Looking for a reason to root for Ron and against Kobe?

It can be difficult to follow all the permutations of future draft picks that Ainge has traded for and away in recent years. Two in particular, however, appear pertinent enough to this season's stretch run to be worth understanding in detail.

The Gary Payton-Chris Mihm trade two years ago transfered to the Celtics the rights to a future Lakers first round pick which was lottery protected last year, top ten protected this year, top five protected next year, and so on. I suspect to Mitch Kupchak's surprise the Lakers stumbled out of the playoffs last season and so they kept their pick and used it on high school prospect Andrew Bynum. Their obligation to us rolled forward to this next draft. If they end up with a selection in the top 10 they retain it, otherwise it transfers to Boston.

As part of the Antoine Walker reacquisition at last year's trading deadline the Celtics promised to send the Atlanta Hawks the lowest of their first round picks in the next draft in which they have multiple selections, provided that lowest pick is outside the lottery. Atlanta later traded the rights to this pick to Phoenix as part of the Joe Johnson deal.

In other deals (Jiri Welsch to Cleveland, Mark Blount and Ricky Davis to Minnesota) Boston has acquired the Cavs first round pick in 2007 and the Timberwolves first round pick in 2008. Both, I believe, have lottery protections that I would have to look up.

Considering how all this might play out over the next six months, a few scenarios present themselves. I have listed them here, roughly in order of decreasing probability.

1. The Celtics end up in the lottery and the Lakers hold on to the 8th seed in the West, good for the ~15-16th pick in the draft. The Lakers pick transfers to the Celtics who pass it on to Phoenix (via Atlanta).
2. The Celtics remain in the lottery and the Lakers fall out of the playoffs. The Lakers end up with the most likely draft slot for their record, somewhere between #11-14. Consequently, their pick transfers to the Celtics. Because of the lottery protections in Boston's deal with Atlanta the Celtics retain the rights to this selection, despite having multiple picks in the first round.
3. The Celtics remain in the lottery and the Lakers both fall out of the playoffs and move up in the lottery to a slot in the top ten. LA retains their selection. Both LA's debt to us and our debt to Atlanta/Phoenix roll over for another year.
4. The Celtics make the playoffs but the Lakers don't, ending up with a #11-14 pick. The Celtics send their lower selection (this time their own) to Phoenix.
5. The Celtics make the playoffs and the Lakers don't, end up with a top ten pick. Lakers and Celtics both retain their own selections. All obligations roll forward one year.

Anything other than #1 or #2 is enough of a stretch that I'd be surprised to see it happen. Which of these outcomes is preferable hinges, it would seem, on whether you prefer a #11-14 pick in this year's relatively weak draft or to take your chances with next season. The most likely scenario would seem to be that the Celtics would end with three picks next year-- their own, LA's, and Cleveland's-- with the Cavs pick likely to be at least in the 20s. So would you rather have the #11-14 pick this year or the worst of these three next year? The better you think the Lakers or Cavs are likely to be next season the more you should want the Lakers to be losing games now.


__________________________________

What brings all this to mind?

Well, the Lakers have just lost two of three games to lottery teams (losses to Portland and Boston, win over Orlando) and appear to have cooled off from their December momentum. The 2-6 slump with which they started February included loses to such powerhouses as Charlotte, New Orleans/Oklahoma and Atlanta.

Closing in behind them are the Ron Artest-Mike Bibby-Brad Miller Sacramento Kings, winners of 8 of their last 11. Having been well out of the playoff hunt for the first half of the season the Kings are now only a game and a half back of LA with 25 to play.

How should Celtics fans want this to play out? Pick now or pick later?

You know things are bad when...

...even Slate is slamming Isiah Thomas for ruining the Knicks.  For the record, I heard no fewer than 3 radio hosts blast Isiah Thomas in the last 48 hours, and none of them worked for WEEI.

Open season on Isaiah.

During Saturday night's game against the Washington Wizards, newly acquired New York Knicks guard Steve Francis was about to inbound the ball when a heckler shouted, "Hey, Stevie, where you going next?" As the Washington Post described it, the well-traveled Francis looked back at the fan casually and shot back, "To the bank." And in a single moment, everything awful about today's New York Knicks had been encapsulated.

And Michael Crowley's just getting started.

Compounding it all is the bizarre judgment of GM Isiah Thomas, whose acquisition of Francis almost seemed like a prank—the work of some stoned teenager with a PlayStation trying to construct the most ridiculous team possible just for laughs.

I guess its not too early to talk draft

A few minutes playing with this suggests that Chad Ford's version of the Celtics draft board has the following players in the following order:

Rudy Gay, SF, Connecticut
LaMarcus Aldridge, PF, Texas
Ronnie Brewer, SG, Arkansas
Rajon Rondo, PG, Kentucky
Tiago Splitter, PF, Barcelona

Another favorite

One of Nike's first commercials with Lebron James was somewhat controversial. Spike Lee, among others, panned it as pushing a stereotype of black atheletes and the black church.

While I'm nowhere near Nike's target demographic, I gotta admit: I loved it. Some of what Nike does so well are the little touches: The choir full of WNBA stars, Dr. J and Jerry West cast as church elders up on the dias. Bernie Mac's great opening line that the 'the chosen one asked the soul of the game for court vision'.

Here's the 30-second vision. If I can find the full 60-second take somewhere I swap that in, because it's even better.

Take 2

Like Mike.

Watch this.

Jefferson/Perkins/Gomes

B made an interesting comment at the tail end of the posts on our last subject, so I thought it deserved it's own thread. He said:

Perhaps another way to make my observations about Gomes' physical limitations is that if Al Jefferson put together a week like Gomes just had I'd be far more excited.

Which led me to ask: have Perkins or Jefferson put together weeks like Gomes? Or better still, have they put together 7 game stretches like Gomes? I did a quick search and came up with these averages for what appeared to be the best 7 game stretches of the year for Jefferson, Perkins, Gomes and Blount (just for kicks):








Overall, the numbers are strikingly similar in many ways. But given the disparities in playing time, it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges. Thus, here are the points and rebounds per 48 minutes for the best 7 game stretches of the season for the Fab Four:









The chart makes it clear -- Jefferson, when he can get minutes, stay on the court and be productive, is clearly the best big man that the Celtics have. But Gomes and Perkins are remarkably similar, at least in terms of basic production (obviously, this doesn't include blocks, steals, etc.). And frankly, Gomes is within shouting distance of Jefferson, if only because he's been able to stay on the court for longer stretches.

There is one more caveat to all this, however. Jefferson and Perkins have a lot more minutes and games under their belt than Gomes does, and that doesn't include their previous NBA experience. Gomes has started or gotten significant playing time in exactly one stretch of 7 games this season (he did play significant minutes for periods in October and November, but not consistently). When given the chance, he managed to stay on the court, and put up consistent, legitimate NBA numbers. While Jefferson and Perkins have been given minutes throughout the season, they haven't performed consistently. In short, for an undersized rookie power forward who was the 50th pick in the draft, Gomes has come up pretty big. If he keeps it up at this level or improves, he's going to have a decent NBA career. And by the way, he's #17 in the league in terms of offensive rebounds per 48 minutes, according to NBA.com.

Lastly, I think the charts above indicate how truly awful Mark Blount was/is. I'll throw in the caveat that there was one other 7 game stretch where his rebounds per 48 minutes were .6 higher, but his scoring average was 2 points lower. That's pathetic for a 7 footer with talent, which we all know he has. That's what lack of hustle and determination will get you.

Clearing minutes

I hope I'm not pointing out the patently obvious, but it seems clear in retrospect that the person the Celtics should have been "clearing minutes" for in the Blount trade was Ryan Gomes.  Since being inserted into the starting lineup 7 games ago, here are his stats:

 

12.6 points per game

9.3 rebounds per game

60% shooting from the field

39 minutes per game

 

I think 40 minutes per game is a little unrealistic in terms of playing time for the rest of the season.  As B noted a while ago, a good rotation for NBA big men often sees them playing 30-35 minutes per night to cut down on the wear and tear of a season.  But Gomes's stats put him in some elite company.  If he were to average 9 rebounds per game over the rest of the season, he'd be in the top 20 rebounders in the league.  If he averaged 8 for the rest of the season, he'd still be in the top 30.  And in terms of scoring, if he keeps it up at his current pace, he'd be in the top 70.  Not bad for a guy who's the 4th offensive option on his team.

