Moving on up.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Atlantic Division standings as of this hour:

Boston 10 13 .435 -
Toronto 9 14 .391 1
New Jersey 9 14 .391 1
New York 9 17 .346 2.5
Philadelphia 5 18 .217 5

Trivia time

Mind-boggling trivia question courtesy Bill Simmons's latest column: how old (in years) is Antoine Walker? Answers please before you click through.

First sign of the apocalypse?

It is beyond pathetic that as of this writing the 5-8 Celtics (with their .385 winning percentage) are now in sole possession of first place in the craptastic Atlantic Division. If the playoffs started tomorrow a team that didn't win even 40% of their games would be the #3 seed in the East.

I'm not sure when I've seen less parity between major conferences in a sports league. Only three of fifteen teams in the East currently have a winning record. Only four of fifteen teams in the West currently have a losing record.

I wonder if we should institute the Premier League policy of demoting the worst NBA teams to the CBA at the end of every year. No Oden for you! [/soup nazi]

Bob Ryan, uncut

Over at a website I've never been to before, Sports Media Guide, bob Ryan has a long interview posted in which he explains how great he is and all the forms that takes. He brings up a few past topics on this blog, such as the large numbers of sports journalists that seem to dislike sports and the changes made possible by electronic media.

Excerpt:

When I started I saw guys get jaded at 40 and then they got really jaded and terminally unhappy. The late Ray Fitzgerald was an example. I still like the games. That's why so many sports editors are missing the boat as they try to re-invent the newspaper. I still like the games. I see people crafting columns in the fifth inning or the third quarter and I say, "You're not watching the game". And people say, "I'm writing about the people and the color". Well, guess what? It starts with the game. If I'm flipping the dial as I was a week ago in my hotel room in New York – Brown and Yale were tied with six minutes to go – I'm hanging around to see what happens. I couldn't name a player on either team, but I was curious to see how it came out. I like the games. I don't think enough people actually like the games.

I don't relate to people who are not fans. Some writers insist they can't be fans – I read your interview with Dave Hooker – (Dan) Shaughnessy (Boston Globe) will tell you that – but I am very much a fan. That's my DNA – it's why I have an advantage over most other people. I can convey that to my readers – they know that if they hang in with me over a period of time there's no doubt I am one of them. That is simply not the case with the vast majority of my colleagues. How can they function – I don't get it. I can't be clinical. Even though I don't like football it doesn't mean I can't go to a game and get into it – and I'm more into football now than ever because of what the Patriots have done the last six years

On sources, and apropos of his recent unwillingness to criticize Doc Rivers:

I read your interview with Shaun Powell (Newsday) and his viewpoint about going about business without getting close to the people you cover. I respect that - but I'm not like that. I can't help becoming friendly with people in the business. I don't see anything wrong with it. You should be able to figure out parameters – I'm not going on vacation with these guys. I don't understand what he was talking about. I can't understand how you can be a columnist and not have somebody you can pick up the phone and talk to - somebody who you have a cordial relationship with and can shoot the breeze with.

What is this job all about? If you're a beat person, how can you have a source if it's not a friendly source? I don't get it – what's wrong with being friendly and compatible with them? You're selling yourself to these people. You're selling yourself to make them comfortable with you so they tell you things.

On the 'new media'

You've got the shift in readership to the likes of Bill Simmons and all of the people on the Internet, who are a little less accountable than newspaper writers. But they're all out there forcing us to re-evaluate where we fit in. It's not the same and it won't be the same – our influence is waning and eroding. Simmons is not doing what mainstream columnists do – he has no desire to speak to anyone in power – he observes and does what he does. There's room for everybody – the access to information is staggering, imposing and intimidating. You've got Baseball Prospectus and all that number crunching by genius people dissecting baseball in ways mainstream writers never could – it's very intimidating.

All you can do is use your access to bring thoughts to the public and to write as well as you can and hope that someone cares and that it matters. And how you say things is almost as important as what you're saying. When that stops being the case we'll be in trouble. Our business is under siege. Somebody starting out today should get to a dot.com immediately if not sooner – why spend your time in a dying industry? I'm grateful I'm much closer to the end of my career than the beginning. I'm grateful for the times I've lived through. I doubt the dot.comers will ever have the fun we had – because of the access and respect we got from the leagues – theirs will never be what ours was. They'll never have the fun and the relationships we were lucky enough to have had. I can't imagine starting out today. Whoever is the NBA guru today – if you will, the 'me' of 1986 or 1988 when I was at my peak – no way will he have as much fun as the guys I did it with. The world was so much simpler and the games were so much better – but that's another story

The one exception I'll take to this is to point out that Simmons clearly has multiple sources inside the Celtics front office, as well as those of multiple other NBA teams. He's broken several Celtic-related stories over in recent years. If anything, I suspect some of the threat Ryan is feeling from Simmons stems in part from how similar the later is to Ryan's self-image. Simmons very clearly aspires to write from the fans perspective and was a season ticket holder who went to almost every game at the garden from the late-1980s until he moved to LA a few years ago. Ryan wants to make the big difference between print and on-line journalims about the access and relationships the former has that the later can't replicate. I don't know if that is already outdated.

Manny to SF?

SFGate.com is reporting that the Sox and Giants are talking about a deal to send Manny to San Francisco. There are a number of obstacles. One is Manny's contract. Another is his right to veto a trade. A third is what the Giants go send east in return -- prospects, perhaps.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Ronaldinho!

Doc Rivers deathwatch

The Celtics have started the season 1-6 for lots of reasons that have nothing to do wtih the coaching staff. The roster is incredibly young and a mis-mosh of different strengths and flaws. Unlike other rebuilding projects the Celtics do not appear to have a clear approach to the team they are building. (To pick an example we've already discussed around here: the Bulls are forming a team around athletic, high-character guys who will play very high energy defense 48 minutes a game and scrap for as many points as they can get).

All that said, the coaching of this team has been lousy. The players are routinely unprepared for what other team's are going to do, look lost and confused on both offense and defense far too often, take far far too long to adjust to in-game developments, and don't seem to be playing in any sort of coherent system that takes advantage of their strengths.

The Indiana Pacers, a team that has owned us in recent years and which matches up with our current roster roster very well, comes to town tonight. We should be 1-7 going into the weekend and then face two games that should be easy wins: at home against Portland and on the road against the Knicks. If we drop either or (god forbid) both of those it's hard to imagine how much longer Doc can hold out.

Getting everyone on the same page.

Shira Springer's account of the Celtics' loss to the Jazz last night suggests that the team is having a hard time getting everyone reading from the same script:

In every loss this season (and there are four), the Celtics knew exactly what they needed to do, but failed to execute. As Pierce commented, they often have four players on the same page and another not where he needs to be. Defensive breakdowns inevitably follow.

This is similar to observations made last season when the Celtics rarely found themselves all on the same page. Given that recent history and the final result last night, it was understandable the players did not want to emphasize the positives. If the Celtics were united in anything last night, it was their unwillingness to see silver linings in the defeat.

Or not. Peter May's article says:

[Y]ou take what you can get from affairs like last night's 107-100 setback to the Utah Jazz.

Like, for instance, the "Whoa" game submitted by Rajon Rondo.

As Doc Rivers put it afterward, "I'm always looking for silver linings and that was a big one."

I guess they weren't united in anything.

Schilling, Beckett, Matsuzaka?

ESPN.com says the Sox may have submitted the top bid for the rights to negotiate with Japanese right-handed pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. Sounds like a lot of money, but I like the move, since there don't seem to be a lot of other good options out there.

Interesting Video

Here's a really fascinating video of Bryan Colangelo during the first round of the last draft, trying desperately to get Williams late in the first round. It includes a call to Danny Ainge, asking him why he wanted Telfair instead. Interesting stuff.

(As I said right after the draft, I liked the Rondo pick better than the move for Telfair and think Boston should have chosen Roy, Foye, or Gay instead of trading for Telfair. I like all three of them a lot better than Telfair.)

As a Bulls fan, I found Charley Rosen's take on a recent Bulls game interesting. I thought it was pretty spot on in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Charley tends to be overly critical of players, but I thought his criticisms here were fair.

Any thoughts on the Celtics' season so far? From what I've read, Boston fans seem to be blaming the coach. I think the GM deserves more of the blame. But things will get better for you guys. I'd expect a finish closer to .500 than .250.

A little help?

Anyone recognize this Celtic?

Doh! Doc

I think this quote from the latest Bill Simmons column just about sums up how fans feel about Doc Rivers's tenure in Boston. It's an email from Danny in Boston:

"After walking through Faneuil Hall earlier today and seeing the statue of Red sitting on the bench smoking a cigar, I couldn't help but think to myself: Who would lead the Celtics to more wins, Doc Rivers or a replica statue of Red placed on the Celtics' bench?"

