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Offseason To Do List
June 18, 2002

Wallace
I don’t know how Celts GM Chris Wallace goes about his daily business, but if I were him, I’d start my offseason by jotting down a to-do list and going over it with my management team. Here is a list I would start with as a first draft:

Brown
1. Schedule a mandatory, sit-down meeting with Kedrick Brown, Joseph Forte, and Omar Cook. With the fear of luxury tax penalties, signing impact free agents isn’t an option this offseason. These three lads represent our best (and cheapest) opportunity to upgrade our talent and deepen our bench next year. Wallace should make every effort to make sure these guys know how valuable they are to the franchise despite getting little to no game time experience this year. Every effort should be made to make sure these guys work extra hard in the offseason improving their games. Hire a trainer; assign them a mentor; anything to get real contributions from them next year. All should be hungry for the chance to impress and all should welcome any advice and council the GM and coaching staff has for them.

Rogers
2. Start recruiting Rodney Rodgers. A lot is made of the fact that giving up Joe Johnson for Delk and Rodgers will be a waste if Rodney walks. True, but let’s not forget the value of cap space. If Rodney wants the moon, let him get it from someone else (I think I read that the Knicks are among the teams interested in him). That said, at the right price, this guy could be a valuable 6th man for years to come. He fits in nicely with the rest of this squad with his versatility and outside shooting. He filled in admirably at the backup center spot during the playoffs after Vitaly Potapenko went down in the last game of the season. VPot will be gone till at least mid season next year, and Mark Blount just isn’t going to earn quality playing time any time soon. So recruit Rodgers and make him feel like he is a valued contributor to a team with a great future ahead of it. Cry poor so he understands how little we can raise his paycheck. Then hope for the best.

Walker & Pierce
3. Look for ways to improve the offense. If necessary, hire an offensive minded assistant coach. We’re talking the inverse of Dick Harter (defensive guru). I won’t claim to be a coach, so I can’t say that a Princeton-style motion offence or the Triangle offence would be appropriate. Something tells me no. But clearly we have to find a way to free up Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker when the defense is allowed to double team or zone them up. It would be hard to impose a rigid system upon this team, because part of the genius of our two stars’ offense is their ability to improvise and make something from nothing. However, when the game is on the line, we can’t afford to put the ball in the hands of guys like Eric Strickland and Walter McCarty.

Anerson
4. Explore trade options. This might be the headline catcher, but don’t bet on any activity to happen here. Trades are hard enough to pull off when you have tradable commodities, never mind when your roster is full of heavy contracts (Potapenko, Anderson), and guys you’d never move (Pierce, Walker). However, you always have to research, and it never hurts to make a quiet phone call to GMs that have players they are willing to part with. We could certainly look into potential deals for either a quality center (Elden Campbell? Someone from the Wizards?) or perhaps a solid, younger point guard. Our tradable commodities would include Kenny Anderson (last year of contract), Tony Delk (still good for instant offense), Joseph Forte (if someone values his upside), and future draft picks (we hope to be drafting late for a few years at least). I’d hate to send Kenny down the stream when he could save us some money after his current deal runs out. Not to mention the job he’s done for the team this year. But you can’t rule out a move if it helps the team in the long term.

Strickland
5. Make courtesy calls to Eric Strickland, Walter McCarty, Mark Blount, and Roshown McCloud. Clearly if anyone wants to give these guys money to join their squad, we will wish them well and thank them for their contributions over the years. At the end of the offseason, when we are finished making any and all other moves, and the team is checking into the practice facility for training camp, then and only then should we start talking dollars and cents with our free agents outside of Rodgers. How we rank each player in terms of priority will be determined by what needs the team still has. If Rodney walks, we may have a bigger need for a backup center (Blount). Otherwise, it would seem that Strickland and McCarty would be called first. Heck, we can give Roshown an invite to the Shaws Summer league. Ya never know.

6. Draft the proverbial “best talent available” at 50 (our second rounder). Whomever it is will get a spot on the Shaws team with little else guaranteed. Perhaps this pick will be used on a European with upside that could continue to play overseas. It also couldn’t hurt to take a flyer on a center project or a point guard in a draft deep at that position. Any player selected here that actually contributed would be considered a major bonus.

That’s a good start anyway. This is, after all, a work in progress and things could change by the minute. We had a fantastic year, we have a solid nucleus of players that are now playoff tested and hungry for more. This team has the potential to be title contenders for years to come. Perhaps some time should be spent simply reflecting on what went right and how we can continue that trend. But then it’s back to work for the GM. As they say in those IBM commercials, there IS no offseason.

Jeff Clark will forever be known as "that guy" that goes off on the message boards. If you want to hear more of his insight (or just tell him to shove it) he can be reached at mailto:jclark@sportsrant.net