 

The question has been posed before (for example, here and here) but it's worth asking again.  Exactly why didn't he get any playing time earlier in the season?  I guess part of the reason was that they were trying to deal Blount and develop their first rounders.  But even after Blount was gone, Gomes was only getting a few minutes per game until Perkison went down.  Here's betting that won't be the case when they get healthy.

Let's hear it for sports

I don't know much about autism, but he seems pretty high-performing

Isiah Thomas kiss of death department

Peter Vecsey-- the man whose stories NBA fans love to dismiss-- reports that before becoming the Knicks GM Isiah Thomas had "serious conversations" about replacing Mike Davis and taking over Indiana University's basketball program. The implication, clearly, is that IU might provide an escape hatch should Isiah want to head out of town at the end of the Knicks season.

I realize he's a famous alum and all, but would anyone in their right mind put Thomas in charge of anything related to basketball at this point? Fans and alums of every other Big 10 program have to be on their knees praying this happens.

Daily Dime.

Greg Anthony says that the Celtics' future is so bright that we ought to be wearing shades:

For the Celtics, the future looks good.

Why do things look so bright for the Celtic green?

First and foremost, Paul Pierce is everything you want in a superstar. At 28, he's become a mature ballplayer. Unlike earlier in his career, he doesn't have to dominate the ball to succeed. His decision-making is quicker, and he's a more efficient player.

Along with that, Pierce has become an amazing leader. He's doing a great job of showing the way for his team. Your superstar has to be willing to work hard, to lead with his actions and to sacrifice at times, and Pierce does all that. His 39 points were only part of what he brought to the floor on Sunday.

Then you have the young players.

The maturity of Delonte West is impressive as he learns how to run the offense. His 19 points and 10 assists (for his first double-digit assist game) demonstrated the strides he's made in his second season.

Likewise, rookie Ryan Gomes has found himself lately, carving out a niche as an all-around hustle player and rebounder. His 39 boards, including 17 offensive rebounds, in the last three games are a testament to his hard work and knowledge of how to play the game, and his big tip-in was a decisive play in the last minute on Sunday. Since Gomes joined the starting lineup about two weeks ago, the Celtics are 5-2.

Furthermore, they're 3-1 on this Western road trip, and most impressive of all, they're doing this without their two young studs, Al Jefferson and Kendrick Perkins.

And that tells me that they're becoming a team that you're going to have to deal with pretty soon in the Eastern Conference, and especially in the Atlantic Division.

The New Jersey Nets aren't getting any younger, or better. Likewise the Philadelphia 76ers, who are getting disappointing production from their young players for the most part.

I don't see the Celtics as ready to challenge the elite teams in the conference, but I do think they'll challenge for the playoffs in the next year or two, and they can't be counted out this year yet.

That's not to say they don't have weaknesses. Right now they don't really have a two guard to speak of, because Pierce and Wally Szczerbiak are small forwards. They've still got a lot to learn about how to shut down the other team, and they've got to get more mature in a number of ways.

But I see that happening, because Doc and the Celtics have done a great job of creating the right environment for winning. I'm thoroughly impressed with Doc's approach, and with that of the rest of the organization as well as the players.

They work hard, and they don't seem to have any locker room issues. On Sunday they played with poise, showing a good understanding of how to win.

None of those things are a given for a team, especially a young team.

Everyone I've talked to with the Celtics is very optimistic. On Sunday, and on this entire road trip, they've showed me why.

linky

How nice to be able to trade away your locker-room issues!

Win ugly.

Paul Pierce tells Tony Allen, "Get this ugly uniform off me -- now," after the Celtics beat the Lakers, 112-111, in front of a whole arena full of appalled, fashion-conscious Southern Californians.

[KEANU] Whoa. [/KEANU]

Thanks to Bill Simmons' splendiferous new column, which all y'all should read immediately, I now know that Ricky Davis has taken more shots than Kevin Garnett in 12 of the 13 games since he became a T-Wolf, in which time Minnesota is 4-9.

Pulse-ating

ESPN is now running a feature in their Pulse section examining trades that readers tried out in the Trade Machine leading up to the NBA trading deadline.  Kevin Garnett was by far the most popular player with more than 56,000 proposed trades.  (The next closest person was Jamal Crawford at 18,000 proposed trades).  This probably has to do with the fact that Garnett is the most desirable player who was thought to be on the block.  Paul Pierce made the list at #7 with 14,000 trades.

 

Kudos to ESPN.  This is exactly the sort of thing that a major sports entity needed to do -- start thinking more like an website and less like a broadcaster.  Give your readers/members a few basic tools to do some research and have some fun, then go to town on the results.  Now if they'd just put up the exact contract and salary details for every NBA, MLB, and NFL player and team, I'd be really happy.

Simmons and Thomas not kissing at midcourt

Simmons just posted a 4,000 word "column" composed entirely of emails from his readers trashing the Steve Francis trade.  I don't think this is going to improve relations between him and Isiah Thomas.

Horror show

If you think the Celtics cap situation is a little scary, take a look at these numbers.  Hoopshype hasn't updated the page yet, but Steve Francis's contract is about $14 million this year, with three years left on the deal, and a roughly $1 million increase per year.  So here's the Knicks cap situation over the next few years just for the 5 players who are signed through the 2008-2009 season (Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Jamal Crawford, Quentin Richardson, and Jerome James).

 

2006/2007 -- $53 million

2007/2008 -- $58 million

2008/2009 -- $62 million

 

Yikes.

Ian "Idiot" Thompson

I rarely read Ian Thompson over at SI.com for his NBA coverage, and now I know why.  While checking out some of SI's NBA trade deadline stuff, I came across this gem.  Hard to imagine, but he both defends Isiah Thomas for the Knicks roster disaster and Joe Dumars for the Darko Milicic pick.  Thompson must have a soft spot in his heart for the Bad Boys. 

 

Let's get to Thompson's take on the Knicks first.  He lays the blame not on Thomas, but squarely on the shoulders of owner James Dolan:

People blame team president Isiah Thomas for the Knicks' payroll, but he's simply following orders. (Or do you think he racks up a $60 million luxury-tax bill all on his own?) It's clear that [owner James] Dolan's heart is in the right place, because he has proved in the most expensive way imaginable that he wants to win... If Dolan suddenly changed course, would the Knicks be worse? They couldn't be. Would he have to change his administration? No, because Thomas is one of the league's best draft evaluators (see Tracy McGrady and Channing Frye), and coach Larry Brown loves to teach.

I don't know what's more laughable: that Thompson criticizes Dolan for spending money, or that Thompson thinks Thomas should be absolved of all of his bad player acquisitions.  Dolan may well have given Thomas the green light, telling him money was no object and he should build a good team by any means necessary.  But Thomas is still in charge of assembling the team.  Dolan may sign off on the moves, but he pays Thomas a lot of money to evaluate the players and salaries involved and advise him on what the team should do.  The fact is, with the exception of player evaluation in the draft, Thomas is absolutely abominable at this.

 

The irony is that there is another owner who did exactly what Dolan is trying to do when he came into the league -- Mark Cuban.  Cuban took over a Mavs team that had some decent pieces in place and told his GM to start spending money to build a top level team.  (If I remember correctly, Cuban's attitude was, "I'm a billionaire, so what's the big deal about paying $20-$40 million in luxury taxes?")  It it worked -- primarily because even though they took on some huge salaries, the Mavs always did so in order to acquire good players who played well together and fit into their vision of team basketball. 

 

And now, on to Mr. Dumars.  Here's Thompson's take on Darko:

Was drafting Milicic with the No. 2 pick a mistake by the Pistons? Yes, in the sense that Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade -- the Nos. 3, 4 and 5 picks in the 2003 draft -- have turned into stars. The reality is that they probably would have taken Anthony instead with the No. 2 pick, and he surely would have eaten into TayshaunPrince's role while disrupting the chemistry of a finely balanced team that went to the last two NBA Finals. Then the Pistons would have faced another potentially divisive decision of which players to dump in the next wave of contracts, because they couldn't afford to keep Anthony as well as their current starting five. Taken altogether, the decision on Milicic may go down as the most successful bad pick in NBA history.