Rooting for the worst team in the league

M's earlier post about Doc prompted me to fetch the following out of its 'draft' status and finally post it
------------------------------------------------------------

Waiting for any substantial results to come in from Senate races in Virginia, Missouri and Montana (I don't have much optimism for Tennessee) is as good a time as any to check in on our local, supposedly illustrious pro basketball team.

This week, the especially notable thing about the Celtics is that they may have achieved an elusive double-whammy of basketball honors. Yes, the Celtics are currently tied for the worst record in the NBA (0-3) while holding undisputed last place in ESPN's power rankings (the big 3-'dead last'-0 out of 30).

I've had the makings of a longish 'state of the Celtics' post rattling around in the back of my head for a while. At one point it might have been a pre-season preview, but it's now a little late for that. Whatever we want to title it, the content is long on flaws and lean on optimism.

A cliff notes summary of the flaws of the current team would include the following:

1) Almost 70% of the team's rotation players are 24 years and younger (e.g. Perkins, Jefferson, Gomes, West, Allen, Telfair, Rondo) which is a receipt for disaster if you want to win games in the here and now of the NBA. Winning teams are stocked with veterans, and the conventional wisdom that the NBA chews up and spits out youngsters gets confirmed every season. A friend, G., looked at the rosters of every NBA team over the last 30 years and found only one with as many young rotation players as this year's Celtics that won more than 50% of their regular season games: the 2004-05 Chicago Bulls. It's highly unlikely that the Celtics as currently constructed will achieve similar success.

2) The Celtics are incredibly thin in the front court. Indeed, they have nobody at PF or C that can be considered a reliable NBA player. The situation is so bad that three stiffs that by rights should be playing in Greece or the NBADL (Brian Scalanbrine, Theo Ratliff, Michael Olowakandi) will probably log regular rotation minutes for the Cs this season.

3) Ainge has stocked this roster with an incompatible mix of players that are best suited for different offensive schemes. Work-in-progress athletes such as Telfair, Rondo, Allen and Green are best suited for an up-tempo, fast-break system that masks their deficiencies at playing half-court basketball. Unfortunately, the other half of our rotation is full of players like Pierce, Szczerbiak and Perkins who are poorly suited, at best, for up-tempo basketball. Last season we watched the team institute a high-post motion offense so that they could play Delonte West big minutes at PG (West is completely unable to create dribble penetration or create his own shot, requiring non-PGs to initiate offensive sets). This offense allowed West to flourish (statistically he was the third best player on the team). The problem was that the team also wanted to give big minutes to Jefferson and Perkins, who were completely unable to do the things a high-post offense requires of its big men (e.g. make quick and appropriate passes, hit 10' shots, make intelligent decisions away from the ball, not turn the ball over). The result of Ainge's hodge-podge approach to assembling a roster is a group for whom the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

If you're looking for a silver lining, it might be this: the conventional wisdom has been that the Celtics would need to trade Pierce to get bad enough to rebuild with any success through the draft. If the Celtics continue their early season awful ways, however, they might end up with a great draw in the Oden sweepstakes without every officially blowing things up. Is this great good fortune or the road to disaster? We might have a lot of time this season to debate that.

Frank Lampard.

What an amazing shot.

Red on roundball

One of my early memories of televised Celtics games were the basketball clinics that Red Auerbach would do during half time on different aspects of the game. If I remember correctly, they were titled 'Red on Roundball'

In this clip Red, Bill Russell, Tiny Archibald (Celtics PG '79-83) and someone else combine to walk through defensive positioning in the post.

In case you can't decide who to root for

Because I don't spend enough time following the NBA as it is, I've taken the dangerous plunge of joining a 16-team fantasy league with a bunch of basketball obsessives who know a hell of a lot more than me. Since you're all dying of curiosity, this is my opening night roster, in the order they were drafted:

1: LeBron James (SF) Cle
32: Kirk Hinrich (PG, SG) Chi
33: Carlos Boozer (PF, C) Uta
64: Manu Ginobili (SG) Sas
65: Andrew Bogut (PF, C) Mil
96: Mike Miller (SG, SF) Mem
97: T.J. Ford (PG) Tor
128: Jamal Crawford (SG) NyK
129: Mike Dunleavey (SF) GSt
160: Brevin Knight (PG,SG) Cha
161: Jeff Foster (PF,C) Ind

My rookie middle-round draft strategy was, when picking among roughly equal players, to favor those eligible for multiple positions so I have a lot of flexibility from night to night to start the most productive players playing.

Rejected team names: 'LeBron and the white boys', 'LeBron and his honkies', 'Greg Kite's pickup squad'; Current team name: 'We demand a recount!' in anticipation of a rough season.

Red Auerbach, 1917-2006

RIP, coach

Headlines that make you almost crap your pants

and/or start thinking about Greg Oden

Pierce has ruptured ligament in knee, will need surgery

Breaking NBA news

from the Onion

Portland Trail Blazers Get Hint After Being Left Off 2006-07 NBA Schedule

PORTLAND, OR—Claiming that it would "just make an awkward situation even worse," Portland Trail Blazers head coach Nate McMillan said in a press conference last Sunday that he and his team "got the hint" after noticing his team's conspicuous absence on the 2006-07 NBA schedule, and will not make any attempt to play a basketball game this year. "At first we thought that they were giving us the first week off, but after looking at the schedule for the rest of the year, we understood what was going on," said McMillan, adding that after last year's league-worst 21-62 record, he thought this might be coming. "I feel we deserved to find out differently, maybe a phone call, but if they don't want us there, fine. We'll just have to find something else to do." League officials said in a statement yesterday that they appreciated the way the Trail Blazers were handling this, adding that the Atlanta Hawks and the New York Knicks have "been acting like a bunch of babies about the whole thing."

Get your Freak(onomics) on.

Stephen Dubner points out that Celtics Dancer Alexis' favorite book is Freakonomics. If she could spend a day with anyone in the world, it would be Jeffrey Sachs ("because he is brilliant") or Queen Rania of Jordan. Huh.

Voter information.

For an explanation, see here. If anyone objects to this, let me know.

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Kenny Rogers cheated.

See here.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Please find the ESPN Insider in your office and ask him or her:

(1) What -- if anything -- is new in today's piece about Telfair and the Celtics?

(2) What's the rumoured deal between the Celtics and the Jazz for Carlos Boozer?

SI's Celtics predictions

SI's NBA preview rankings have the Celtics finishing 14th in the East. The headline is "The star can do it all except lead his team into the playoffs."

Rondo a la turk

Been meaning to pose this question -- for poeple who have actually seen Rajon Rondo play, are you as enthused as Shira Springer and Bill Simmons?

Is ESPN.com smearing Sebastian Telfair?

Here are the first paragraphs of a story on ESPN.com at this hour titled, "Celts' Telfair denies role in shooting of rapper Fabolous":

Boston Celtics guard Sebastian Telfair denied Friday that he is under investigation for the shooting of rapper Skylar John Jackson -- also known as Fabolous -- but the police are singing a different tune.

"I wasn't being investigated for any shooting," Telfair told reporters on Friday at the Celtics' practice facility in Waltham, Mass. "My necklace was snatched from my neck." However, the New York police say Telfair is being investigated.

"We're investigating whether there's a connection between the reported robbery and the shooting," New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne told The Associated Press earlier this week.

The 21-year-old Telfair had a $50,000 chain ripped off his neck early Tuesday morning outside Justin's, a Manhattan club owned by hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs. Twenty minutes later, Jackson, 28, was shot and wounded in the left thigh outside of the club. The New York Daily News reported that surveillance video captured two members of Fabolous' entourage robbing Telfair. The paper's sources claim Telfair saw the men inside the club and made a cell phone call. The security camera reportedly captured the shooter leaving in a grey car.

According to Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg, several witnesses heard gunshots outside the East 22nd Street restaurant at about 12:30 a.m. There were a number of calls to 911, and one witness took down the make and license plate of a sport utility vehicle leaving the scene, she said.

After the incident, four men, including Fabolous, were arrested and charged with having unregistered, loaded weapons in their SUV.

Telfair left Tuesday night's Celtics game against the Knicks after halftime to view lineups, which contained Fabolous and members of his entourage. The 21-year-old Telfair was unable to identify the suspect.

"I was in an unfortunate situation, if you want to say I'm a bad person because I was out with my fiance, then that's what it is. I know who I am, my teammates and this organization know who I am," Telfair told reporters.

Go back and look at the first three paragraphs. The story starts with Telfair's denial. Then it contradicts him: "However, the New York police say Telfair is being investigated." But the story lacks a single sentence or source to support this statement. The next paragraph quotes a NYPD spokesman as saying that the police were "investigating whether there's a connection between the reported robbery and the shooting." This hardly means that Telfair is a suspect. Perhaps Telfair was robbed by people later involved in the shooting. If so, Telfair had some bad luck, but did nothing wrong.

