It’s The Salary Cap- Stupid!

Not Everyone Understands Why the Celtics Traded for Gary Payton

Does anyone remember the obscure Saturday Night Live sketch that showed the New York Times pressroom the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor? The Times’ editors were trying to determine what the next day’s front page story should be, while an increasingly crazed newsman (played by the late Phil Hartman) attempts in vain to convince his colleagues that the attack is the only story that should be considered. Although I can’t recall the exact wording in the sketch, the other editors do their best to calm Phil down, telling him something like “we’re just trying to cover all our bases.” In the end, the headline the following morning turns out to be “Local Reporter Commits Suicide,” whereas the report about Pearl Harbor was a tiny blurb on one of the back pages.   I’m starting to understand what he was going through.
Ever since Friday’s trade that brought Gary Payton, Rick Fox a future first round draft pick and the always lovable cash (lovable for owners at least) to the Celtics in return for Chris Mihm, Chucky Atkins, the frustrating second year player Marcus Banks and the C’s 2005 second round pick going to the Lakers, I’ve heard people everywhere lambasting the transaction. Why? Because they don’t believe Payton can play anymore.

This is the crux of what I’m trying to say, so read carefully: While Payton’s ability to play well while in Celtic green is not irrelevant, it is certainly not the point.  

Here’s the point: Combined, Payton and Fox have contracts that will earn them $10 million this coming season and then expire.  The Celtics can take those two contracts as well as the $4.8 million dollar contract of their own Michael Stewart that is also set to run out following the 04-05 campaign and trade them to a team looking to dump payroll, get themselves under the salary cap, and make a go for some of the top free agents.  In return, the Celtics could find themselves with a very talented, if highly paid, player.

Sound far-fetched? It shouldn’t. Here’s just a few of the players that have been traded in the last year and a half for little more than expiring contracts: Stephon Marbury, Latrell Sprewell, Jamal Crawford, Ray Allen, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Theo Ratliff, Bonzi Wells, and Rasheed Wallace.  All of these are good players and Wallace’s arrival in Detroit pushed the Pistons over the top and gave them a championship.  And it’s worth repeating that the players were acquired by using expiring contracts as the bait.

Yes, of course it would be great for the Celtics if Payton were to come to Boston and return to the form that made the Glove a nine-time All-Star in Seattle. Although anyone who watched the playoffs last year has every right to be skeptical, chances are that Payton will not play as poorly in Boston as he did in LA.  The triangle offense that former Laker coach Phil Jackson was fond of using did not work to Payton’s strength’s and he had a tough time adjusting from being “The Man” on the Sonics his entire career to becoming the fourth option on a stacked Laker team.  Assuming Payton decides to come to Boston and play out the final year of his contract, look for him to be motivated and have something to prove for the first time in a while. At the same time, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see the same Payton we saw dominating the competition for 12 years in Seattle.  Payton is now 36 and, as the saying goes, there’s not a lot of tread on those tires.

If there are significant players that should be judged in this trade, it’s Banks and Celtic rookie Delonte West.  Ever since the Reebok Summer League in Las Vegas, I’ve suspected that the Celtics were no longer high on Banks’ future as a point guard.  Besides the fact that his passing numbers were just abysmal during his rookie season, you could already tell that new Celtic coach Doc Rivers was going to have a fit trying to convince Banks to “bring it” every night, and Rivers comments criticizing Banks’ inconsistent effort drove home the fact that Rivers was not interested in waiting for the former UNLV standout to develop. The fact That the C’s coaching staff often put Banks on the floor with West in the summer league and had West playing the point had to tell you something. If they had wanted to teach Banks, they would have given him strict doses of the point; putting him at shooting guard was merely an attempt to showcase his scoring skills to other teams.  

This trade is a vote of confidence for West.  If Banks and Atkins were to have remained on the roster, West would have found himself with few minutes and fewer opportunities to learn the point guard position.  Now he will find himself as the primary backup to Payton and, as things stand right now, the starter for the 05-06 season.  That’s a lot of pressure for such a young kid, but the word out of the Celtics’ camp ever since the draft is how excited they are about West and one long held belief about young players is that the best way to teach them is by throwing them in the fire.

The risk, of course, is that Marcus Banks turns out to be another Chauncey Billups. Celtic fans are all too aware of what can happen when you draft a young point guard, decide he can’t play be a playmaker and then ship him out of town for a past-his-prime veteran.  The lesson is that he can come back seven years later and taunt you with the trophy he won for being the MVP of the finals.  It’s possible something like this could happen with Banks, but the chances are not good.  We forget a lot when we think about Billups’ 51 games played in a Celtic uniform.  For one, Billups opened the season as the Celtics’ starting point guard and the C’s promptly beat the World Champion Bulls in his debut. Anyone who watched Banks play at the beginning of this season knows that Banks would not have started ahead of Billups on that team and that the Celtics could not have won if he had. In addition, Billups averaged 11.1 points and 4.3 assists in 25 minutes a game before he was traded to Toronto compared to Banks’ 5.9 ppg and 2.2 apg in the 17 minutes he could get on the court. Don’t tell me he could have the same averages had he been on the floor for 25 minutes like Billups; you know the reason he was on the bench was because he wasn’t good enough to get off it. Quite frankly, if the Celtics didn’t think Banks was their guy, why keep him if he’ll only get in the way of West’s development?

Again, though, I’d like to stress that the players involved are not the essence of this trade.  If the Celtics are able to land a big time player (think Abdur-Rahim, Shawn Marion or maybe Rashard Lewis) with the contracts they’ve acquired, no one will be talking about how Payton performed in his one year in Boston. They’ll be lauding Danny Ainge for taking a whole lot of nothing and turning it into an All-Star.