Well, I agree with one part of that last statement.  It was a bad pick.  Everything else is window dressing.  His arguments make no sense, and worse, they're unoriginal.  It's the sort of crap you hear all the time about this pick.  Let me just ask a simple question -- would you rather have less talent on your team or more?  Pure and simple, the answer is always more.  If team chemistry is a problem, you can trade someone and get something in return.  If salaries are a problem, you can trade someone and get something in return, or just let them walk away.  The Pistons had the #2 pick in the draft.  They gambled on a 7 footer with "upside" and came away with nothing, when they could have thrown at a dartboard and gotten one of the best 30-40 players in the league.

 

Now, this isn't to say that there aren't perfectly valid reasons for why Dumars drafted Darko and why he thought that gamble was worth taking.  And I wouldn't have an issue with Thompson making that argument.  But no matter how you slice it, Darko turned out to be a horrible, awful, no good, very bad pick.  And there was nothing "successful" about it.

Francis to New York: done deal

ESPN is reporting that Orlando has traded Steve Francis to New York for Penny Hardaway (there's that expiring contract again) and Trevor Ariza.

My first reaction? Great, great trade for Orlando. Francis had three seasons on his deal after this one, at about $16M per season. He's by most charitable accounts an obnoxious individual who takes self-absorption to new heights and who has been disliked by almost every teammate and coach that he's played with in the NBA. The Knicks now have two pass-last point guards to go with all their other perimeter players who can't do anything except shot for a really low percentage. Has anyone mentioned they already gave away their draft picks to get an all-offense center who never touches the ball?

Marc Berman (don't know if there's any relation) of the New York Post quotes a sane NBA coach who doesn't like the deal:

"He'd be one of the last guys I would think they would want," one NBA coach told The Post. "Watching them, he's another guy who wants the ball. That's their whole problem. They need guys more willing to play without the ball.

Orlando on the other hand has another year of Dwight Howard on his rookie deal and just got rid of their only salary commitment greater than $6M/year. They have decent young players (Darko, Nelson) some of whom can be expected to work out, a future superstar in Howard, multiple top draft picks in the coming years and plenty of cap room. If they use all this wisely, look out. If I were LeBron James I'd be thinking about the fact that I could both get a max contract and play with the 20 year old kid who's already leading the league in rebounding.

EDIT: On reflection I wasn't really sure it was true, so I went and looked it up. The Knicks current backcourt rotation now consists of Stephon Marbury, Quetin Richardson, Jalen Rose, Jamal Crawford, Steve Francis, Qytel Woods and Nate Robinson. On one hand they may have former All Stars backing up their backups. On the other hand I would not have thought such a dysfunctional and incompatible group of players could be constructed outside of a rotisserie league. Take a lot of 'good-but-meaningless-stats-on-bad-teams' players and put them all together and what do you get? Sure looks like an awful team.

The big question in New York remains: who gets fired first?

Adventures in marketing

The 76ers have a new promotion out: turn in a gun and get a pair of tickets. No, this isn't a joke. Yes, ticket sales have been pretty awful this year.

The one-week program opens Wednesday. Anyone can bring a working gun into a city police station and exchange it for a voucher good for a pair of tickets to an upcoming 76ers game, no questions asked.

"If we get one [gun], it's a successful program," said Billy King, the team's president. "If we get one, if we get a thousand, whatever we get that's going to be good enough."

If they get a thousand, who will want to sit in the stands?

In all seriousness, the NBA has long struggled with marketing to two very different demographics that are responsible for the bulk of ticket and merchandise sales: parents of young children and young, urban (largely black) males. The advent of cable TV has been a godsend for the league, as it allows them to create very different advertising images and messages for each audience. The problem this leaves, however, is how you create a in-game experience that is pleasing to both. Parents want less noise, more fun G-rated promotions and games for the kids, healthier food, and so on. Young men prefer a dance club style atmosphere, e.g. music, women and alcohol.

Is this new promotion an indication that the 76ers are giving up trying to straddle the fence and concentrating on the young male audience? Is it a sign that their marketing people don't know what they're doing? Or is it something else all together?

Coulda, shoulda, woulda

Those who remember my draft-night rantings (not preserved on this blog, so no link available) will recall how much I wanted Danny Granger to drop one more spot to the Celtics. Doc Rivers apparently agreed, as his absent-mindedly let drop in his live draft night interview that other than Gerald Green there was nobody the Celtics would rather have had slide 'except maybe' Granger. In retrospect, would I be perfectly happy to have let the Pacers have home court advantage in last year's playoffs if it meant moving up one pick in the draft? You betchya.

Coincidently, Granger went for 22 points and 11 rebounds last night to lead the Pacers past the lower Mississippi watershed Hornets. When Gerald Green has played this year he's shown himself to be arguably the 3-4th best player on the worst NBADL team in the league. All those draft night comparisons to Kobe and Tmac that Green's agent was throwing around? It's worth pointing out that when Kobe was a year younger than Green is now he had just wrapped up his first All Star game appearance. When Carmelo Anthony was a year younger than Green is now he carried Syracuse to a national championship. The sports morons on Boston TV who spent draft night debating whether Green would start right away and force the team to trade Pierce? About as ignorant as advertised.

Does this make Green a bad draft pick in retrospect? No. The Celtics are a mess, so I have no problem with Ainge swinging for the fences by taking high-risk, high-potential high schools players in the middle/end of the first round. Sometimes you get Kendrick Perkins. Sometimes you don't.

Paul Pierce makes Andre Kirilenko cry

It wasn't that long ago-- although pre-injury-- that Andre Kirilenko was talked about as potentially one of the best wing defenders in the league. Last night wasn't one of his, or the Jazz, better nights. The Salt Lake City Tribune reports:

The killer for the Jazz on Tuesday was the third quarter, when Pierce scored 17 of Boston's 37 points. The forward, who shot 6-for-6 from the field in the stretch, matched what the Jazz had as a team with much better production. Utah was just 5-for-19.

Kirilenko's eyes started to tear in the locker room as he talked in a shaky voice about his frustrations and inability to stop Pierce. He played just four minutes in the final quarter because of his inept defense, but his small consolation was that none of his teammates could do any better.

"There were a couple of times he would get screens right in front of our bench, and we'd look over like 'What are we supposed to do now?' " Sloan said. "You have to fight through those screens and you can't keep making defensive mistakes."

Funny, and almost a bit sad that Sloan should mention the word 'fight,' for that is one element the Jazz can't seem to muster.

The Jazz are a cautionary tale, and only one of several, about the risks of the rebuilding strategy that R.M. and myself have endorsed. With Stockton's retirement in 2003 they decided to let Karl Malone play out his last games elsewhere and rebuild through the draft and free agency.

It's only been a few years but things haven't started out well. This is partly because the last several drafts have contributed very little to the current team. Kris Humphries is the only recent pick still in Salt Lake City and he's only averaging around 10 minutes a night and is frequently rumored to be a throw-in for trades. Kirk Snyder, Pavel Podkolzone, Aleksandar Pavlovic are all playing elsewhere. 2001-02 first round picks Ryan Humphrey and Raul Lopez are already out of the league. Celtics fans that remember with a shudder the incredible drought that was our team's drafting between 1998 and 2002 can appreciate the situation Utah is now in. When you aren't adding talent through the draft you better hit a few home runs with your free agent signings and trades.

So how has that gone for Utah? Well enough, I suppose, but not well enough to lift them out of the lottery. To some degree the jury is still out since Boozer and Kirilenko's injuries torpedoed last season and much of this.

At the same time while Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur are decent enough players Utah paid a steep price for both. Both are examples of the watered-down quality of free agent talent that has resulted from the CBA. The last five years have seen a steady decrease in the volume of top talent hitting the free agent market, to the point where career rotation players like Okur are considered one of the prizes of their free agent class. Hold demand steady and reduce supply... and the teams that gut their payroll so they can build through free agency end up looking like Utah: Bad teams with $35-40M in long-term contracts to players unable to get themselves into the playoffs.

If Utah is a cautionary tale about the dangers of trying to rebuild through free agency at the expense of the draft, they may also turn out to be a cautionary tale about who you invest a significant amount of your payroll in. The Celtics will sink or swim over the next several years with Raef LaFrentz, Wally Szczerbiak and-- if he resigns-- Paul Pierce. That trio has lottery written all over it. If their salaries end of forcing the team to sign-and-trade players like Al Jefferson and Delonte West at the end of their rookie deals, well, we might end up looking something like Utah does today.

