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.