“It was a band-aid team to begin with,” Heinsohn said. “We didn’t have Perkins at the beginning of the year. He had surgery and wasn’t due back until January. They offered him a contract not knowing if he’d ever play again and he turned them down because he wanted to be a free agent. They expressed loyalty to the guy, but it wasn’t what he thought he was worth or his agent told him. When he came back we had lost (Shaquille O’Neal), Jermaine O’Neal and (Semih) Erden. Perk also was going be out for four weeks. So they had to do something, plus right from the beginning of the season they wanted to get a backup for Paul Pierce. When Marquis Daniels went down, they really need a backup. There you are, you’re under pressure to do something, so you make a move.”
“People are beating (Ainge’s) brains out because Perk is going to be a Hall of Fame player – that’s bull,” Heinsohn said. “He’s a good player. He was never in the end of the games. You finish with your best players. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good player. He was a very serviceable and functioning player. But all those considerations and the fact that they were probably going to lose him at the end of the year, I thought it was a great move because they got to pick who they wanted to fill in. Then they went out and got other people. They got (Carlos) Arroyo and (Troy) Murphy. (Ainge) did the best he could do. Unfortunately, the schedule worked against them because they were playing every other day so they didn’t have practice time. They were caught in between not having practices to save the legs of the veterans and having enough practices to bring these new players into the system. That never really worked out.”
Herald – Heinsohn's take on the state of the Celtics
I know Tommy is the biggest Green-teamer around and unlikely to criticize Danny Ainge, but I think his analysis here is spot on.
His point about practice time is also a good one.
Cue the haters… I'm used to it.
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