Ever the optimist

Like every other Celtics trade or draft pick of the last several years Bill Simmons immediately loves it. Somehow I can't read this piece without remembering his assurances that Tony Allen was going be the next Ron Artest, Gary Payton and Paul Pierce were training together in Vegas (yes, but training for what?) and set to take the Eastern conference by storm, and so on.

At the same time, it's hard to argue with his Dad on this one:

My father was delighted about last night's Celtics trade because he likes any trade where his team gets the best player AND a No. 1 pick. He has also liked Wally Szezcerbiak going back to college. But here was Dad's favorite thing about the trade, hands down: "If I could have picked any four guys on the team to get rid of, I would have picked those four guys!"

The four guys: Ricky Davis, Marcus Banks, Mark Blount and Justin Reed.

Well, we sure agree on that one.

At the same time, there are more than enough points in this article where you wonder if Bill's really paying attention. For example:

With Blount's contract off the books, and Olowokandi's contract done after the season, the Celtics will be under the cap this summer. Now Danny can sign another white guy to go with Wally, Raef, Scalabrine and Dan Dickau for an official Whitewash. Bring back the tight shorts from the 80's, Danny! Let's take this thing all the way!

Ummmm, Bill, thirty seconds with Google will reveal that the Celtics salary commitments for next season as a result of this trade will run $53M+, not counting draft picks. The NBA salary cap for next season is estimated to be $49.2M. So not only will the Celtics be well over the cap, but they would need to get their salary down below $43.8M to be able to afford signing more than the MLE free agent that they could sign anyway. Your arithmetic is off by more than $10M, but who's counting.