Here Comes the Big Ticket...

With news reports out of Boston confirming that the Celtics have a deal in place to trade for Kevin Garnett - sending Big Al Jefferson, Gerald Green, Ryan Gomes, the Artist Formerly Known as Sebastian Telfair, Theo Ratliff [or more precisely, the four cornered contract he signed], and two first round draft picks in exchange - it is now time to dissect the pros and cons of this trade for the C's. As usual, the cons first.

CONS

1. Albatross Contracts. Garnett, Allen and Pierce alone will account for over $50 million this year, and well over $200 million through 2010/11 (assuming KG agrees to an extension, which is a presumed prereq to this deal getting done). While the salary cap (roughly $55 million for 2007-2008) is significantly below the Tax Level (at $67.68 million for 2007-2008), Celtics management still needs to find 9 players for effectively less than $17 million just for this season alone if they want to avoid paying the tax. IF management signs off on it, so be it - although I'll be doing the Bam Bam ground pound when I try to buy tix for a C's game and management decides to increase prices 20%.

2. The Viagra Effect. Let's face it - KG, Allen and Pierce are all at the top 7-8 of their respective positions in the league...but they ain't getting any younger. Pierce only played in 47 games last year, Allen had more surgery in the offseason than a B-List celebrity, and despite iron-man health over KG's career, you have to wonder when the Johnny Damon-effect is going to loom, i.e. an iron man dances with the DL-devil one too many times, and finally gets bit. If one of these players goes down for any extended period of time, Quemont Greer is coming off the bench. Well, not really, but it might as well be him.

3. High Default Risk. Talk about Mortgaging the future on a current run. The C's will trade away two future round picks in this deal (a throw in I am firmly against by the way), as well as trading away every significant young asset this team has stockpiled over the past few years (with the exception of this year's draft and Rajon Rondo....Kendrick Perkins's corpse doesn't count). While veteran leadership is solid, the NBA is a bit like the porn industry - established names definitely give the entertainment credibility, but at what point are you going to create a flacid product. Whatever - you get the point. If this team doesn't win now, or is beset by injuries, this franchise will be in the tank for years.

You see I didn't include Doc Rivers coaching under the Cons for one simple reason - they don't have enough players for him to incorporate some bullshit 10-man rotation. However, if he decides to start yanking Rondo like a yo-yo for simple mistakes and screwing with his psyche, this goes back to being a huge negative. I'll give Doc the benefit of the doubt, being that he only has two positions to screw with (I feel like I'm going to regret that statement in the near future, but hey, I piss in the wind sometimes).

PROS

1. Damn its GREAT to be Relevant Again! If you are looking for a real reason the C's traded away 6-7 assets (depending on the final terms) to get KG, you can stop at this point. For a team that has had only 5 playoff appearances since 1992-93, and only 2 that went beyond the first round, this deal puts the franchise back on the map as a legit contender in the Leastern Conference. Detroit, Chicago and Miami are the only three teams that can make a legitimate argument they are better ON PAPER than the Celtics at this point (even though the Celtics only have like 7 players under contract once this deal goes through). And for any Cleveland/Toronto/New York fans out there, put a muzzle on. Please contest this point because I would love to dissect a team by team comparison to anyone complaining. But I digress.

2. Dreams of Larry O'Brien dancing in our heads. As noted above, there are only three teams in the East that, barring major injury, can compete over an 82 game schedule - and each has serious enough flaws that the C's drawbacks don't look so bad by comparison. Detroit is aging, still has the Rasheed Wallace powderkeg, and has started to lose the one bona fide advantage it had over every team save San Antonio (phenomenal team defense). Miami will always be dangerous with Wade and even a disinterested Diesel, but the Motley Crue supporting cast looks like a bad season of MTV's "Making the Band" (as opposed to, you know, all the good seasons). Chicago is a legitimate threat, but they did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to address their lack of low post scoring, basically leaving them playing with three scoring options at all times (and the ugliest man in professional sports in Joakim Noah). As you can see, each contender has their own genital warts.

NOTE: I'm on the record as saying that the C's still don't have enough to get out of the East with this team (too much inexperience at the point, a corpse playing center, no bench, injury risks, etc.), but this is the Pros section so let's be positive.

3. The Big Ticket has arrived. A true warrior. Absolute gamer. Supremely intense. This guy is like Maximus, except without the pseudo-homosexual villain and murderous rage (hopefully, although that was questionable at times over the last three years). Never mind that he still puts up astonishing numbers at an incredibly consistent pace.

The Big Ticket has averaged at least 22 points, 13 boards, AND 5 assists a game over the last 4 years, while swatting away about 2 shots a night. He plays hard every single night and remains the most unique player in basketball. He has never been surrounded by this much talent at the wing spots, and will have total control of this locker room from the jump (Pierce and Allen are too passive to stand in this ambassador's way). He may have much love for his "Sota", but C's fans will start to associate KG with the Trot Nixon, lunch-pale type BoSox players that become fan idols - except with between 65% and 2000% more relative talent. Just this factor alone is enough to make anyone like this trade.

END RESULT: Big win for the Celtics, particularly after a mistake trade for Allen. This, at a minimum, shows that Ainge had direction for this team to jump off the youth movement train and make a run at it now. They need to stay healthy, but you can make that argument for every Leastern Conference contender. Did they give up too much for him? Probably. But the most important franchise in the sport is relevant again - at least until one of the "New Big Three" gets hurt.