Either ESPN.com knows more than it is saying here, in which case this is bad journalism, or they are dragging his name through the mud, in which case it is bad journalism at Sebastian Telfair's expense.

Ouch.

Meet Jeff Suppan, NLCS MVP. Why can't the Sox get pitchers like him?

Rondo.

I hope y'all saw the Rajon Rondo highlight tonight.

Ah, sweet fall, when young men's minds turn to

NBA training camps and the new basketball season.

The best of the season previous that I've seen to date has recently gone up at McSweeney's. Relevant for hoops fans everywhere and for Celtics fans looking for possible context to Doc's looming decision to start the season with a three SF starting lineup.

Sox tix.

Anyone want to see the Sox this weekend? I have an extra ticket. How about you, mmazz?

Daryl Morey on Ainge's strategy

Before he left to become the new GM of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey was part the Celtics braintrust. One of those MBA-quantitative-analyst types, Morey liked to stop in as a guest speaker at stats classes at MIT.

He's apparently doing the same thing in Houston. The following is some notes that were typed up by a Rice student who claims to have sat through the a recent Morey lecture, as posted on the APBR message board. Further down the thread folks like Dean Oliver comment. For those interested in the Celtics, the final paragraph has some interest.

The lecture just ended, and I figured I'd give you my update. It was only an hour with questions and all and was not done for a very knowledgeable (basketball-wise) audience, so it wasn’t revelatory or anything. But, he had some interesting things to say.

He said their goal was to be a championship-caliber team, meaning top 4. And his role is getting the right players and then optimizing those players. He talked about how baseball is highly measureable and linear and clean and easy, but basketball is harder because there are more things that are interdependent.

He said in basketball there are essentially four factors that are paramount: shooting percentage differential, free throw attempt differential, rebounding differential and turnover differential, with the shooting being by far the most important. And, he showed some statistics to this end. He also showed stats for teams with a dominant center, which had a heavier focus on percentage and FTA, and made turnovers basically inconsequential. He showed some stats from the championship teams and talked about how great Rudy was at maximizing the scoring percentage differential.

He then did a stacked column graph showing how a roster should be built compared to how the Rockets have been built in the past, ranking each player in importance and efficiency and graphing them on minutes played. One thing I thought was interesting from the ’06 graph was that he had Swift and Hayes higher in the pecking order than Howard (even though Howard had more minutes). In the ’06-’07 graph, they had swapped Yao and McGrady’s spots so that Yao was first. They didn’t list past them and Battier though for privacy’s sake.

He showed us a website he uses – a service called Synergy Sports Extranet – that provides data and video clips by player. We looked as Sebastian Telfair. The website breaks all of each player’s video down by type play, provides data on how good he is at it and provides all the video of each event. He said, knowing the strategy of the coach, you can look at the abilities of a prospective players in those areas where you can expect the coach would ask a lot in. He also pointed out that if you have a style that is uncommon, you can get players cheaper because the skills they have to offer are not in high demand.

To questions, he mentioned that:
• Van Gundy does a very good job of bringing the data they generate to the players and at translating that to what they do on the floor.
• Leadership is very important in basketball (unlike baseball), but it is very hard to quantify.
• Jeff can get above average rebounding with bad rebounders from a good scheme. He also said that the valuable and rare rebounders are the guys who can get the contested balls, and Hayes is very good at that.
• On the business side, most of the profit is made on the appreciation of the team. And, there is also a huge tax write-off in owning a team. Otherwise, owners want to not lose money, but cash flow takes a backseat to winning, generally.
• Winning is a virtuous cycle and losing is a vicious cycle. It is a dangerous game since you have to lose for draft picks, but not so much that you are the Hawks. He mentioned that since the Celtics only had 1 star, they were investing in a number of promising young guys in hopes of being able to package them for the second star next to Pierce. Still hasn’t happened.

Those of us who spent some time speculating about possible Ron Artest, Allen Iverson and Kevin Garnett trades in the last year and have been thinking along these lines. We should all be hoping for monster years from Al Jefferson, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair and Kendrick Perkins, since they have the upside to potentially bring back a legitimate All Star talent in a trade.

For whatever its worth

Chris Mannix over at SI has got lots of free time on his hands. He's an NBA writer and ran out of off season stuff to write about three months ago. I've got free time because I'm an NBA fan and its early September. Hence this post.

Today Mannix dreams up a 'six coaches on a hot seat' piece to fill some space at the end of a column.

Six coaches on the hot seat
1. Doc Rivers, Boston
It's year three for Rivers and Paul Pierce isn't getting any younger. A playoff berth is a must.

2. Isiah Thomas, New York
Just how owner James Dolan will define improvement remains to be seen, but Thomas has to show he can win with the talent he assembled.

3. Eddie Jordan, Washington
Yes, Jordan signed a three-year extension but GM Ernie Grunfeld won't be afraid to pull the plug if the defense doesn't improve.

4. Jerry Sloan, Utah
Let's be clear: Larry Miller will never fire Sloan. But another year of mediocrity and Sloan will show himself the door.

5. Jeff Van Gundy, Houston
The talent is there. Van Gundy has to prove he can win outside of New York.

6. Sam Mitchell, Toronto
Don't be surprised if Mitchell is the first one to go. A slow start by the Raptors will give Bryan Colangelo all the cover he needs to bring in Phoenix assistant Marc Iavaroni.

My only reaction to this is that if Jerry Sloan were ever to leave Utah and still have a pulse then of course Doc Rivers should be fired in about 15 seconds.

At last, some good news

I've been pretty consistently down on the state of the Celtics for most of this last season. Most of our recent draft picks impressively failed this last season to justify Ainge's optimism that they were on the verge of becoming above-average players. The Szczerbiak deal exchanged what I saw as two relatively tradable middling contracts (Ricky Davis, Mark Blount) for a single large, painful one. The free agent market and this last draft were largely barren of players that were going to really make a difference. Ownership seems unwilling to trade Pierce and unable to surround him with more than role players. It's been a good time for pessimism.

Yesterday brought a sliver of good news, for those who care about geeky things like payroll management. 21-year old center Kendrick Perkins is reported to be signing a four-year contract extension with the team that is relatively incentive-based. The guaranteed money comes in at only ~$4M/year, with incentives that might add another $1M/per. Despite having basically no basketball coverage for a couple of months it’s, surprise surprise, the Herald that breaks the story.

This is unconditionally good news for several reasons.

- The classic risk associated with drafting high school standouts is that you may have to pay them starters’ money before you know whether they can produce like one. With this deal the Celtics will have Perkins cost-controlled on a below-MLE contract for the first eight years of his career.
- Even if Perkins never becomes more than a solid rebounder and defender-- in effect a strictly average ~25 mpg NBA center-- he will be at least modestly underpaid for the life of this contract. Possible comps (Etan Thomas, Dan Gadzuric, Adonal Foyle, Jamaal Magloire) are all on contracts that pay $6-9M
- There was a real risk that if Perkins hit the free agent market next summer his price tag would have been bid up to the annual free agent fever that has led to 90% of NBA MLE signings being paid 25-50% more than they're worth. Under this scenario the Celtics either pay Perkins an inflated contract that hurts the team for the next 5~6 years (the 'Mark Blount' scenario) or sign-and-trade him and spend the next few seasons watching to see if a different draft pick will pan out (the 'Marcus Banks' scenario).

Time to come clean: during past debates about Celtics basketball I think I predicted that it would cost in the neighborhood of ~$8M to resign Perkins next summer. I'm more than happy to be proven wrong.

Perkins is 21-years old with real athletic potential. The Celtics now have him cost-controlled until he is 26. In two seasons he might be no better than Sam Dalembert, and making $6M less a year. If he can add an offensive, low-post game and/or become a top-shelf rebounder and defender the team will have a real asset on its hands. While we're talking about good news associated with a likely lifetime rotation player-- and not someone you build a strong playoff team around-- it’s still good news all the same.

Fake Edit: Hollinger's extension prediction also overshoots the mark:

Kendrick Perkins, Celtics
Conditions are smiling upon the Celtics' young center, as $10 million-per-year deals for such middling centers as Nene Hilario, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry and Samuel Dalembert portend great wealth for the 21-year-old strongman. And unlike those others, Perkins is a bull in the paint who can punish opposing post players. As a result, the Celtics would probably rather overpay a little now than have to overpay a lot next summer.
Forecast: Five years, $30 million

Peter King: Clairvoyant or well informed?

