, $50 million contract. But he was definitely in tightwad mode in the post-Pitino years (when he was looking to sell the team), which is when Wallace had the privilege of working for him. And it couldn't have been fun.

[CeltsfanSinceBirth]

It's pretty funny how people are giving him props for the Gasol trade. If I traded you my $500K house in exchange for your 1986 Toyota Corolla and a lottery ticket from 2018, and I happened to win $450K with that ticket, would you think it was a shrewd move?

[celtxman]

The rest of his work in Memphis has been excellent - but like I said before who cares when he did a bad job for Boston. If anything it's more frustrating.

But that is the whole point. The fact that he is succeeding in Memphis shows that maybe he wasn't the problem in Boston after all. Not that I agreed with everything he did, but by most accounts Paul Gaston was a penny-pinching tightwad of an owner, and it is difficult to imagine any general manager having much success under that type of ownership. I doubt Ainge would have lasted more than a couple of seasons under Paul Gaston either, to be frank.

Although, to be fair to Gaston, occasionally he would unexpectedly loosen the purse-strings, like when he signed Rick Pitino to his ten year, $50 million contract. But he was definitely in tightwad mode in the post-Pitino years (when he was looking to sell the team), which is when Wallace had the privilege of working for him. And it couldn't have been fun.

I can't go there - that arguement doesn't hold water when you bring up Vin Baker and his collosal contract that Ainge salvaged by miraculously getting Baker to take less after the fact.. Even Wallace admits to this one. If Gaston was so cheap, imagine how hard Wallace pushed to get this done.
No - Wallace simply got better and learned from his many mistakes in Boston. Fortunately for him he was given another chance.

[celtxman]

It's pretty funny how people are giving him props for the Gasol trade. If I traded you my $500K house in exchange for your 1986 Toyota Corolla and a lottery ticket from 2018, and I happened to win $450K with that ticket, would you think it was a shrewd move?

There were stories that Wallace was enamored more with Crittendon than Gasol. In any case, as I said earlier - if Wallace was such a genious and knew how good Marc Gasol was going to be he would have flipped a future second rounder during the draft. Everyone missed out on Gasol, including Wallace.

[goulardi]

I don't think it's only about missing on the drafting of a guy so that makes a bad GM. It's about who ultimately gets the talent. In the case of Gasol, Wallace got him and he's done well, so let's give Wallace his due.

[Captain_Caveman]

There were stories that Wallace was enamored more with Crittendon than Gasol. In any case, as I said earlier - if Wallace was such a genious and knew how good Marc Gasol was going to be he would have flipped a future second rounder during the draft. Everyone missed out on Gasol, including Wallace.

Like you said, so was everyone. See where they got drafted. Gasol was a fat slob in HS.

[greenmachine_2849]

I can't go there - that arguement doesn't hold water when you bring up Vin Baker and his collosal contract that Ainge salvaged by miraculously getting Baker to take less after the fact.. Even Wallace admits to this one. If Gaston was so cheap, imagine how hard Wallace pushed to get this done.

No - Wallace simply got better and learned from his many mistakes in Boston. Fortunately for him he was given another chance.

Trust me: adding a colossal bad four-year contract to the team's long-term payroll didn't make any sense to me at the time either, if Gaston's goal was to make the Celtics a more attractive package for potential buyers. But, in this article from December 2002:

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/dec/08 ... sp-nbacol8

Of course, around that time, Gaston began talking to people who wanted to buy the team.

Sure enough, come summer, the Celtics offered only $1 million a year and Rogers went to archrival New Jersey for a modest three-year, $8-million deal.

Then came their coup, sending Kenny Anderson, who had one year left on his oversized contract, to Seattle for Vin Baker, who had four at an average of $14 million.

An official on another team says that was a Gaston move, which he sold to his basketball people, to trim $1 million from his payroll immediately and increase the sale price, which would be set by a formula, which multiplied projected revenues.

Again, makes zero sense to me as a layman. If I was Wyc's group and the Celtics' owner just traded for arguably the worst contract in the league, I would tell Gaston to go **** himself, formula or no formula. But, I am not a billionaire businessman and will defer to them on whether or not it made sense financially. They wound up buying the team, so evidently they were fine with it.

Given this, I tend to give Wallace a pass on the Vin Baker trade, horrific as it was. Just be happen that the owner that orchestrated that trade is long gone.

[celtxman]

That article seems a little too convenient for Wallace. Before you know it, we'll read that Gaston ordered the drafting of Moiso because his wife is part French. Drafting Kedrick Brown instead of waiting for Stoudemire? An official from another team? So the good moves were a combination of bailing his two owners out and skill and the bad ones ordered by the owners. I'll still go with he was terrible for the Celtics

[Captain_Caveman]

Gaston definitely wanted to get under the tax, and both the Joe Johnson ($2.5m) and Baker ($1m) trades did that. It can certainly be argued that there were better ways to do that last million than Baker, however.