Calling armchair GMs.

I would have guessed that the over/under on posts using ESPN.com's NBA Trade Machine by this point would have been, oh, 17 or something. Color me wrong. This raises the possibility that the rest of y'all have been suffering a localized ESPN.com outage, which would have prevented you from reading Bill Simmons on the black Super Bowl. Consider this a humanitarian gesture. And if not, maybe someone with the Insider subscription can tell me whether Chad Ford thinks the Celtics should trade Paul Pierce, and why.

Odds and ends part II

While Gerald Green has become a somewhat disturbing recurring feature in the Basketball Notes column, I really can't figure out why we haven't heard more from Delonte West. If you saw today's Notes column, you understand why I say this.

Interviewed about his thoughts on a romantic Valentine's Day date, Delonte West made some, shall we say, interesting remarks. In stream-of-consciousness commentary that appeared on ESPN.com, he talked about taking his date out on a boat for some skinny-dipping and Popeye's chicken. At one point, he fantasized that sharks ate his date and he inherited her money. If you know West, he was just being himself. If not, the commentary came across as weird. ''It was interesting, was what it was," said West. ''I wasn't thinking anything. I was just being myself, just talking. That's how I talk. I conversate." What about the ''Jaws" scenario? ''It goes like that sometimes," said West.

So this is "normal" for West? Is there some reason he hasn't become a staple for beat reporters and talk show hosts in this town? Maybe it's just that the Celtics suck right now. If he was on the Red Sox, it sounds like he'd be a combo of Bill Lee, Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs and Kevin Millar, all rolled into one.

Odds and ends from today's Globe

Maybe there's a reason Gerald Green fell to the Celtics at #18. From today's Basketball Notes column:

The Celtics sent rookie Gerald Green back to the development league Thursday, this time to the Florida Flame. A few days before the demotion, as Green worked out after practice, executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge yelled for the rookie to elevate on his jump shot. Ainge noted how much progress Green made with his jumper in Fayetteville, N.C., and how he reverted to bad habits with the Celtics. Ainge threatened to send Green back to the D-League if he didn't elevate each time he launched a jumper, even though the rookie complained that he missed when he did elevate. Guess we know what Green will be working on with the Flame.

Not a good sign when you're threatening your #1 pick with demotion to the NDBL. On the other hand, he's just 19, right? And that's what the D-League is for -- to send kids who need to learn how to play somewhere where they can work towards making in the NBA. Still, I think we're beginning to see why he slipped so far on draft night.

Green to Florida

According to Shira Springer, the Celtics reassigned Gerald Green to the NDBL, this time to the Florida Flame.  No word on how much luggage he took.

Dry Heaves and the return of a long lost Celtics legend

If you haven't already done so, you must sign up for the Vermont Frost Heaves Bump in the Road club.  In case you've missed my  earlier posts on this subject, Sports Illustrated's Alexander Wolff has purchased an ABA team called the Vermont Frost Heaves.  He's the owner and GM, and sends out a newsletter every few weeks or so on the latest team news.  (You can also read his posts here.)  His latest update, Pro Basketball’s Other All-Star Weekend, features this gem right at the top:

There's nothing quite like listening to former NBA center Acie Earl, then fresh off a season as coach of the Tijuana Dragons, hold forth with Oliver Miller room service stories.  

You can say that again.   Although I might quibble over his description of Acie Earl as a former NBA center.  Former NBA stiff is more like it.  But Tijuana Dragons?  That's kismet.

 

Here's Wolff's take on being an ABA "plutocrat":

For someone who came of age in the Seventies, it’s one thing to be the owner of a pro basketball team, and quite another to be the owner of a team in the ABA. To me, ABA owners had sideburns like carpet remnants. They made fast-food franchising fortunes greater than “fast-food franchising fortunes” is alliterative. They married Miss Americas.

Of course, like the arriviste boor at the blueblood country club, John Y. Brown went on to nearly ruin a tony NBA team (the Boston Celtics) by trading for a player (Bob McAdoo) simply because his Miss America wife (Phyllis George) took a fancy to him.

Not to worry: That’s not the kind of ABA owner the founder of the Vermont Frost Heaves intends to be. Or, goodness knows, can afford to be. My wife Vanessa is getting a night out, not a power forward, for Valentine’s Day.

Ah, the good old days.  So what is the closest ABA team to Boston, anyway? 

Shira Springer nails it

The perfect summary of the C's at the All Star break, courtesy Shira Springer in today's Globe:

No matter how hard Pierce tries, how spectacularly he plays, how many impossible shots he hits, he cannot carry Boston to victory.

Caught a little of the game last night, and that's the C's to a T. Pierce seemed to single-handedly carry the team at the end of the 4th quarter and the overtimes, only to fall short as he fouled out at the very end while guarding LeBron James. According to Springer, Raef LaFrentz called it the best, most complete game of Pierce's career. And they still lost. I think that says volumes about where this team is right now, even when you factor in that two of their best big men are out with injuries. (Ironically, this has forced Doc Rivers to go with a true 8 man rotation for the first time all year. But that's another story.)

Still, at the risk of riling up R.M., I'd say there are glimmers of hope. West had another solid game, with 15 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists and only two turnovers. Ryan Gomes continues to produce, with 15 points and 5 boards. (By the way, can somebody please explain why he hasn't been getting a little time prior to this?) Even Olowokandi chipped in with 4 rebounds in only 6 minutes of playing time.

That being said, there's at least one statline which explains exactly why the C's are where they are today. Can someone explain how Brian Scalabrine didn't get a single rebound and scored only 2 points while committing 2 turnovers in 33 minutes of playing time? Ugh.

Can't wait for Perkins and Jefferson to get back and see if this team can put together some decent team basketball. How about a frontcourt rotation of Wally, Perk, Jefferson, Gomes and Raef, and a backcourt of West, Pierce, and Greene? Sounds like an 8 man rotation to me.

D'Aulaires', updated.

Bring out the gimp

In this post from last week I worried about the Celtics being saddled with not one, but two players with big contracts and bad knees.

Today Shira Springer decides it's time to kill my post-Valentine's Day cheer:

''It felt good up until about seven or eight minutes left in the fourth quarter," said Szczerbiak, who is averaging 39.1 minutes with the Celtics. ''Then, it just started buckling and catching and grabbing."

''The doctor looked at it Monday and it was really swollen, really hot."

According to Szczerbiak, team doctor Brian McKeon did not give him a specific diagnosis, though the possibility of arthroscopic surgery after the season was raised. Szczerbiak hopes rest, physical therapy, and strengthening the leg will decrease the swelling and pain. If that doesn't work, a cortisone shot might be in order at some point.

Asked if he thought rest over the break would clear up the injury, Szczerbiak said, ''That's our hope. This has really crept up on me, and it's really caught me off guard completely."

''Quite honestly, my right knee has always been the knee that I've had to stay on top of as far as therapy and stuff like that. When they said [during my physical] that I had stuff going on in my left knee, that was pretty shocking to me."

'Cause if you're going to trade for a player with a ten-year reputation for being slow, led-footed laterally, and a mediocre defender what you really want to hear is that their knees are starting to go.

Not that I have any illusions that Wally Szczerbiak is going to be on the roster the next time the Celtics compete for a championship, but on principal I'd like the players we acquire to gain trade value while we have them, not lose it.

How not to draw an offensive foul

My memory of the 2000 US Men's Olympic basketball team is that they were something less than a triumph for diplomacy. While they swept their way to an 8-0 record and gold medal it was also the team whose constant trash talking and mugging for the camera thoroughly pissed off the rest of the field. In fairness, however, this was also the team that gave us the spectacle of Vince Carter dunking over the 7'2" Frederick Weis.


Just remember as you watch that the player being dunked on was selected by the Knicks in the 1999 draft ahead of Ron Artest, Jeff Foster, Andrei Kirilenko, and Manu Ginobili.

King's Things

Peter King's take on Mike Tannenbaum.  He makes the same point Borges was trying to make, only reasonably.  Or with less venom.  Take your pick.