In his Monday Morning Quarter Back column, Peter King observes

I think New England's much-too-tough win (51 receiving yards by wideouts) and Seattle's offensively punchless 9-6 win at Detroit say one thing to me: This Deion Branch thing has to get resolved one way or the other, and very, very soon. It's clear to me he's not going to report to the Patriots until at least Week 10 (so he gets his year of credited service toward free-agency), so New England has two choices. It can give in and pay him $6.5 million a year or so, erasing the current one-year, $1.05-million on his contract and starting over. Or it can rekindle talks to trade him. In my mind, Seattle, which has offered a second-round pick and a later draft choice, needs to get serious and step up and surrender its first-rounder in 2007 if it wants to get the deal done. I just don't see the Pats forgetting this year's dough and handing Branch six- or seven-percent of their salary cap.

For reference: Javon Walker was traded to Denver for a second rounder and Donte Stallworth went for Simoneau and a 4th rounder. At first blush this deal with Seattle appears to be very good value for Branch.

It obviously doesn't help us at WR this year, but I'm not sure that was even our biggest problem yesterday. I'm only a semi-educated football scout, but our pass-blocking was absolutely awful in the first half. On many possessions our tackles and tight ends couldn't stay in front of Buffalos outside rush and Brady had almost no time to do anything with the ball. Brady was extremely classy about it in the papers this morning, making no mention of his offensive line and throwing himself under the bus over the whole thing. Is Branch an upgrade over Reche Caldwell? Sure. Given a choice between that upgrade or better execution by our O-line yesterday, however, I take the later.

Anyone who watched the whole season in '01 has to feel pretty good about where the Pats sit this morning.

EDIT: The Pats have reportedly one of the best rookie WRs of the last draft coming back from a minor ankle injury in the next couple of weeks. They also recently traded for Doug Gabriel, who was reported as starting in preseason on a Raiders team loaded with Randy Moss, Joey Porter and Ronald Curry. The Pats running game looked fantastic yesterday. I have no problem going forward with a two-TE power offense for several weeks, seeing if Gabriel or Johnson can provide 90% of Branch's productivity this season, and seeing what we get with a mid-1st round pick next spring.

EDIT 2: I'm deliberately staying away from CHB's highly unfortunate tangent into football this morning. It was a classic mailed-in piece where Shaughnessy simply took the easiest, laziest storylines (e.g. laying yesterday's passing attack woes on the absence of Deion) and cranked out a template CHB column, complete with comparisons to the Red Sox and shots at Patriots fans.

Best of luck, Deion

Just walked down the street for lunch and the ESPN broadcast in the pizza place was reporting Deion Branch to the Seahawks for a 2007 #1 draft pick.

Are you ready for some football?

As we kick off our SweetDue fantasy football season, I thought I'd post my favorite "newsbreaker" from our new league manager service:

09/07/06 12:10 PM
THE NEWS
Tom Brady has had a phantom shoulder injury that has now lingered over three seasons. Brady appears on the Patriots week one injury report as "probable – shoulder."
Our View
Brady set what is believed to be a modern day record by being listed as "probable – shoulder" for 29 consecutive weeks until week 15 of last year, when he actually had a legitimate injury and was listed as questionable with a "right shoulder/shin" injury. There is obviously nothing wrong with his throwing arm, but it will be interesting to see if Bill Belichick continues treating his injury report like a joke all year. By week 17 Brady will be just one week away from the magical, and likely unbeatable, 50 mark. Good luck, Tom!

Couldn't have said it better myself.

See ya, Boomer.

ESPN.com says the Sox are shopping David Wells and expect to see him go, confirm what I told me office neighbor this afternoon: The Sox are toast. But then we all knew that already.

I'm sorry to see him go, but hope he can win something in his last season. It was fun to watch him pitch in the fifth game of the Yankees series last Monday, notwithstanding the context, a reminder of what he could have done this year if not for a poorly placed line drive.

Stupid Headlines

This can't be the first time that something like this has come up, but I laughed heartily when seeing the short ESPN headline of New York's win last night, highlighting the success of their starting pitcher:

"Yanks Wang wins 15th"

Chris

Bob Ryan needs a drink, or a therapist, or both

I haven't been following the Red Sox as closely this year as in years past. Certain distractions (one of which some of you were at) have kept me from following the team as religiously as my father and brother, to name two. This may be part of the reason why a sweep by the Yankees doesn't hit me as hard as some.

Yesterday afternoon Bob Ryan sat down to his word processor and decided to do a whole lot of venting. A piece that runs down every disappointing thing that he can think of about this year's squad ends with the following:

The truth is that this is not a good time to be Theo Epstein. For two years running, he has been unable to construct a viable pitching rotation. Theo was cut one year of afterglow slack, but overheated fans, already in a bloodthirsty mood, are downright rebellious now that the Yankees have humiliated their team with a five-game sweep.
The truth is that in this perverted sports climate, the other team is never just allowed to be better, even for a day, let alone a series or a season. No, no. Blame must be affixed. Heads must be severed.

Once upon a time, losing brought a brief period of sorrow. Now it brings rage. The rest of the season, I fear, will not be much fun.

The truth is we need to sit down and figure out what sports are all about. We've lost our way.

Truth is, I've only been to one game at Fenway this year, watched perhaps one game a week on television, and spent less time over at SOSH than in years past. That said, I don't know anyone in Boston who feels the way Bob does.

I know a lot of people, however, who feel the Sox have had the kind of disappointing, lousy year (injuries, underperforming acquisitions, old pitchers falling apart) that happens to lots of teams all the time. Only one baseball team a year gets to have everything go their way and win the World Series. In today's sports climate, another team is almost always better.

With about half the payroll, Theo and the Sox are leading the Yankees in recent championships, 1-0. Let's say hypothetically that current Sox management is only good enough at their jobs to win one World Series a decade. While all that losing might send Bob to an asylum, it would still make the team significantly better than most.

Good news!

It took some work to find good news at Fenway Park today, but here it is:

ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons was at Fenway Park on Saturday, his first visit to a major league stadium since his brain aneurysm in June.

Gammons visited both clubhouses before the game between the Yankees and Boston Red Sox. . . .

Gammons and his wife, Gloria, watched the game from owner John Henry's box. A note welcoming him to the game was posted on the scoreboard during the sixth inning, drawing an ovation, while a recording of Gammons singing the Chuck Berry song "Carol" was played over the loudspeaker.

No TV here.

Since I wasn't watching, can someone tell me which of the Sox' cornerbacks got beat for that touchdown in the top of the seventh inning? Ouch.

Rem-dog rendered speechless

I missed this part of last night's TV coverage, when Dennis Leary stopped by the broadcast booth to make a fundraising plug for New Orleans firefighters, and ends up riffing on Mel Gibson and Kevin Youkilis. Poor Remy doesn't seem to know whether or how to shut him up.



EDIT: credit where its due: Deadspin and Seth Mnookin. Mnookin clues me in the guy with Leary is Lenny Clark who is a recovering alcoholic, hence Leary's reference at the end to 'you've been there yourself'.

EPL ahoy!

I'm sure that you've already seen this guide to picking a EPL team, but perhaps not this one. I have to admit that I understood less than half of the second, from which I assume that it's pretty good.

As for YNWA, this is a pretty enthusiastic version from a Liverpool - Chelsea championship league match:



The crowd gets going at 1:09. The music kicks in at 2:00

Will we walk alone?

A story in today's Financial Times (page 18) about the purchase of Aston Villa by Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner notes:

Other US football team owners are interested in expanding their sporting interests over the Atlantic. The Kraft family, owners of the New England Patriots, have been linked to Liverpool FC.

I had started to gravitate toward Arsenal, largely on the strength of Nick Hornby's book Fever Pitch, but a Kraft purchase of Liverpool could swing me over.

So, time to familiarize ourselves with Liverpool? If you watched the World Cup, you know stork-like striker Peter Crouch. Midfielder Harry Kewell was the key to the Australian offense, and his absence against Italy was one of the reasons the Sockeroos looked so flat. Much of the rest of the squad is a mystery to me, but not the captain, Steve Gerrard. He had a terrible World Cup -- he kept knocking field goals trying to replicate this sort of thing:



And I've posted this before, but it still amuses me. A Liverpool song, to the tune of "Que Sera."

Steve Gerrard Gerrard
He hits it from 40 yards
He's big and he's f***in hard
Steve Gerrard, Gerrard

"Take a bow, sir. You have been immense."

Boomer.

Has David Wells just saved the season?

Will anyone miss Harry Sinden?

Will Teddy Bruschi be 100% this year?

Where will Allen Iverson play next year?

Which Premiership team should I root for?

#61 still stuck on #9

After a torrid start, Bronson Arroyo is still looking for win #10.  He failed in his 8th consecutive try this week.  One might think that would cool off fans upset that the B's traded him for Wily Mo.  Well, put me firmly in the camp of people who say this trade was still a mistake.