[15th overall]

There were stories that Wallace was enamored more with Crittendon than Gasol. In any case, as I said earlier - if Wallace was such a genious and knew how good Marc Gasol was going to be he would have flipped a future second rounder during the draft. Everyone missed out on Gasol, including Wallace.

Like you said, so was everyone. See where they got drafted. Gasol was a fat slob in HS.

I was curious. Google says:

[Captain_Caveman]

That guy just won DPOY.

LMAO!

[celtxman]

Gaston definitely wanted to get under the tax, and both the Joe Johnson ($2.5m) and Baker ($1m) trades did that. It can certainly be argued that there were better ways to do that last million than Baker, however.

Agreed on both points

[31to6]

DAT GASOL PIC. Lmao thanks for the find 15th overall!

[EJay33]

Banks2Pierce, it is pretty common knowledge that the Joe Johnson trade was a salary dump in preparation for a sale. Much like how the Celtics acquired Ray Allen from the Sonics prior to their sale. I am not sure why you are taking this guy to task for stating that.

I also think you guys in this thread are giving Wallace more credit/blame than he deserves for what happened in Memphis. Their former owner Michael Heisley has spoken pretty candidly in the past about how he is the guy making the calls in Memphis. If you want to to assign credit/blame, look there. I do agree that the Gay trade was likely motivated by Hollinger. According to his stats Gay is highly overrated and the Celtics potentially dodged a bullet by not targeting him in a trade. My point is, I don't think we can really make a judgement either way on Wallace. He has been in the league for a long time but he has been neutered at every step along the way and no one has fully trusted him with a job and given him complete control.

[celtxman]

Banks2Pierce, it is pretty common knowledge that the Joe Johnson trade was a salary dump in preparation for a sale. Much like how the Celtics acquired Ray Allen from the Sonics prior to their sale. I am not sure why you are taking this guy to task for stating that.

I also think you guys in this thread are giving Wallace more credit/blame than he deserves for what happened in Memphis. Their former owner Michael Heisley has spoken pretty candidly in the past about how he is the guy making the calls in Memphis. If you want to to assign credit/blame, look there. I do agree that the Gay trade was likely motivated by Hollinger. According to his stats Gay is highly overrated and the Celtics potentially dodged a bullet by not targeting him in a trade. My point is, I don't think we can really make a judgement either way on Wallace. He has been in the league for a long time but he has been neutered at every step along the way and no one has fully trusted him with a job and given him complete control.

Shhhhh....don't let Wallace hear you say that....that the good things that got done weren't his doing. I've heard him take credit for the early 2000's run to the Eastern Conference Finals. Part of that credit was helping Pitino decide to draft Pierce, which ranks up there with picking Abdul Jabbar instead of Neal Walk, in degree of difficulty. He was very clear in attacking his detractors who said he never added anything to go with Pierce- that the detractors needed to give him credit for the team being in the ECF. Then he reasoned he had done such a good job in Boston, that he refused the Portland job because he wasn't offered enough money. Just yesterday on ESPN he was reminded how well he had done in light of the Rudy Gay trade and he used the opportunity to say "we've had detractors all along" , hopefully a reference to the Gasol trade. I hope it wasn't about anything else beacause he certainly is getting his due now.
Wallace's statements and actions over the years indicate a high sense of self-worth. So I'm sure he'll let the criticism go to ownership......but he doesn't want to lose credit for the good stuff.

[greenmachine_2849]

That article seems a little too convenient for Wallace. Before you know it, we'll read that Gaston ordered the drafting of Moiso because his wife is part French. Drafting Kedrick Brown instead of waiting for Stoudemire? An official from another team? So the good moves were a combination of bailing his two owners out and skill and the bad ones ordered by the owners. I'll still go with he was terrible for the Celtics

And that is certainly your prerogative to do so. Frankly, I don't have strong enough opinions one way or the other on Chris Wallace to argue much more on the subject. At the end, though, I will go with my original conclusion that he was an average general manager whose team looked quite a bit worse than average due to a horrible owner. I mean, the Celtics were a couple of Pierce free throws away from going up 3-1 in the ECF and probably going back to the NBA Finals for the first time in 15 years, and Gaston couldn't throw a couple of extra million Rodney Rogers' way to bring the team back for a second try? Gaston can join John Y. Brown, Mark Blount, and a handful of others in Boston Celtic hell, as far as I am concerned.