I really like Mike Tannenbaum. Good guy, smart guy. Excellent football people say he's a great person to have in the organization. But he's not a scout. I want to withhold judgment on what I think of the Jets' hierarchy until I see who ends up as the big wheel in the scouting and personnel area. From what I hear, they're not done there. What I think is dangerous -- not fatal, but dangerous -- is a young, first-time head coach and a first-time GM, also young, with a bloated salary cap, and major offensive problems at quarterback, running back and the offensive line. And the Jets have a cadre of people left in scouting who are loyal to the outgoing GM. That's not a recipe for success in the National Football League.

About that Doc Rivers column . . .

From Bill Simmons' Super Bowl diary:

8:06 -- To put the Sprint Super Bowl halftime show in perspective, the Rolling Stones are all about 8-10 years older than my dad, who was excited two weeks ago because the Celtics finally traded "Ricky Pierce."

(By the way, the second song is something called "Rough Justice." When bands play the requisite song from their new album that nobody likes in these mini-concerts, it is like me writing a 3,000 word column on Doc Rivers for ESPN.com -- in other words, they have to do it to keep the record company happy, and I have to do it to keep everyone from Boston happy, but the end result is that 95 percent of the fans are ticked off. Uh-oh, I think Keith Richards' catheter just came out. Run for your lives!)

And, yes, I'm only getting around to reading it now.

Hatchet man?

It's no secret that Ron Borges isn't a big fan of Bill Belichick. But apparently, he doesn't like anyone remotely affiliated with him either. His Football Notes column from the Globe this weekend takes a few swipes at new Jets head coach Eric Mangini and the man who hired him, GM Mike Tannenbaum. (Tannenbaum was originally hired by the Jets under the Bill Parcells regime, reportedly on Bill Belichick's recommendation.)

Borges begins with a nice setup line about "local boy makes good", as Tannenbaum hails from Needham. But he immediately segways into rumor mongering and attacks on Tannenbaum:

[Tannenbaum's appointment] was a mixed blessing because along with it came suspicion in some NFL corners about how his final step was taken... Jets owner Woody Johnson announced he was moving the soon-to-be-37 Tannenbaum ahead of the last in a long list of mentors who had nurtured his development, 50-year-old general manager Terry Bradway.

At least Borges had the decency to call up Tannenbaum and get his side of the "story". He prefaces Tannenbaum's remarks by saying he "always seemed [like] an oasis of conscience in a cutthroat business." I guess Borges means until all this came about.

''I can't worry about what the perception may be," Tannenbaum said. ''I'm not perfect, but people who know me know I wouldn't be involved in something like that. Terry and I have a great relationship. He allowed me to broaden my responsibilities under him. Terry's a unique guy who loved working on the draft and scouting. He didn't like some of the other things that go with being a GM. I think he's relieved."

Gee, if only that were true. Wonder what Bradway has to say about it?

Bradway acknowledges that he never was totally comfortable wearing all the hats of a general manager and that the promotion of Tannenbaum was a ''mutual" agreement.

Okay, let me see if I have this straight. Borges cites anonymous sources saying Tannenbaum stuck a shiv in Bradway's back, but when he speaks to both of the principals, they deny it. But the Globe sees fit to print these rumors, even though none of the rumor-mongers will go on the record? Could it get any worse?

''The kids pulled off a palace coup," said an AFC front office executive. ''Tannenbaum was close to the owner and to Mangini. Mangini came in and immediately stepped on Bradway when he hired [Brian] Schottenheimer [as his 32-year-old offensive coordinator] without consultation.''They're all bright guys, but they're ruthless guys. Johnson has no idea if any of them can do the job. Mangini hasn't ever been the boss of anything, Schottenheimer hasn't ever coordinated a lunch order, and Tannenbaum likes to make believe he's a football guy but he isn't. That's the first thing they have to do now. Hire a football guy."

Ah, so now it all becomes clear. The rumors about Bradway are just a cheap setup for the old "they're not football guys" argument. Apparently, Borges and some NFL people feel a little threatened by the young turks. Although Borges goes on to praise Tannenbaum's work ethic and track record, the thrust of the argument is that since he's a lawyer by training and a salary cap specialist, he's in over his head. As if somehow managing the economic part of the game isn't essential to the duties of a modern GM? Hasn't Borges learned anything from the last 10 years of the modern NFL? Apparently not. I'm not saying that Tannenbaum will automatically be a winner, nor Mangini for that matter. But how many coaches and GMs mold Super Bowl winners? Very, very few. So the Jets decided to go in a slightly different direction instead of the old tried and true retreads who probably wouldn't have won anything anyway? Is that really such a risk? What would you have them do, hire Tom Donahoe who just ran the Bills into the ground? Yuck. I'll take my chances with the young guys.

By the way, Borges essentially fesses up to his not-so-hidden agenda little later in the Notes column. His first entry in the Etc. portion:

Not everyone around the NFL is excited about the ascendancy of guys like Mike Tannenbaum and Eric Mangini. One veteran NFC personnel man said, ''Cap guys are running too many teams now. They talk to you like you don't know what you're doing. I can still remember when the guys in charge of personnel actually knew a football player when they saw one. Now they look at them and all they see are dollar signs. One of these days, these owners will see the teams that are winning do it with football guys making the football decisions."

Again with the anonymous cheap shots? And, Ron, didn't you just make that argument two articles ago?

Tidbits from Sunday's Basketball Notes in the Globe

I'm assuming most of the posters to this blog scanned Shira Springer's Basketball Notes column in Sunday's Globe.  But for those who may have missed it, here's the latest on Mr. Apathy, the athlete formerly known as Mark Blount:

Celtics fans will be glad to know the 7-footer has returned to form, so to speak, with his new team in Minnesota. His 16 points and 10 rebounds in 28 minutes against the Celtics Jan. 30 represented, as many in Boston suspected, an aberration. These numbers are more like it: 1 rebound, no points in 13 minutes in a loss to Cleveland Feb. 8; 3 rebounds, 2 points in 7 minutes in a win over the Suns Feb. 6; 3 rebounds, 3 points in 17 minutes in a loss to the Warriors Feb. 4. This from someone who called himself the ''key player" in the deal. But Marcus Banks has been fairly consistent. After recording 20 points and 6 assists against the Celtics, he has a couple of 15-point performances and tallied 19 against the Suns, and had 5 assists each against the Trail Blazers and Warriors. If it makes you feel any better, the Timberwolves are 3-6 since the trade.

No, that doesn't make me feel much better, although our dip into lotteryland might change that, depending on who we get.  But speaking of feeling better, at least one item in the column made me laugh.  Actually, I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.  Here are some excerpts, slightly edited, from the top feature on 2005 top draft pick Mr. Gerald Green:

The Celtics rookie was a noticeable no-show for practice last Thursday. He went back to Fayetteville, N.C., to fetch clothes he left behind during his development league stint there. Doc Rivers sounded more than a little annoyed when he tried to explain why Green needed to personally retrieve his belongings. Executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge couldn't quite understand it, either, even though he helped arrange the trip. ''I had a lot of valuables," said Green, ''so Danny was just like, 'Go down and go get it.' If I'd known it was going to happen like it did, I would have sent [director of player personnel] Mike Crotty to go get it. Now, I know. That's just a lesson I have to learn."

What lesson would that be?  Taking your luggage with you?  Speaking of luggage...

But the really funny part was when Green first traveled to Fayetteville accompanied by Ainge. At least the way Ainge tells it. ''When he showed up with these five humongous bags, I go, 'Gerald, you look like you're going to be gone for four months. This might be two weeks,' " said Ainge. ''I had to change my rental car to an SUV just to get his bags in it from the Raleigh airport. ''So I go, 'What do you have in there? I hope you have your [foam] roller [for stretching]. I hope you have your weighted ball.' He goes, 'I didn't have room.' And I said, 'What's in these bags?' And he goes, 'Well, I've got a lot of shoes?' I said, 'Your basketball shoes.' And he goes, 'No, they're shipping those to me.' So, I said, 'Gerald, you're down here to play basketball. All you need is about three pairs of sweats and a couple pair of running shoes.' "

But wait, there's more:

''While I'm down there, Gerald decided to get this [cornrow] hairstyle that he has," said Ainge. ''And I've got to stop at a beauty supply store to get him rubber bands for his hair. I'm sitting there in the car waiting and I feel like I have my teenage daughter with me.  ''I'm stopping at a beauty supply store for rubber bands for his hair. And he's got five bags packed full of shoes."