 

To be fair, I'm willing to give Pena more time to pan out.  You can't judge a trade when the key player in it has been on the DL for most of the time since the deal.  But here's what I wrote about Arroyo back on March 20th.

Far be it from me to question Theo and the gang. But Arroyo was a pretty valuable player/trading asset, and Pena doesn't seem fair value, at least not yet. Arroyo is relatively young (29); under contract for three years in what should be his prime; puts up consistently good ERA and win totals (admittedly on a great offensive team); and is never, ever on the disabled list. (He supposedly has the proverbial "rubber arm; in fact, I read once that he doesn't even ice down after games, which is pretty much unheard of.) That's a great guy to have at the back end of your rotation or in your bullpen, particularly for $3m per year or so.

So far this year, Arroyo is 9-7 with a 3.31 ERA.  Even if you assume his ERA would be significantly higher in the American League, particularly pitching in the AL East, I think it's safe to say it would probably be about where it was last year, when he went 14-10 and had a 4.51 ERA.  But more significantly, here's the key stat:  157.2 innings pitched.  That's better than any Sox pitcher this year -- Curt Shilling tops the list (152.1 innings), followed by Josh Beckett (134.1) and Tim Wakefield (119.2).  No other Sox pitcher is over 100.

 

While Arroyo's innings would undoubtedly be fewer in the AL (just like his ERA would be larger), his durability would be a great asset to a team that has been throwing pitchers like Jason Johnson and Dave Pauley out there.  Hindsight is 20-20, but wouldn't it be nice to have a 4th or 5th starter who could have pitched about 115-130 innings so far?

The Bledsoe Face

Bill Simmons writes about the "Peyton Manning Face" often enough that I think it's become part of the sports lexicon.  Can't wait until the "Drew Bledsoe Face" is also in the dictionary.

Time to break a long silence

Of all things to motivate me to figure out how to use this blogger account again, I didn't think it would be Boston Globe sports coverage. But I was very distressed to read the discussion of Peter May's horrid Paul Pierce contract article. I admit that I have lately fallen into the casual fan category for the Celts, and thus was not aware of the contract specifics; I was fooled by May's poor reporting, wondering if the new contract was necessary and valuable. Globe sports writing is a significant part of the discourse of the Boston (and even national) sports scenes, and the general tendency of readers is not necessarily to passively accept what media show, but to think within the categories that media present (thank you, Professor William Gamson of Boston College). However untruthful, the discourse he creates can wind its way into the talk of other fans and become part of how they perceive the situation.

Has anyone seen any significant follow-up from May (apology/clarification), or from the Globe? A mistake of this magnitude for a reporter is grounds for suspension or firing.

On a completely different topic, I hope everyone was watching Big Papi come through again last night. Out in the West, it happened during the tail end of dinner. I had left the game on after cooking, and was chatting with my girlfriend when I heard the crowd start to get excited when the first two men reached base. I jumped up to watch the end, and of course celebrated rambunctiously after the homer. I think I have some relationship repair-work to do now...but worth it for Big Papi!

Chris

I guess grudges are a good thing

Kevin Henkin has put together a short piece on the Celtics two new points guards, titled 'Guards with grudges'. It appears that basis for this article was calling up sports journalists in Oregon and Kentucky and asking them why they thought Telfair and Rondo didn't completely work out with their former teams. A fair amount of what is said about Telfair echoes H.'s comments that I posted here. The idea that Rondo was held back by Tubby Smith's system at Kentucky is also revived.

Excerpts of Henkin on Bassy:

Here are a few other key factors that went against Telfair and led to his eventual trade:

COACHING STYLE
Much has been made about Telfair's demotion to third-string status last season, but little attention has been paid to the reasons why. Yes, Telfair's thumb injury allowed Steve Blake and Jarrett Jack to initially jump ahead of him. However, the injury itself doesn't explain why Telfair was unable to reclaim his former starting spot upon his return. The answer, according to John Canzano, sports columnist for The Oregonian, lies in the coaching. Specifically, Canzano believes that Portland coach Nate McMillan had little use for Telfair's fast-break-oriented game. "Telfair wants to run," Canzano said. "Do you remember Nate McMillan as a player? He was the anti-Telfair. Read between the lines there." While McMillan and the Blazers may have had little use for a speedy, run-first point guard, the Celtics were in desperate need of one. As the saying goes, one man's garbage is another man's gold.

IMPATIENCE WITH LOSING
Portland Tribune sports editor Dwight Jaynes said Telfair never received a fair opportunity to develop, mostly due to a franchise-wide frustration with the team's losing ways. "I think there was such impatience here with all the losing that there was an unwillingness to allow him to grow," Jaynes said. "Here, he never really had the keys handed to him. In Boston, if he's allowed to play through his mistakes, I think he's going to be fine."

TEAM CHEMISTRY
Nobody is going to confuse the Trail Blazers with a group of Boy Scouts, but what sort of negative impact did Portland's me-first, bad-boy attitude have on Telfair's game? A significant one, according to Canzano. "Telfair's relationship with [Portland stars] Darius Miles and Zach Randolph was icy, in part because he's not motivated by the same things that motivate those guys. Paul Pierce is a professional. Miles and Randolph are not. Paul Pierce wants to win. Miles is apathetic and doesn't seem to care." With the Celtics' alleged bad apples shipped away in the trade with Minnesota last season, Boston's roster appears stacked with choirboys when compared to Portland's.

And on Rajon:

The first thing you'll hear about Rajon Rondo is that he can't shoot the ball. It's an opinion that is held almost universally and is the very reason why he lasted until the 21st pick in the draft. Sounds scary, especially to guys named Pierce and West. One has to wonder, then, if Rondo is such a liability on the perimeter, why bother wasting a first-round pick on him?

SURROUNDING TALENT
Heading into the draft, Rondo was criticized for not living up to increased expectations after a spectacular freshman year. Both Kentucky writers disagree with the assessment. "A lot of people think he took a step back," Brewer said. "I think the Kentucky program took a step back in overall talent and it affected Rondo's play." Added Sun, "When you put very good players around Rondo, he seems to play better than if there are mediocre guys on the court."

COACHING WOES
Rumor had it that Kentucky coach Tubby Smith wasn't shedding any tears upon the loss of his starting point guard. While the rumor may be true, there appears to be another side to the story. "Rondo could never buy into Tubby because Tubby could never buy into him," Brewer said. "Rondo needs to have a relationship with his coach. He needs to trust his coach. Tubby just didn't want to deal with the relationship side of things."

THE SYSTEM
Not unlike Telfair, Rondo suffered from a slower-tempo offense at Kentucky. Said Brewer: "If he was in a better system for him, like Rick Pitino's at Louisville, Rondo's numbers would have been much better and it would have showcased what he can do."

The definition of a NBADL prospect

As you may have already seen, the Celtics just signed undrafted West Virginia big man Kevin Pittsnogle to a non-guaranteed two-year contract.

Pittsnogle is a 6'11" center who shoots college threes at a 40% clip. He was on the All-Big East first team last year and has played very well in the last two NCAA tournaments. Here's a rhetorical question: how bad does this guy have to suck to go undrafted in what is seen as the most barren NBA draft of the last decade?

I'm guessing the answer is pretty bad. Word is that Pittsnogle has what might be charitably called motivation issues. He didn't attend the Chicago pre-draft camp, in part because he apparently went into the few months of all-important pre-draft evaluations with 24% body fat. That's not a typo. 24% body fat. When M., our friend S. and myself all tested our body fat in a high school gym class years ago I was easily the flabbiest of the three of us and I only scored in the mid-teens.

The other knocks on Pittsnogle are apparently that he can't rebound, play with his back to the basket on offense, play man-on defense, dribble, or do much of anything other than set screens and hit stand-still, outside set shots. When West Virginia played LSU this last season Ty Thomas, who gives up a good four to five inches on Pittsnogle, shut him down simply by being energetic enough to prevent him from receiving easy passes. Something tells me that most NBA teams won't have much trouble finding other people who can do the same thing.

The really sad thing is that even though Kevin has got 'NBADL' stamped all over him (although it might say 'Finnish professional league', I can't quite tell from here) he might still be an upgrade from Brian Scalanbrine. Since this is a completely zero-risk move I guess it makes sense. With Raef now being overpaid by Portland the Celtics could use more players who can keep other teams' big men from collapsing on Pierce's dribble penetration. I'd be surprised if Pittsnogle ever gets good enough at everything other than shooting to play that role, but since his contract is non-guaranteed it doesn't really cost us anything to find out.

Lazio returned to Serie A; God reportedly unhappy.

ROME -- A sports court allowed Fiorentina and Lazio to rejoin Italy's top soccer division and reduced the points penalty against Juventus in Serie B after successful appeals Tuesday in a match-fixing scandal.

