A Scot in the Dark
If draft day Jay Bilas weighed in on this trade, he'd probably say something like, "You know what this reminds me? Remember when the Celtics brought in Bill Walton, this is like that. Scot Pollard is Bill Walton without any of the talent or ability but let me tell you, he's a great interview. The media in Boston isn't going to like this kid, they're going to LOVE him."
The problem with the Pollard signing is that the Celtics needed someone to battle Kendrick Perkins for minutes and ended up with a guy who'll need to bounce back to challenge Brian Scalabrine for minutes behind Leon Powe. Even worse, Pollard's hardly been the picture of health of late so it's not like he is dependable Perk insurance should Kendrick go down again. Pollard has fun hair and is a nice guy but he's a washed up 8th man who really can't be counted on to give more than a handful of minutes a game of competitive basketball. Honestly, I'm not sure if he's better than Olowokandi.
In boxing, people talk about the fight before the fight. For many aging boxers, when they finally go down, announcers often explain that the bout that really sapped their energy and ended their career was a couple of fights earlier. If the Celtics don't sign a backup swingman, they could be setting up a season that we'll look back on as the fight before the fight. The three aging stars are going to have to play heavy minutes and are going to be forced into positions that could wear them down. The more minutes KG has to play in the middle (which is looking more and more like a possibility), the more of a beating he's going to take. Ditto for Paul Pierce if the team goes small and he plays minutes at PF. And Ray Allen is looking like he'll likely be logging huge minutes as the starting shooting guard and the backup playmaker.
Scot Pollard is a nothing signing for a team that desperately needs something. Afraid to pay a couple of million bucks in the luxury tax, the Celtics have now invested about 2 million dollars on a well-coifed DNP-CD.
But, on the bright side, he's a great interview.