That's not quite Bill Parcells calling Terry Glenn "she", but it's close.  At least Springer raises the issue of Ainge trying to move Green (which he denies) and that Ainge might be regretting the decision to draft Green in the first place (which he also denies).  She also mentions that Ainge praises Green as well (saying that he's added muscle and has developed more in the last month than in the previous 5 months), but that Ainge may just be talking him up for potential trade partners.  Of course, Springer's article is not exactly what you'd want in the paper should you be trying to trade someone.  Nor, for that matter, is this final thought:

Green is lucky that Ainge has a good sense of humor. Neither of Green's trips to Fayetteville have engendered much confidence in the youngster. But considering what Green knew of geography when the season started, there has been progress. Back in August, when asked why his love of fishing would not extend to a boat trip into the waters off New England, Green said, ''Did you see the movie 'Titanic'? That was a true story. Icebergs." ... No telling what will happen if Green makes another return trip to Fayetteville. For many reasons, Green hopes he stays with the Celtics the rest of the season.

Um, yeah.  I guess.

Banks almost traded to Seattle

Sports Illustrated's Ian Thomsen reports in his friday column that the Celtics almost completed a pre-deal with the Supersonics that would have featured Marcus Banks. This fell apart when the Timberwolves apparently decided they prefered Banks to Seattle's Flip Murray.

The prelude to the recent Timberwolves-Celtics deal is more interesting than the trade itself. The Sonics were negotiating to send guards Flip Murray and Rick Brunson to Boston in exchange for Marcus Banks; the Celtics were then going to send Murray to the Timberwolves as part of the package for Wally Szczerbiak. Everything was put on hold, though, when Seattle point guard Luke Ridnour suffered an injury, prompting the Sonics to delay the trade for a day to see how long Ridnour would be sidelined. He missed one game -- on Jan. 26, the same day the Celtics changed direction by sending Banks to Minnesota as part of the Szczerbiak deal. The Sonics were disappointed that Boston wasn't willing to wait, but the Celtics say that the decision wasn't theirs to make. They insist that the Timberwolves ultimately decided to acquire Banks instead of Murray. In any case, the Sonics are now back on the phones seeking a defensive-minded backup point guard by the Feb. 23 deadline

Unless I read this wrong the result of this trade, had it gone down, would have been that the Celtics would have added Rick Brunson instead of Dwayne Jones. Meh.

Um, about playing the pups?

These weren't the guys we had in mind.

Fifty days until April 1.

Al Michaels traded from ABC to NBC for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Is it too early to talk draft?

Over at Blog-A-Bull, Matt's started looking at the track record of players taken third through fifth in the draft

The very definition of NBA All Star

Bill Simmons has this fun little anecdote about going to watch a Clippers - Nets game in LA. What it tells me is that it's time for B. to remember the name Quentin Ross.

Two weeks ago, I attended a Clips-Nets game two days after Vince Carter tweaked his back in Utah. Knowing Vince would play, knowing the Clips would stick Quentin Ross (aka, "Bruce Bowen 2.0") on him, knowing that Vince would probably struggle, I almost felt like starting a "When will Vince pull and Exit Stage Right during the game?" pool in my section. He came out firing (the back looked fine, by the way) before realizing that Ross would be hounding him all game. Eventually, he stopped going within 20 feet of the basket.

So I'm sitting there waiting for him to start stretching, wincing and doing all the other stuff that Vince does when he wants the crowd to know that he's thinking about packing it in for the night. At the end of the first half, he had one point. Midway through the third, he had 3 points and the Nets were down by 20. Then there was a 2-on-1 with Kidd when Vince stepped on someone's foot, landed a little awkwardly, waved to his bench as the whistle was blown, then kept right on jogging ... right into the runway and into the locker room. We never saw him again. Even better, we knew right away that he wasn't coming back. I just hope I get a chance to tell this story on "SportsCentury And Beyond: Vince Carter" some day.

In New Jersey Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson used to have a pretty serious running competition over who got more rebounds each night. I always thought this spoke a little higher of Jefferson, who gives up several inches and about 20 pounds on Kmart. In any event, I wonder how well Vince is going over at Exit 16W.

Ladies and gentlemen, your frontcourt rotation

is now Raef LaFrentz, Brian Scalabrine and Michael Olowokandi. Word this afternoon is that Kendrick Perkins dislocated his shoulder in practice and will be out until at least after the All Star Break. To recap, the post players on the roster are now:

- A guy whose knees are so shot he barely plays more than 20 minutes on the one of the shallowest rosters in the league
- An expiring contract, and
- A third-string, undersized power forward that the team signed to be a positive influence on their recent draft picks.

The Celtics chances of landing a top 3 pick and Doc's chances of keeping his job just jumped in opposite directions.

I've been on the road (great to see you, Ty) and also have been meaning to post this link this link from a few days ago that indicates Szczerbiak may have knee issues.

Wounded knee
Wally Szczerbiak has been bothered by soreness in his left knee, which was scoped nine years ago. ''I don't know what's going on," said Szczerbiak, who will likely have the joint examined. ''I felt it catch a few times, little pops or something. It's cartilage. I had cartilage removed nine years ago. It's just been swelling a little bit on me, so we'll see."

Could the basketball gods (I mean Danny Ainge) inflict on us two $10-13M stiffs for the next three years?

Stay tuned.

SweetDue hits the bigtime (sort of)

So, for the past few days, our blog has been popping up when I Google "SweetDue" here at work.  And we're the #5 hit when you Google "Terry Duerod". Pretty cool, eh?  Get ready for the flood of visitors obsessed with obscure Celtics players.  Oh wait, that would be T.S. and B.

 

Oddly, these Google searches don't yield the same results when I do them from the computers at my house (at least, as of last night).  Any thoughts as to why this might be?

Sing it, Dan.

We need to get over it. We need to stop doing this to ourselves. But it was impossible to watch those teams stumble around for four quarters and not come away convinced that the Patriots would have won their fourth Super Bowl in five years if they'd just found a way to hold on to the football in Denver that night.

Dan Shaughnessy, in today's Globe.

Weighing in on the state of the C's

Don't know if you all caught it this weekend, but the Globe surveyed its own writers on the current state of the Celtics. So, are they better off today than they were, um, several years ago? Here are some highlights. As per usual, Acid Dan has the harshest take.

Bob Ryan:

This is an exasperating bunch, utterly unreliable, often tepid at home and usually docile on the road. Danny put this bunch together, and the results are not close to what they were last year, let alone when he got here.

Dan Shaughnessy:

No. They are not better... Thus far, Danny has been Pitino without the lies.

Shira Springer:

If you look past a rise and fall in wins (36 in his first season, to 45 last season, to a team on pace for 30-35 this season), then you see a team with a markedly improved outlook... But Jefferson's recent injury shows just how uncertain the future can be.

But I think Peter May probably has the best take:

If you happen to be someone who is ''results-oriented," then the answer is easy. No. In fact, they are worse. Two and one-half years ago, Ainge inherited a 44-win team that made the second round of the playoffs. He did not like that team and felt, correctly, that it needed to be rebuilt. Since then, he has had six first-round picks (one of them already gone) and has had his hand-picked coach for 1 1/2 years and has Paul Pierce playing the best basketball of his life -- and the team is 10 games under .500. It's been about ''next year" for three years now. Then again, next year has to be better than this year, doesn't it?

A quick aside: is there really a GM, player or fan in professional sports who isn't "results-oriented"? The goal is results -- at least somewhere down the line. That being said, May acknowledges that the team Ainge inherited had gone as far as it possibly could -- and probably farther than it ever should have -- and needed to be rebuilt. He also acknowledges that the overhaul has been thorough, but that the changes have yet to bear fruit. I think that's a fair take. We're all waiting to see. Finally, Jackie MacMullen weighs in with the wisest thoughts on the matter.

[A]s Danny's good friend, Kevin McHale, once told me, ''The worst thing you can do in the NBA is become impatient. It will backfire every time." What it does is turn a five-year plan into one that could span eight years -- or more. He'd better hope the kids are as good as he thinks they are.