Juventus' penalty was cut from 30 points to 17. Fiorentina will have 19 points docked next season, while Lazio will be deducted 11.

The court also cut AC Milan's points penalty in Serie A from 15 to 8.

A July 14 ruling stripping Juventus of its last two Serie A titles was upheld, though Milan will be allowed to play in the Champions League preliminary rounds this season.

Also upheld were five-year bans for former Juventus executives Luciano Moggi and Antonio Giraudo, figures at the center of the scandal.

Hundreds of Lazio fans outside the hotel where the verdicts were delivered screamed in delight at the news their team was back in Serie A. Minutes later, they scattered when a sudden thunderstorm drenched them.

ESPN.com.

ESPN cans Harold Reynolds.

Here's the story. Anyone know the dirt?

More changes for the Pacers

Today provides even more news in what has been a pretty busy off-season for the Pacers. Indianapolis sent Anthony Johnson to Dallas for the rights to Darrel Armstrong (a free agent) and a pair of recent late-round draft picks.

Since the end of the season Bird and Walsch have been systematically purging their roster of lots of mainstays from recent playoffs teams. Their recent deals have sent packing four veteran rotation players who all averaged more than 22 mpg last season. To recap:

Out
Peja
Austin Croshere
Jonathan Bender
Anthony Johnson

In
Marquis Daniels
Al Harrington (potential rumored sign-and-trade pending)
Four players (Josh Powell, Rawle Marshall, Shawne Williams, James White) taken in recent drafts

This doesn't look much like the behavoir of a team focused on winning as much as possible in the next couple years. Such a team would retain their veteran, playoff-tested 'core' and build around them. Bird and Walsch are dumping much of that core and bringing in lots of recent late-first and second-round picks.

Assuming Indy doesn't trade Jermaine O'Neal anytime soon this loooks suspiciously like a Danny Ainge-esque rebuilding strategy: keep the resident All Star on your roster, recycle the other veterans with trade value, load up on lots of recent draft picks and count on some of them working out.

Like the Celtics, this trade route may leave the Pacers with more wing players than they know what to do with. If they complete the widely rumored sign-and-trade to bring Al Harrington home they'll have a 2-3-4 rotation of: Jermaine O'Neal, Stephen Jackson, Danny Grainger, Al Harrington, Marquis Daniels, Fred Jones (recently retained), and all their young pups. In light of all these recent moves I can't help but wonder if we'll be hearing trade rumors involving Jackson soon...

Latest Bulls news: JR Smith to Denver

It's been a busy few weeks for John Paxson and the Bulls. Signing Ben Wallace to a free agent contract made Tyson Chandler expendable, so they traded him to the Lower Mississippi Watershed Hornets for the expiring contract of PJ Brown and JR Smith; a man whose anti-authoritarian attitude may have been enough that Chicago decided to keep him at least a time zone away from Scott Skiles, which was made possible today by trading him to Denver for Howard Eisley and two second round draft picks.

Whew. Deep breath.

Apparently Howard Eisley will be waived, and if PJ Brown's expiring contact isn't included in a deal over the next nine months he'll apparently be politely bid a 'bon voyage' at the end of year.

So in sum, the Bulls exchanged Tyson Chandler and his $9M/year deal for Ben Wallace on a $16M/year deal, without taking on any other salary commitments that might interfere with their ability to re-sign Hinrich, Deng, et al and/or be a player in the next couple summers' free agent markets.

The upside of this immediate set of deals (leaving aside for a moment the presumably significant benefits of resigning the better of the Bull's current players on rookie deals) rests heavily on Ben Wallace's contributions over the next ~4 years exceeding those of Chandler. If Wallace continues to be the player he was a couple years ago, this is a no-brainer. His stats have shown gradual decline, however, and we'll have to hope for the Bulls' sake this is not part of a larger, ongoing trend. Chandler has been something of a disappointment, even before people in Chicago were disappointed with his performance in the first year of his new long-term deal. I'm sure some folks in Chicago were impressed they got out of his contract so easily. He's only 24, however, and its not out of the question that in 3-4 years he won't be better than a 36-year-old Wallace. We can keep an eye on each career, and grade Paxson accordingly.

Report from the Vegas summer league

G. has spent far too much of his life watching the NBA summer leagues. It began when the Celtics hosted the event at UMass, after a few weeks of which he was hooked. When the league made the leap to Vegas he went too. What follows is a combination off several exchanges we've had in the last few weeks.



I hear you as far as discounting summer dominance. I've watched far too much summer ball over the years and I've always tried to explain it this way: In order to pick details from SL games, you have to have a good deal of experience watching shitty basketball games. You can always tell newbie summer league viewers when one of the their first complaints is the reffing. You can basically discern nothing from a player's volume stats. The most important thing to pay close attention to is the manner and method a player uses.

For instance, three point shooting in summer league means fuck all. The threes taken are usually of the uncontested sort. This is why folks should be skeptical of what Allen Ray has done over the summer. From the one game I've seen now and a handfull of college games though, Ray can shoot a basketball - probably better than anybody else coming into the league this year. He looked to be a little out of sorts when he first went in but once that wore off, that shot looked pretty. This tells us nothing, however, about whether he can get that shot off against a real NBA defense.

I remember being freaked out by Delonte turning the ball over against pressure last summer, to the point where I was paying more attention to whether or not Will Bynum could play defense and be a possible replacement. And obviously Delonte was even worse at this once the real games started. I got caught up in the prick tease that was Orien Greene as well - a player who looked very good on the court even though nearly everything he did turned out awful. There is always an abundance of fools gold in the summer.

If you've been watching summer games since the old Reebok days, you've had more than enough time to acclimate yourself to shitty basketball. More than 99% of hoops fans, I'd say. Predict, brother. Its way more fun that way, its how you get better at judging what matters and what doesn't, and nobody remembers when you are wrong anyway.

I've had some pretty good success separating the wheat from the chaff. I could see straight away that Justin Reed might've been an All World summer league player, but it wouldn't translate. Kedrick Brown was an obvious bust, even when his numbers said otherwise. I remember one of those UMass SL games that same year you went where Banks had a ridiculous amount of assists, and once I got back, I wrote up a report on SoSH to calm those heathens down, as for every nice pass he made, he threw one into the fifth row. Gerald Green didn't do all that much last summer and folks seemed pretty down on him, but I liked what I saw a whole lot.

The one player recently that I've been way, way off on was Perkins. Every summer he's looked worse than some of the escaped seven foot Lithuanian mental patients that get drafted in the second round on a lark. But last year he makes a huge leap in the regular season. Still can't figure that one out.

As for this year: Rondo played like he doesn't belong in Vegas. He did so many things so well and in such a unique manner, it was really hard to find a negative. The Raptor guards couldn't keep him out of the paint at all. He distributed the ball beautifully. At one point in the game, he made an over the head rocket pass into the corner for an open three, then on the next possession, faked that same over the head thing and reversed it to another open man. Showed a great handle all game.

The thing that really stood out with Rondo wasn't the fact that nobody on the Raptors could do anything when he was on the court. It was the way he was doing it to them. Somebody would be looking to feed the post to Bargnani or the Hump and he'd get in the way of it, but his hands were low. Nobody keeps both hands low defending an entry pass. Ever. I've never seen it done before. So I'm sitting there and my brain is saying, "What the fuck is this guy doing?" Then I notice that his hands look to be almost scraping the floor and a bell goes off - the dude is mutant and he knows it. Nobody was bouncing anything past those arms - he was a brick wall. Another one that stands out was the way he tried for a steal when his man switched to the weak hand. Every righthanded person on the planet would attempt to swat the ball with their right hand while keeping the dude in front of them. Not Rondo. He angles the guy toward the sideline, then swoops around the ballhandler's right(!) side to go for the swipe from behind. Just crazy shit.

I've seen young kids get touted as defensive players coming into the league before and most of them turn out to be nothing. This kid is a one man wrecking ball though. The only way the Raptors were going to get something going offensively during that game was if somebody shot Rondo. One guy killed their outside game, their post game and any hopes they had of getting into the lane.

I can't be certain that everything/anything I saw will translate to the NBA. Nobody really can be. That said, based on one summer league game against scrubs, my best guess is that Rajon Rondo will be a regular rotation player and help the Celtics win games this coming season. If he can distribute the ball without being a turnover machine against NBA defenses, he could start for them at some point this season. If he can penetrate against pros effectively and learn to hit an outside shot to save his life, we're really looking at something here.

One summer league game, yes. But I was beyond impressed with this kid. He'll no doubt be traded for a stiff like Sam Dalembert shortly.

