Boston Celtics trade Antoine Walker (**updated**)The only person in Massachusetts who should be happy about this trade is Grady Little. The specifics: Dallas is sending Raef LaFrentz, who signed a $69 million, five-year deal before last season, to the Celtics along with Jiri Welsch and Chris Mills, players the Mavericks got in an obsession trade that also brought Antawn Jamison from Golden State. Boston also will get Dallas' first-round pick in 2004.We can boil it down to Antoine Walker for Raef LaFrentz. Jiri Welsch is a second year player who hasn't proven anything yet, Chris Mills is in the last year of his deal and was likely just there to make the salary cap numbers work, Tony Delk was a nice role player but really isn't part of the Top 8 of a championship team, and even though the west is really really loaded, the Mavs first round pick isn't going to be better than the late teens. (Their last three draft picks were number 23, 25, 29.) The theory around town is that Celtics GM Danny Ainge traded away Antoine Walker because he doesn't think Walker is a max-salary NBA player. This may or not be true, but if this is his criteria for analysis Raef LaFrentz should have set off all kinds of bells and whistles. Raef LaFrentz couldn't even beat Shawn Bradley for the starting job in Dallas because he's not a shot blocker and he's not a big body inside. Even worse: Raef LaFrentz is a perimeter player, which is the exact same quality about Antoine's game that drove Danny Ainge nuts! Antoine Walker may have some obvious deficiencies in his game, but he's a tougher, more reliable player than Raef LaFrentz, and anyone who has been following this C's team knows Antoine was the real heart of the team. On the other hand, Raef LaFrentz is just a watered down Antoine. Here's what the Sports Guy has to say about Raef: When the discussion about "Overpaid NBA Players" comes up, just remember to mention Raef LaFrentz. Sixty million for the next seven years and he couldn't even average a 10-5 this season. |
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