Um, yeah.

Not so Super.

This guy from Miami is all over the officiating in the big game last night, and he misses one of the worst calls, the phantom holding call on Seattle that possibly cost them a touchdown and set up Hasselbeck's goal-line interception. And here's more from Slate.

I wasn't really into the game, and was vaguely rooting for Pittsburgh (AFC fandom taking precedence, apparently, over childhood allegiance to the Seahawks of Jim Zorn and Steve Largent and 5-11 seasons), but if I were in Seattle today I'd be pretty bent out of shape.

Highlights of sports journalism (latest in a series)

The problem with deciding on the conclusion before you've looked at the facts is that once in a while the facts don't accomodate. Over at Pro Basketball News Eric Fontana decides to make the case the current Celtics team is identical to the one Ainge took over.

But after all of this wheeling and dealing, have the Celtics improved? Or consider this: The season before Ainge took over, the Celtics had two good scorers (Pierce and Walker), a hustling big man (Tony Battie), a solid point guard (Kenny Anderson) and some good young talent (Joe Johnson and a young Mark Blount).

Now they have two good scorers (Szczerbiak and Pierce), a hustling big man (Kendrick Perkins), a solid point guard (Delonte West), and some good young talent (Al Jefferson and Orien Greene). They also added Gerald Green, although Green has barely played, so the jury is still out.

It's amazing how two different basketball teams can both have a center! And a point guard! And players who do most of the shooting! Will we ever look at basketball the same way again?

Those who have followed this blog know that I've been plenty critical of the way the team is currently run. With Fontana, though, you almost don't know where to begin.

How 'bout with the 'good young talent' the Celtics had when Ainge arrived? Joe Johnson was traded to Phoenix in '01, a good two years before Ainge arrived in Boston. In '03 Mark Blount was 27 year old and despite being 7' tall in a center-starved league had never averaged more than 20 minutes a night. Fast forward to today's squad and calling Orien Greene good young talent only shows you haven't seen him play much. When an athletic, 6'3" point guards slips to the end of the second round of the draft there's a reason. Calling Delonte West a sold point guard... well, I could go on but I'd just bore both of us.

New T-Wolves

I had the chance to watch most of last nights T-Wolves/T-Blazers (why does no one call them that?) (apart from that it sounds lousy, I mean) game, which Portland won by a fairly narrow margin, and so I got to see The Men Formerly In Green in action.

Mark Blount apparently has changed the pronounciation of his name from "Blownt" (rhymes with frown) to "Blunt" (rhymes with doobie). I would think it was misinformed announcers, except that they explicitly discussed the change. Perhaps he's trying to get more of an edge, except that he's done the opposite. Anyhoo, he had a characteristically Blountian game, hitting a few jumpers but disappearing inside in the face of big men like Joel Pryzbilla and Theo Ratliff, who had 8 blocks between them, which was 8 more than Blount. The box score says he grabbed six rebounds, but the only one I recall was off a missed free throw.

Marcus Banks had some electrifying moments taking the ball to the hoop, and put up some good numbers: 30 minutes, 6-10 FG, 3-4 FT, 2 reb, 5 ast, 1 steal, 1 block. Sebastian Telfair had a hard time guarding him. On the other, Telfair was playing in high school last year, and Banks had a hard time guarding Telfair and Steve Blake. For someone so speedy, he kept getting beat off the dribble. As I recall, his steal and block came after he'd been beat, suggesting that he was gambling -- not the instincts on defense I'd like to see. What Banks didn't do was run the game. Towards the middle of the fourth quarter, Garnett had hit something like 12 shots in a row, but Minnesota stopped getting him the ball. I think Banks was running the offense (such as it was) at that point. Maybe he'll never get those point guard skills; on the other hand, that's what I thought about Chauncey Billups.


Ricky was Ricky. He played 38 minutes, second on the team only to Garnett. 7-20 FG, 1-4 3FG, 3 reb, 2 ast, and a quiet 17 points. It's too early to expect him to fit into their offense, whatever it is now, but he was getting his points free-lancing.

Justin Reed had little to show for an aggressive 11 minutes, apart from 3 personal fouls. The announcers suggested that he was trying to become another Ruben Patterson, which is a nice way of putting it.

Problems with the new world order (first in a series)

With several minutes left in the second quarter last night Al Jefferson goes up for a rebound and comes down partly on Chris Wilcox's right foot-- rolling his ankle pretty badly. It was very similar to the play at the start of the season when Shaq landed on Ron Artest and was out for weeks.

Word in the papers this morning is that it will be at least 3 weeks

“I don’t want to use the ‘severe’ word, but it’s a pretty tough ankle sprain,” said Doc Rivers. “It’s not broke, which is great. But in no time soon will we see him - after All-Star break would be the earliest from what they’re telling us right now.”

Having watched the way Jefferson went down I'll be surprised if he's back practicing in three weeks. The silver lining, such as it is, is that Celtics are heading into a light stretch in their schedule with only 9 more games in February.

Lottery fever: catch it!

Ford's Take on Pierce-for-Paul

As a followup to my previous post, Chad Ford recently answered a Celtic fan's question in a Q-A session:

Jeff, Boston: Paul Pierce for Chris Paul? I read your piece with a lot of amusement. Have you watched Pierce this year? He's finally a superstar. No way I would've made this trade.

Chad Ford: Pierce has been awesome this year. But it's about timing. Will Pierce still be awesome when the Celtics young players are ready to be serious championship contenders. I think that's 2 to 3 years away if everything goes the Celtics way ... Dont' know if Pierce will still be bringing the juice then, but Paul would be. Besides, I really like Delonte West, but he's more of a combo guard than a true point. Paul is more of a leader and would've actually paired up great in the backcourt with West. So yes ... I would've done it. Paul is younger, much cheaper (don't forget the Cs would've gotten major cap flexibility as part of the deal) and would've fit into the long term strategy of the Celtics.

I couldn't have said it better myself, although I have the feeling I still haven't convinced M! (M, is that you posting questions as "Jeff, Boston"?)

The Trade the Celtics Should Have Made

In a previous post, I suggested that the Celtics would have been better off trading Ricky Davis and Mark Blount to the Knicks for an expiring contract instead of getting Wally Szczerbiak.

Today, the Knicks did exactly what I expected--they traded an expiring contract (Antonio Davis) for Jalen Rose and a pick. The Celtics would have been better off if they made that trade with the Knicks.

As a model for rebuilding, what the Raptors are doing makes a lot more sense than what the Celtics are doing. Like the Celtics, the Raptors have one All-Star caliber player (Bosh) and some young talent, but instead of taking on veterans to try to push for a low playoff seed, they're clearing cap space and playing their young guys. Now they'll have one of the top picks in the draft plus cap flexibility, and they still have Bosh and their other young guys.

Ainge on the C's

Seems like Danny Ainge is trying to do a little damage control in the wake of the C's demolition by the T-Wolves the other night. While I think we can all agree that one game is not a good gauge of a trade, perhaps the Celtics are feeling a little pressure. Why else would Danny be making the rounds? So today both papers have some thoughts from Big-D.

The Herald has the more bland take.

"I think (the playoffs) are a good goal for Doc (Rivers) and our players to have, and it would be a good accomplishment for our team. I want them to do that for their own success. It's good to fight toward your goals."

Ainge stopped short of saying anything else, though the unspoken part is fairly clear.
He wasn't excited about the postseason team he inherited on the way to a second-round sweep by New Jersey in May 2003, or the one that was swept in the first round by Indiana a year later.

He won't be excited by a postseason toe dip now, either.

Seems pretty clear that he's trying to temper expectations. Also seems clear that he doesn't think this Celtics team is good enough to make the playoffs, and if they didn't, that wouldn't be the worst thing.

Peter May in the Globe has much more, however.

''I feel like we're closer to where we want to be," Danny Ainge, the Celtics' executive director of basketball operations, said yesterday. ''But I don't think we're necessarily a much better team right now, if that makes any sense. To me, it's kind of a sideways deal as far as winning basketball games right now. But I feel we're closer to where we want to be. I'll let you read between the lines."

At last, a semi-honest evaluation of the Celtics, and one closer to what we've discussed in this blog for a while. The Celtics made this trade for the long term, not the short term. While he refused to come out and say it, Ainge essentially acknowledges that the team may well get worse. But wait, there's more.