Jefferson was okay, as far as big men go in summer league games. He rebounded well. Showed nice touch from further out than we are accustomed to seeing from him. He also did a nice job passing out of a couple doubles. His body looks much better and his shoulders are far more square than they were, but he looked a little slow to me and didn't show any ferocity around the rim when it was required. His D looked alternately good and bad. How far has Al Jefferson fallen in two years? Is there anyone left who confidently thinks he’ll even be an above-average NBA starter?

Green was in top form. Doc was invited to chat with the broadcast team for a couple segments and nailed Gerald's problem. He really doesn't know how to get himself open. Anyway, he dominated the first quarter, dunked all over the Raps. Drove to the hoop at will and showed nice touch when he got there. His help defense was pretty good, as he got at least two or three steals jumping into a passing lane that I can remember. If the kid applied himself to rebounding the basketball a little more, he could get serious minutes next year.

Telfair started off very well, distributing the ball all over the place. After the first quarter though, the held onto his dribble way too long. He then started throwing a couple third row jobs. His defense early on was way better than I remember it. He even blocked a shot at one point and altered another. The coaches must be riding his ass about Rondo. His defense got lazy after they got a huge lead, which I won't bash him too much for. Still, I'm not really seeing it with him. To me, he just seems to lose his focus too easily. Plenty of And-1 moments though, which made the game entertaining.

Gomes hit two jumpers and the rest of his points came off nifty passes from the two guards. He didn't look slimmed down, contrary to what some of the early reports suggested.

Allen Ray's jumper is just lovely. His defense was passable. He got some extended garbage time minutes at the point, where he looked good penetrating and Delontesque setting up an offense. Man can shoot the basketball though, and his drives looked good as well.

Leon Powe is my new hero. Nobody wants a loose ball more than Leon Powe. There was one point where he was surrounded by three far bigger Raps, one of whom might've been related to an elephant, and when the rebound came off the cylinder, he went right back up with it and the bodies started flying. I love this guy but he might be the first player ever to kill someone on the court Last Boy Scout style. No way he lasts more than 5 minutes at a time in any game this year. He's in good shape, but if gets completely yoked out ala Ben Wallace, he'd be a terror off the bench. His offensive moves are kind of slow and he isn't the most graceful dude around, but if I'm building a team, I would always have a spot for a guy who would choke somebody out for a rebound.

Dwayne Jones looked at least partially retarded in the few minutes he saw the floor.

Fun game to watch. And we found out Heywood Workman is reffing scrub games now, so that was a huge plus. They are replaying the shit out of this game tomorrow, and if you weren’t such a jackasses you’d skip work, watch it and tell me if I'm crazy here.



BTW, if it's not clear from context, when G. says a PG looks 'Delonte-esque' setting up the offense it's the very definition of damning with faint praise.

Venti frustration, indeed

Henry Abbott not only says everything I could think to about the situation unfolding in Seattle, but adds a whole lot of other insights and then backs them all up with cool links and stuff. The start of a whole lot of interesting reading can be found here.

ESPN and SI weigh in on Iverson

Last Friday I speculated that the number of teams that could make a serious offer for Iverson would be pretty small, and that Boston shouldn't rush to pay more than they needed to four months before the season starts.

Marc Stein at ESPN reports that the effective market for AI is two teams-- Boston and Denver-- with Philly already having rejected the matching salaries Denver has to offer.

Allen Iverson answers were scarce in the desert. There were early rumblings in Vegas that the Sixers indeed were considering a multiplayer deal that, at its core, would have swapped Iverson for Kenyon Martin and Andre Miller. That's more than the Sixers got for Charles Barkley, you'll recall, but Philly ultimately declined.

No real mystery why, either. Taking on Martin, alongside Chris Webber, would give the Sixers two high-priced alumni from the scary world of microfracture knee surgery, which wouldn't exactly boost Billy King's approval rating around town.

Philly's problem, though, is that no team in circulation wants Iverson more than Denver, which can't make a much stronger offer than Martin and Miller or Marcus Camby and Miller. Boston remains highly interested, as well, with Paul Pierce said to have given the concept his blessing, but that appears to be as deep as the list goes at present. Barring unexpected amendments to the list, Philly will have to deal with at least one of those teams, even if the trade ultimately takes the form of a three- or four-team scenario.

Or else the Sixers can bring Iverson back in October after he has spent a summer more out there on the trading block than he ever had been.

Atlanta continues to stand out as the most ideal Iverson destination on this scorecard, especially after A.I. moved his family there this summer. Iverson makes basketball and business sense at Philips Arena -- maybe more than anywhere else on the NBA map. The Hawks need a ticket seller, have room for a dynamic star to pair with Joe Johnson and possess several quality youngsters to assemble into a quality trade package. Ongoing ownership uncertainty with the Hawks, however, keeps them on the periphery.

What next? The vibe circulating in the Vegas stands is that no one will be surprised if this saga consumes most of the summer, with Philly naturally hoping that waiting will persuade serious bidders to step up their offers. I'm not so sure.

Over at SI.com, Kelly Dwyer has a long piece that echoes the sentiment that Boston is in a very good negotiating position and should focus on not overpaying for AI.

let's go over what should be common knowledge regarding the Boston Celtics' rumored pursuit of Allen Iverson:

• For all intents and purposes, Iverson and Celtics superstar Paul Pierce should be able to coexist. Both are determined offensive players who show a keen interest in winning above all else, but they've also proven willing to give up the ball in late-game situations to lesser players if it means a better chance at winning. It's hard to imagine Pierce balking at sharing the ball with AI, or vice versa, with the game on the line.

• Rumors that Iverson could go to Denver (for Marcus Camby and Andre Miller) or Los Angeles (for Clippers Corey Maggette and Shaun Livingston) could only have come out of the Sixers organization, as they try to set an outrageous tone for trade offers.

• Philadelphia's best trade for Iverson, as Chris Mannix pointed out last week, is with the Boston Celtics. Yes, they're 40-year divisional rivals, but Sixers GM Billy King can't let that cloud his vision when trying to dump a 31-year-old whom he owes $60 million.

Given all of the above, the only issue left to sort out is how many assets Celtics GM Danny Ainge is willing to part with for the seven-time All Star.

Our advice: not much.

Boston has to be careful. To paraphrase Miles Davis while deleting a string of hilarious but wildly inappropriate blue words: They can't give too much away. Nobody is breaking down King's door to get Iverson at this point, and as training camp approaches, the Sixers GM can only get more and more uneasy at the notion of welcoming such a publicized piece of trade bait back into the fold. Ainge has to wait King out, make him sweat and only send the Wally/Green/Telfair troika (which works, cap-wise) to the Sixers for AI.

I'm a little surprised that Dwyer doesn't bring up the Oden sweepstakes in his discussion of Philly's motivations. Unquestionably, the 76ers quickest route to relevance, respect and the second round of the playoffs would be to trade Iverson for Jefferson, Green and assorted other trinkets; lose an epic number of games in 06-07; land Greg Oden with the first pick of the '07 draft; and embark on a decade of competing with the Cleveland LeBrons for the Eastern Conference Championship.

Well, that got someone's attention

If you think I react strongly, Bruce Allen over at Boston Sports Media Watch has a long piece on Peter May which he's melodramatically titled 'The Day The Globe Hoop Coverage Died'. As an added bonus you get a ranting email from Bill Simmons' about how awful the Globe's basketball coverage is.

I'm not sure if I appear moderate and reasoned in comparison, but one can hope.

Obligatory criticism, part 57

Bill Simmons has several great stories about members of the Boston sports media. In one about various Globe staff members he goes out for drinks when they are all in another town for the same event (perhaps the NBA All-Star game, perhaps the playoffs). Over several hours he tries a few times to have a conversation about basketball and the NBA, only to discover he's committed a faux pas akin to asking a recently divorced person how their marriage is going. He decides by the end of the night that Bob Ryan, Peter May, et al, have not watched a single professional basketball game for pleasure since the early-mid 90s. They knew nothing about the players, teams or styles of play that make up the modern NBA beyond the kind of superficial sound-bites that you might get waiting in a studio to appear on ESPN.

He has other stories along these lines, but you get the point.

As I've observed before, when you find something boring and distasteful it becomes difficult to pay more than superficial attention to it. When you're a journalist in such circumstances the odds that you'll deliver more than your share of sloppy, thoughtless writing are pretty good.

Today's 'NBA notes' column by Peter May is another contribution to this genre. He shows his usual lack of critical thinking and tendency to arbitrarily disagree with whatever the most recent Celtics development is. Today's is Pierce's extension. The gist of May's criticism is:

What would have been the downside had the Celtics decided to wait a year on the extension? Why not see what Pierce did with this team before emptying the vault? ...I can't fathom why the Celtics were so eager to get this done. Why not wait another year, see where the team is going, see how Pierce responds, and go from there.

