The Bostonian segment of this blog might be interested in reading
Bill Simmon's email exchange with Curt Schilling.
As far as the Artest trade goes, I think it's safe to say that both teams are making a gamble. But I like Sacramento's gamble more than Indiana's. The Kings were going to lose Peja no matter what, and prior to this trade they were going nowhere this season or next.
The Kings couldn't afford to re-sign Peja, and they don't have cap room to sign free agents. Since they're into the luxury tax as it is, I don't even think they will be willing to spend their mid-level exemption. So Artest is worth the gamble. If he pans out, they can trade him for something useful next season. If not, he'll be an expiring contract next year and they can unload him then.
As for the Pacers, I think that once Maggette got hurt they faced the realization that they weren't going to get anyone better who could help now than Peja. Peja has been injured and on the decline, but he's still very talented. Obviously the Pacers wanted someone who would help them win now, and they're right to view themselves as a contender.
But I think the Pacers took a bigger gamble than the Kings. They turned down young talent from other clubs, like Golden State, to bet on a player who will likely opt-out after this season. If they don't re-sign Peja, or if Peja continues to decline, they will wish they got a couple of young (cheap) guns from the Warriors instead.
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Having only skimmed the Schilling interview, I must say I'm a little disappointed. While I've found some of Simmons's interviews with other people to be interesting, particuarly parts of his exchange with Mark Cuban, this one doesn't do much for me. Frankly, Simmons is a little to gushing, and I hear just about the exact same stuff every week on WEEI when Schilling talks to Dennis & Callahan. That's the difficulty with something like one-on-one interviews. You never know what you're going to get, and when you don't do them on a regular basis, you end up asking a lot of really basic questions that don't bring much to the table. At least for me, who hears 20-30 minutes of this stuff once a week during the season.
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