We all know, ultimately, where the Celtics want to be. They want to get there with a nucleus of Pierce, Szczerbiak, Kendrick Perkins, Delonte West, and Al Jefferson. ''We feel that's a very strong, solid group of guys as we go forward," Ainge said. Additionally, after the deal, the Celtics own five first-round picks in the next three years, although one is Cleveland's (in 2007) and the other is the conditional pick from Minnesota, which can be exercised in 2008.

So again, Ainge acknowledges what we've been discussing -- they plan to build around the nucleus of those five guys. The goal is to develop the pups, and surround them with complementary players. And Ricky Davis and Mark Blount weren't those guys.

One reason Ainge feels the Celtics are closer is the addition of Szczerbiak for Ricky Davis. He thinks Szczerbiak is the best player in the deal and added that Davis, while having improved both on and off the court as a Celtic, still was, as he put it, high maintenance.

''Ricky grew up a lot here and, as I said before, this was not about Ricky," Ainge said. ''But things happen, and not always things off the court. People are talking about Wally's defense. Well, Ricky had his problems there, too."

That despite the public pronouncements of Doc Rivers, who once said Davis could be the best defensive player on the Celtics because of his size, quickness, and athleticism. When it was all said and done, Davis was in Boston for fewer than 26 months.

So after 26 months of hearing about how much better Davis was, it turns out the Celtics thought he was still a pain in the butt. And it seems like Ainge wasn't as highly sold on Ricky's tenacious-D either. So where does all this leave us? It appears that Trader Dan may not be done yet.

Ainge called the [draft] picks ''valuable chips." While he clearly wouldn't indicate if anything else was afoot, he did make it clear the picks added to the value of someone who otherwise might not be tradeable for whatever reason. Asked if Raef LaFrentz might be one of those ''untradeables," Ainge refused to comment.

On Wednesday, Ainge, in his weekly visit with Glenn Ordway on WEEI, hinted he felt the Celtics were only a player from being a contender in the conference. He backed off that yesterday -- ''I don't think I said that," he said by way of explanation -- but here's what he told Ordway: ''In some ways, we can be one move away from being a team that can contend in the conference." He wasn't saying he saw the future Detroit Pistons, but he did say he thought one potential move might make the Celtics a top four or five team in the conference. He also said the move might come sooner rather than later.

I think Ainge is probably wrong about one move transforming the Celtics into a top 4-5 team in the East. Even if they managed to bring in another near-All Star player to complement Pierce, Szczerbiak and the young guys, they'd still be relying on Perkins, Jefferson and West for either key starting or backup roles (unless one of them went in the deal). And the team isn't very deep. But I do think Trader Dan (shall we just call him TD and be done with it?) has some very clear ideas about what he wants to do.

At least when the Celtics lose big at home... (second in a series)

Players applauding when their coach is ejected from a game is just the start. Frank Isola says that down in New York things are getting uglier by the day:

Just when you thought it couldn't get any uglier at Madison Square Garden, a growing rift between the players and their Hall of Fame coach is beginning to surface. How bad is it? Let's just say it's safe to assume that no one in the locker room is going to take up a collection to pay Brown's fine for being ejected in the third quarter of Tuesday's humiliating 130-97 loss to the Lakers.

The Knicks are in disarray from top to bottom with no relief - or playoff games - in sight. Thomas, the team president, is embroiled in a sexual harassment lawsuit that gets messier each day. The team has lost nine of its last 10 games and is 14-30 overall.

And inside the locker room, where confusion and frustration reign, the players are fed up with Brown beating them down privately and publicly, according to several team sources. Following Monday's loss to Atlanta, Brown accused the players of quitting. Two days earlier, he was highly critical of Eddy Curry's performance in a loss to Philadelphia.

That's why few players were sorry to see the coach ejected with 5:46 remaining in the third quarter Tuesday night. According to a source, as Brown walked to the locker room, at least two players half-jokingly commented that the team was free to play how it wanted.

In the aftermath of the 33-point loss to the Lakers, the Knicks met for two hours at their training facility yesterday, but the players were not made available. Thomas and Garden chairman James Dolan were also in Greenburgh and were said to be in meetings with Brown. Both Dolan and Thomas were off limits to the press as well.

People close to Dolan continue to stress that the Garden chief has faith in Thomas even though that loyalty is being tested. Under Thomas, the Knicks haven't won a playoff game and are working on their third straight losing season. Thomas has convinced Dolan that he is rebuilding and yet the Chicago Bulls own the Knicks' first-round pick this June, which is almost certain to be a lottery selection. Also, the payroll is at a league-high $120 million and climbing.

Thomas acquired every player on the roster and their performance under Brown has done little to enhance the team president's job security. It also can't help that Brown has used 27 starting lineups and that he has been openly critical of the players, something that neither Don Chaney nor Lenny Wilkens dared to do under Thomas.

Likewise, it can't help Brown that his players all have a pipeline to Thomas. In the past, Thomas' role as a buffer and friend to certain players ticked off those Knicks who were leftovers from previous regimes. Now Brown is the outsider.

With Thomas being such a powerful presence around the team it would seem only logical that Brown would have problems gaining command of the locker room, even though he has a proven track record. According to a source, the players are convinced that Brown is looking to move most of them and would do just that if given the power. Hence, the players are loyal to Thomas, which could lead to a Brown-Thomas showdown.

Don't worry, there's more.

Dubious distinction award (first in a series)

Gerald Green is rated the top NBA prospect in the NBADL (go to this link and then scroll down the page).

Green and his posse, should they notice this article and bother to read it, will probably take some pleasure from his being ranked ahead of #6 Portland Trailblazers pick Martell Webster.

Key blurb:

1. Gerald Green, Boston Celtics/Fayetteville Patriots

Per game averages: 12.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, 1.6 assists

Green was the first rookie out of high school sent to the D-League, and during his time spent in Roanoke, has shown promise as an NBA player. Though too skinny to play in the NBA right now, Green has been very unselfish, and concentrated on the smaller aspects of his game that need work. People know that Gerald can score, but he has worked on his defense, and improved his passing ability while not forcing anything on offense. To reach his all-star potential, Gerald Green will need to stay in the weight room, and continue to develop his understanding of the NBA game. All the tools are certainly there.

Yet another recap

Charley Rosen tunes in to the Celtics - Timberwolves grudgematch on Monday night to see at least some emotion, if not a good basketball game. Later he gives a synopises of how all the traded parties played.

He has admiring words to say about Banks and Reed and lukewarm thoughts for Szczerbiak. For Davis and Blount he manages a collective 'whatever'. 'Kandi he knows better than to waste much ink on.

At least when the Celtics lose big at home...

...fans don't start routing for the other team. It's ugly enough in New York that last night folks in Madison Square Garden were both cheering for Kobe Bryant during the game and chanting 'MVP' as he went for 40 points. Final score: 130-97 Lakers.

Chicago has to be liking the Curry trade and that Knick draft pick more and more every day.

Same story, different city

In the Philadelphia Daily News John Smallwoord follows up on rumors that the 76ers have been quietly surveying season ticket holders to their reaction to the possibility of life without Allen Iverson. The team strongly denies it. Smallwood thinks about it for a bit and asks, well: why not?

There are only two reasons to keep a player as the centerpiece of your franchise: He can win you a championship or he is a ticket magnet who keeps the money flowing.

Iverson, through no fault of his own, is no longer either of those for the Sixers

Only 15,732 fans showed up for the game against the Pacific Division-leading Suns, the highest-scoring team in the league, featuring reigning MVP Steve Nash. With the Sixers' average home attendance being the fourth worst in the NBA, it's clear that seeing Iverson play is no longer enough for the team's fans.

So if the Sixers can't win a title with Iverson and he's no longer a draw, what's the benefit of keeping him?

King said the Sixers did not survey season ticketholders about life without Iverson.

Maybe they should. The results might be surprising.

Need a PG?

Although he cites no sources Brian McCormick reports that Jay Williams is trying out for NBA teams and wants his hometown Sacramento Kings to sign him. If Williams is indeed 90% of what he was you can make a case he's a better use of a few million dollars than lots of backup point guards signed in the last 12 months (I'm looking at you Tyronne Lue, Dan Dickau and Aaron McKie)