Elsewhere

But what if this team wins 38 games next year? Or 42 and barely sneaks into the playoffs? You've got a guy on the books for $59-plus million who likely will be very hard to move -- unless Isiah Thomas is still in charge in New York -- and you've had another season in which he really hasn't been able to put the team on his back and succeed.

Back when I worked in education, the easiest tests to grade were the worst. When someone shows absolutely no understanding of the subject matter you just mark the paper 'F' and move on. In this case I'll add these few comments:

1) Paul Pierce has an opt-out clause in his existing contract that would have allowed him to be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this next season. For the exact same reasons that the members of the 2003 draft class (LeBron, Melo, Bosh, Wade, etc.) are all being offered extensions now, 12 months before they hit free agency, the Celtics are powerfully motivated to lock Pierce up lest they lose him next summer for nothing.

2) About five minutes on the web revealed following list of teams that look like they could arrange to be at least $20M under salary cap, given 12 months notice that Pierce was going to be on the market: Atlanta, Chicago, the Lakers, Memphis, New Orleans/Oklahoma City, Orlando, Portland, Seattle, Toronto and Utah.

3) The Celtics have turned down no end of Pierce trade offers in the last two years, when he was making $16-17M. Just the ones that have been publically acknowledged by one of the pertinent GMs include potential deals with Portland, the LA Clippers and Chicago. Give him a raise to $20M and he is still very attractive. Raef LaFrentz at $11M is difficult to trade. An All Star SF at $20M is not.

4) In this negotiation Pierce had all the leverage. He knows the owners are desperate to win and become relevant to Boston sports fans. The team has exactly zero chance of making the playoffs without him. If he went into this next season without an extension the season would have been a nine-month circus worse than Pedro's final year with the Sox. There's nothing to keep him from sitting tight and walking in nine months. The fact that the Celtics only had to give him a three-year extension, instead of the maximum six-year extension the CBA allows, should be seen as a minor negotiating victory for the team.

Another team backs out of the Iverson dance

T.S.'s former home town paper reports that Golden State has no interest in trading for Allen Iverson.

As for the Warriors' backcourt, two sources indicated the team will not pursue Allen Iverson, whom the Sixers have put on the trading block. Instead, the Warriors appear to be gambling that point guard Baron Davis can return to his All-Star form and remain healthy for an entire season.

A few weeks ago Philadelphia's trading partners were reported to be Minnesota, Denver, Golden State, Memphis, Atlanta and Boston. Since then the Timberwolves signed Mike James as a free agent, Denver had their offer of Camby and Andre Miller rejected, and Atlanta and Golden State have indicated they aren't interested.

Now, some of this may be posturing. At the same time it appears that market for Iverson is pretty small. All reports are that Billy King wants young talent and draft picks for AI, which is why he rejected Denver's offer. Who other than Boston has the interest and a bunch of young players to offer in return? Paxson hung up the phone half way the first time he was asked. Memphis could offer Hakim Warrick or possibly Rudy Gay with Eddie Jones' expiring deal. The only contracts Denver can match with Iverson Philly has already rejected.

When I posted on this a couple weeks ago I wrote that it made not sense for the Celtics to make this trade in July. In September King will be feeling far more pressure to make a deal happen, and AI is more likely to be pissed and aggitating to get out of dodge. There is no reason to make this trade for more than 40 cents on the dollar. King is a bad GM and has made a serious of bad, seemingly panic trades. Hold out for another one here.

One of: Ratliff, Szczerbiak
One or two of: West, Green, Rondo, 07 #1 pick
If only one of the former, at most one of: Gomes, Jefferson, Perkins

A deal like this would be highway robbery. But Iverson is a high-risk, 31 year old small guard whose trade value will only dimish with time and who at best gets you into the second round of the playoffs. If Philly won't take pennies on the dollar you walk away happy.

More VSL

Do you dream of a league full of guards in which nobody plays defense? I'm not sure I'd call them 'highlights' but here are some clips from the recent Celtics-Nuggets game in Vegas. Lots of passing by Rondo and Telfair to Jefferson and Green.

Dead time.

People attend football matches in the belief that they, like the spectator of any other sport, will see either victory or defeat; they accept it as their condition that they will see neither. They accept that they will not witness a goal being scored. A goal is an unnatural event. There are so many obstacles: the offsides rule, the congestion in the penalty box, the narrowness of the goal itself, the training of the keeper and his defenders. But then, such is the game and its merciless punishment of its spectators that even when the unnatural occurs and a goal is scored, they can never be sure that they have seen it. It is one of the fallacies of the game that there is no thrill greater than watching the scoring of the goal; it is one of the facts that most people miss it. The goal itself is a see-through box of threads, and unless you are looking upon it from up high or into it from straight on or viewing it with the benefit of television cameras, you cannot tell when the ball has actually gone through and scored -- until it has hit the back of the net. In every goal except the penalty kick, there is a small period of perception when there is neither goal nor no goal: dead time. Dead time is not a long time in clock time -- there is the moment when the ball appears to be about to cross the line, and, later, there is the moment when it definitively hits or fails to hit the back of the net -- but in any kind of emotional chronology it can seem endless.

Bill Buford, Among The Thugs 168 (Vintage, 1993). You might not guess it, but Buford grew up in southern California.

Pierce extended

Herald reports Paul has a new 3-year deal at $20M/per. Celtics clearly pay a premium to keep the new contract that short.

LAS VEGAS - Paul Pierce and the Celtics have reached agreement on a contract extension, a vital step for the club at this stage of its development.

Sources last night said the agreement was essentially completed late yesterday and that an announcement is forthcoming.

Danny Ainge said earlier yesterday that the sides were “just ironing out some of the final details,” and he reiterated that last night. But, according to a source, the largest of those issues were apparently resolved before Pierce’s agent, Jeff Schwartz, left Las Vegas in the late afternoon. It is known that Ainge and Schwartz spoke again yesterday.

Signing Pierce to a three-year extension that will take him through the end of the 2010-11 season is a critical step of stability for a team that is still in the building phase. He still has two years left on his present deal, but the fact the team captain is passing on the opportunity to end his contract after this season (and become a free agent) has to be seen as an endorsement for the club’s plan.

In terms of the financial stats, Pierce will complete his last contract by making $15,101,625 this season and $16,360,094 in 2007-08. The new portion of the pact will pay him nearly $60 million for three years.

Giving Pierce a new maximum contract requires no difficult decision on the part of the Celts.

“Paul’s been one of the great Celtics of all-time in my opinion - one of the top players to ever put on a Celtic uniform,” said Ainge. “He’s going into the prime of his career, and he’s still getting better. He got better last year from the year before.

“Most statistical breakdowns show guys play their best basketball from the time they’re 27 to 32. We get Paul from 28 to 33, so this is his prime. I think it’s important for us to get something done with him.”

Video of Celtics VSL

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, we have some highlights of the Celtics recent win over Toronto in the Vegas Summer League. At the 1:35 mark Telfair has an extremely pretty between-the-legs pass on the fast break to Gerald Green for a dunk.

Disclaimer #1: this is the summer league and the Celtics are playing people who will be lucky to have a starting job in Greece in six months
Disclaimer #2: the PA announcer in the background either needs to be heavily medicated, or shot. Consider watching on mute.

Red faced.

The least of the Eddie Griffin news is that he's headed to Portland.

Bulpett reports Pierce to resign

Paul is supposedly close to signing a three year contract extension that would keep him off the free agent market until age 33.

The Celtics appear set to solidify Paul Pierce's future in Boston. While there may still be some details to be ironed out, expect an announcement in the next day or two that the captain has agreed to a three-year extension with the club. Pierce has two years remaining on his present deal and will thus forego his option to sever the contract next summer and become an unrestricted free agent. The issue of Pierce taking off for a team closer to a championship has been raised quite a bit lately, but apparently he was serious about wanting to stay with the Celtics and continue the building process. While it is likely to contain an early out clause, the new arrangement will cover him through the end of the 2010-11 season.

If true, this is a good deal for the Celtics. Unless he experiences some serious injuries and/or physical decline (always a risk) Pierce should still be an above-average player at the end of his contract. Even without seeing the details of his contract we can assume that he will be modestly overpaid by the end of this deal: that's one of the tradeoff's you make in the NBA world of relatively long-term, guarunteed deals. Today's news is good because, if true, the Celtics were able to keep this deal to a three-year extension, and not a full five- or six-year contract. Paying a 35-year old Pierce the back end of a such a max-dollar, escalating deal would almost certainly have gotten ugly.

Regardless of what Ainge thinks on the matter, ownership appears entirely committed to rebuilding while winning games around Pierce. We've been over the down-sides of this approach repeatedly. The good news if this extension goes through as reported is that we'll have dodged two potential bullets: first, that Pierce walks for nothing next summer; second, that we're stuck paying him Allen Iverson money until long past his prime.