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
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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.