It's been a day since Bonds hit his 756-Th and he has hit 757 already. This was his usual water shot, his 35 -Th in to the McCovey cove out of the 45 total that has reached the water out there. That brings up something I want to mention about Bonds. I have beat him up pretty bad over the steroids issue and everybody thinks the record is tainted. But I thought I need to mention 2 things that makes Bonds' achievements relatively impressive. First, his home ball park is brutal to hitters. Petco in San Diego is probably the only new park thats worse for the hitters than AT&T. When they were building this bad boy, people looked at the short porch on the right and said it's tailor made for Bonds to hit home-runs all day. But the park ended up playing much truer than expected. In fact, without that short distance to the right, this might be a graveyard for the hitters. Even with that, Bonds has hit 35 out of the 45 balls that have reached the waters. Visiting left-handers rarely reach the water because it's just too hard.
Not only has the Giants ended up with a beautiful ball-park which might end up as the Wrigley or Fenway of the next generation, they have also ended up with a very fair baseball park. But if Bonds was playing at any other park, you are probably looking at 5 home runs more each of the last 6 or 7 years. Secondly, the walks. Bonds is famous for his walks and one of the reasons for it is, how bad his supporting cast has been throughout the years. The Giants have done a horrible job of surrounding him with big bats. Jeff Kent was the closest thing to a super-star they have had batting around Bonds and nobody appreciated that guy anyways and he left town pretty much unwanted. If only Bonds had any kind of help, he would have walked far less and have seen a lot more good pitches. You can add another 5 HRs a year if the Giants had helped him out. Neither of these factors remove the taint on Bonds, but what I am saying is, he could easily be staring at a tainted 800 home-runs today if the park and the Giants had done him any favors.
The other guy who is getting a lot of flak lately is Kevin McHale of the T-Wolves. He is accused of striking deals with his friend Danny Ainge and transforming his bad T-Wolves team into the horrible Celtics team that Ainge dumped on him. He has definitely proven to be a bad GM lately. He is also an Ex-Celtic great and has about 7 guys on his rosters who have played for the Celtics the last few years. It looks and sounds like an inside job, but really it's not that bad. I agree the previous trade where he gave up Wally Szczerbiak, Michael Olowokandi and the first pick for Ricky Davis and Mark Blount was just stupid. The stupid part was really the first pick he threw in. He had no business doing that knowing fully well that his team sucks and that pick will probably be worth something. I guess he got carried away by the opportunity to give the Kandi-man away!
But I don't see what the problem is with the KG trade. First off, McHale got back the first pick that he should have never given up in the first place. Secondly, he got Theo Ratliff's expiring contract. On top of this, he got Sebastian Telfair, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green and Al Jefferson. What else did McHale have on the table that was better? You can't evaluate the trade in a vacuum. You got to look at his other options. He didn't have any. I am a Suns fan and would have loved for the Suns to get KG, but the Suns made it clear they are not giving Amare and as much as I love the Matrix, Marion and a bunch of scrubs is not better than what the Celts gave them. McHale could have gotten Lamar Odom and LA's scrubs and thats even worse! Except Kobe, there's nothing on that roster that I would even touch with a 10 foot barge pole. The Warriors probably had the best young talent to offer, but they didn't have the right mix of salaries to match up. McHale essentially had nothing else.
When you gut a franchise and give up a mega-star like KG, I always think a total re-build is a better way to go than trying to re-load. You are not going to replace KG with an Odom or Marion. You are better off going young and building from the ground floor again. Thats exactly what McHale is doing right now. It'll take them 3 years to get above water and may be McHale will be and probably should be fired by then, but he finally has a number of ways to rebuild his team. Young talent, good future picks and cap space. Even McHale probably can't screw this up. Or may be he will. In life who you know is more important than what you know. Danny Ainge is the best proof for that. He didn't do too well as a GM himself, but he knew Kevin McHale and looks like that saved his job. I understand that friendships always help in clinching such deals in terms of comfort level, but my point is, McHale didn't have too many options for KG.
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