Good move I guess. Smith's attitude may be questionable at times but the man's a terrific talent...I don't think he was brought here to supplant Fields; Fields is playing well and will continue to start --- Smith was brought in to strengthen the bench as an upgrade over Bill Walker. If he comes in with the right attitude he'll play and flourish here off the bench; if he doesn't, Mike won't play him and they'll continue using Walker or maybe even D'Antoni fav Toney Douglas could re-surface at backup 2...Simple as that...That's how I'm looking at this right now...
I don't particulaly care to cut Balkman though. OK, I can understand keeping Bibby around for PG depth (if true, this move says a lot about TD, huh?) -- suppose Lin ever went down God forbid, Davis never makes it back, Shump cramps up again, etc.. but to me, the guy to cut was Walker. I guess they feel that they have enough depth at the 3 to let Balkman go...He was a unique player that I felt brought some things to the table...Played well the few times he was ever called upon and for what it's worth, I think he looked improved somewhat from his first go-around with us...Balk was actually guaranteed $1.675M next year too which further makes it a little bit of a head-scratcher. Now we're $1.675M behind the 8-ball next yr cap-wise...Who knows though, maybe that helps us -- maybe it'll guarantee that we'll be over the cap (even if the cap goes up a tad) and therefore will be able to use the full MLE on a player(s)...Mike was never gonna play Balkman anyway.
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On a side note --- anyone catch Cedric Maxwell's amusing comment on Lin at the end of Berman's JR Smith article? He's a radio broadcaster for the Boston Celtics. Maxwell: “Now let’s not get crazy, OK,’’ he said on Boston radio. “It’s been [seven] games. That does not make the season. I know that this is a wonderful story ... Call me back in about two months. Because some of the team he’s played against so far have not had dominant point guards."
Yeah, OK moron -- "only" 7 games -- all victories though, right? And to insinuate that none of Lin's performances came against solid PGs....Huh??? WTF, wake up buddy -- Deron Williams, Devin Harris is still a decent player/Earl Watson, John Wall on his home floor, Derek Fisher/Steve Blake/Kobe Bryant (the Lakers probably played him the most physical and yet he responds with his biggest game so far -- on national TV btw), Rubio/Ridnour/Barea on their home floor, Jose Calderon on his home floor, Tyreke Evans/little Isaiah Thomas...Clueless hatin' Boston douche-bag...Have a clue before making an idiotic statement like that, ****ing jerkoff...Yeah, WE WILL get back to you in 2 months when the Knicks leapfrog the Celtics in the standings by then. Asshole..