Re: Disturbing Development and CM x-change

["JLyell" <jlyell@concentric.net>]

To Dean M. Laux

Dean, I am living out in Laker land & have to agree with Mr. Ozersky.  Your
magazine is pretty poor in providing any real cutting edge or inside info
on the Celtics we have not already heard months before.  You paint a bright
picture of a poor team. We need to be more critical and voice the fan's
real opinion (take some opinion polls!) or this franchise will never make
the changes need or desired by the fan's. This fan would recommend you grab
a few copies of the old Celtic Pride magazine, it was way more up to date,
unbiased, &  informative.  The Sound Off fan feedback & response was one of
the best sections, as were articles from reporters with good inside
scoops.You should have your writers subscribe to the Celtic discussion list
where the die hard Celtic fan's hang out & they might find out what most
Celtic fan's really think and get some information in a more timely matter
!   Another idea is to subscribe to Don Leventhal's draft report for some
real good information on prospective draft picks & their performance in
camps.

PS.   That masked men cover was hysterical !!  Maybe they have been using
them all year, except over their eyes on defense !!!! 

- ----------
> From: JOzersky@aol.com
> To: celtics@igtc.com
> Subject: Disturbing Development and CM x-change
> Date: Tuesday, April 15, 1997 6:40 AM
> 
> Something else for us to worry about:  now this story in the globe about
Bird
> not showing up in Phoenix.  This is bad.  Here's something that might
amuse
> you, an exchange between me and Dean M. Laux, the editor of Celtics
Monthly:
> 
> 
> 
> To:  Dean M. Laux
> From: subscriber Josh Ozersky
> 
> I've been trying to put my finger on what is so disappointing about
Celtics
> Monthly.  At first I thought it was that the magazine is so clearly in
bed
> with the Celtics publicity department, and that that accounted for the
many
> softballs thrown in interviews  ("CM:  In your opinion, do we have to go
all
> out this coming offseason to get a center, whether through free agency, a
> trade, or the draft?  Carr:  Yes.") and the general Pollyanish tone of
the
> features. 
> 
> But I now realize that the problem is simpler and more solvable.  Celtics
> Monthly is simply aiming too low.  It assumes a readership that knows
almost
> nothing about basketball, and one with only a paassing knowledge of the
team,
> e.g. who don't know who Tim Duncan is, who is on the injured list, etc. 
The
> recent insert of forty players to watch in the coming tournament was
typical.
> What celtics fan doesn't know at least the names of the top players?  And
> what do we need a list of their names and heights for anyway?  Serious
> celtics fans would be much better served by in-depth scouting reports,
issue
> by issue of the top picks, all throughout this dismal year -- as opposed
to
> the slick, uninformative draft preview you no doubt have cooked up  ("Van
> Horn is a good outside shooter, but there are questions about whether he
can
> be an inside presence in the NBA.")  
> 
> For a magazine that only comes out a few times a year, which is a month
> behind news, and which only carries three or four features a month  (I'm
not
> including the press releases among those, e.g. "Jan Volk donates time to
the
> Jewish Home for the Aged"), Celtics Monthly doesn't do a very good job of
> helping serious celtics fans supplement what we get through the Globe,
the
> newsgroups, ESPN, CBS Sportsline, the Herald, SI, and half a dozen other
> sports news organs which presume much greater sophistication on the part
of
> their readers.
> 
> 
> Date:  Fri, Apr 11, 1997 1:55 PM EDT
> From:  CeltMonth
> Subj:  Re: Memo to Dean M. Laux: One Subscriber's Opinion
> To:      J Ozersky
> 
> Mr. Ozersky:
> Where have you been? Celtics Monthly is the OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE
BOSTON
> CELTICS. Have you ever read FastBreak, Rip City, Hawk Talk, or any of the
> other official team publications in the NBA? If you want team public
> relations, take a look at those magazines, and then reread CM. You'll see
> that, as a team publication, we are far more "arms length" than any
other.
>      That having been said, we are talking about a team that, at this
> writing, is 13-64 and having its worst season ever, by far. Should we be
> telling you, a sophisticated fan, how bad the team is? Doesn't the record
> tell you that? Don't you get enough of that reading Peter May and Mike
> Holley? What purpose would be served by writing articles dripping with
> sarcasm about a team that is down, even if we weren't the OFFICIAL
MAGAZINE
> of the Celtics? Like the vast majority of our readers, who are fans, we
want
> to know what positives can be found and what can be built upon for the
> future. We have unusually good access to people around the league who can
help us to formulate our own opinions about these things, which may differ
> from those of the Celtics-but the Celtics, to their credit, don't object
to
> our voicing these opinions in their OFFICIAL MAGAZINE.
>      Unlike you, a large percentage of our readers do not get the Boston
> Globe and the Boston Herald, since they are from out of state or even out
of
> the country. We have to provide them with basic information that you may
> already know about. With all the other publications and services you
> subscribe to, you would appear to be unusually well informed, but we must
> deal with a broader audience.
>    Dean Laux
> 
>