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FOUL!  
Many strands in Celtics' season-long unraveling 
By Michael Holley, Globe Staff, 07/21/97   
Three days into their October training camp, last season's Celtics watched
Todd Day run from behind Dino 
Radja, turn and quickly punch him in the face with his right hand. It wasn't
simply one frustrated 
teammate punching another. It was a preface for the uneven six months that
followed, a period that proved 
the Celtics were often at war with the concept of team. 
That punch, thrown in Greensboro, N.C., began a series of incidents ranging
from comical to bizarre to 
unethical. By the end of the season, it was clear that the Celtics' problems
weren't limited to their 67 losses, 
record number of injuries, and inability to play defense. They were awful to
watch on the court; they were 
just as ragged off it. 
Besides the punch, there was Greg Minor pummeling Day after a practice; coach
M.L. Carr, angry over what 
he believed to be a prank, threatening to make his players walk to a game at
Market Square Arena in 
Indianapolis; top assistant coach Dennis Johnson telling Carr he wanted to
resign after he became annoyed 
with Antoine Walker during an in-game argument; injured players missing
rehabilitation appointments 
and instead venturing to places as far away as Key West, Fla., and Croatia;
Pervis Ellison, who didn't 
practice or play after the season's first two weeks, angering many when he
delayed the team's February 
flight to Orlando, Fla., more than an hour before casually boarding with his
golf clubs drawn over a 
shoulder; Carr, also an executive vice president and director of basketball
operations, writing angst-ridden 
notes to himself saying, in part, that the Celtics needed to ``neutralize''
Larry Bird; and constant friction 
between Carr and marketing director Stuart Layne. 
In three months, the Celtics will begin training again. They will do so with
a new coach and president, Rick 
Pitino. They will speak of new starts and eras. They will have seen at least
22 employees, including nine 
renounced players, move on. (Some players, such as Rick Fox and Marty Conlon,
were released for financial 
reasons. And some fired employees were told their release had nothing to do
with their work performance 
or behavior.) 
The Celtics and Pitino know that the new coach's work will entail more than
reshaping a team that won 
only 48 of 164 games the past two seasons. He also has to steer an
organization away from a path that, in 
1996-97, had many operating in ways that might benefit only themselves, not
the team. 
When contacted for this story, a few players and members of Celtics
management expressed a desire to bury 
the happenings of 1996-97. Many declined to respond to information gathered
during two months of 
research and interviews with team and league sources. 
``The Celtics would like to put last year in the trash can and leave it there
- - where it belongs,'' said veteran 
center Alton Lister, who played with the team the past two seasons. ``They
want to go in a different 
direction.''
Soon they will. They are now in transition. Three months behind them, they
still can see remnants of the 
worst Celtics team ever. Three months ahead, they can envision an
organization that definitively will 
separate itself from 1996-97. 
Dealing and dueling with Day
The irony is that they went there to strengthen their unity. The Celtics
spent nine October nights in 
Greensboro, minutes away from Guilford College, Carr's alma mater. They were
preparing for what they 
knew would be a rough season with no playoffs. A few days into training camp,
the problems began. 
During a scrimmage, the 195-pound Day was competing with the 255-pound Radja.
Day committed a hard 
foul on Radja. Radja returned a forceful foul on Day. No problems. But Day
took offense at what he 
believed was continued dirty play by Radja. A few minutes later, he decided
to become his own referee. He 
approached Radja and punched him. Radja did not retaliate. 
``Hey, Todd,'' yelled angry team captain Fox. ``What you just did was
[expletive].''
Day immediately insisted that he had been provoked. The guard, who was
renounced by the Celtics July 7, 
did not return several phone calls the Globe made to him, his agent, and his
relatives. Radja, who will play 
for Panathinaikos AC in Greece next season, said the fight symbolized
nothing. 
``What? The fight? It was no big deal,'' Radja said last month. ``You look at
teams all around the league - 
Golden State, Chicago, the New York Knicks, whoever. It happens everywhere.
I've got no problems with 
Todd Day. It was just a fight.''
A few of his teammates disagreed with his casual analysis. Radja did not
practice the next couple of days 
because of sore knees. ``I knew right then,'' a teammate said, ``that we had
lost him for the season. That 
took a lot out of him.''
``That's [expletive],'' Radja said when apprised of the comments. ``How can
somebody say that about me? 
How can somebody say what I was feeling?''
Last week Carr said he couldn't recall a training camp in which someone did
not fight. ``You don't want it 
to happen, but unfortunately, it does,'' he said. ``The commissioner says
he's going to fine players 
thousands of dollars if they get into fights, and they still do it. It's not
unusual. Did the Bulls fight among 
themselves this year? Probably.''
But a team that fights and wins forgets about the fighting with the next
string of victories. With a team that 
fights and loses, the fighting often can make matters worse, which seemed to
happen with the Celtics. 
Radja's season ended in January with left knee surgery. He played 25 games.
Before one of those games, he 
told a former Celtics employee, ``I do not like this Todd Day.''
He wasn't alone. 
Day wanted playing time. He scanned the Celtics roster and kept telling
himself that there wasn't a guard 
better than he. NBA personnel types long have marveled over Day's natural
ability. Johnson, who helped 
the Celtics win two NBA championships in the 1980s, often said that Day was
one of the team's most 
intelligent players. Last season Johnson took Day aside and asked him why he
didn't apply his knowledge 
while on the court. Day responded, ``I try to in the beginning. But when
everyone else starts going off on 
their own, what am I supposed to do?''
Day bristled when he heard Carr early in the season praise Greg Minor,
someone Carr genuinely liked off 
the court. Day, meanwhile, was a player Carr acquired partly because he knew
Day would provide some 
salary cap relief after last season. Day knew his playing time, already
spotty, would diminish once Minor 
returned from a foot injury. His six minutes against the Lakers Nov. 27, 18
against the Rockets Nov. 29, and 
eight against the Nets Dec. 6 did not make him happy. One day at Brandeis, he
began talking trash with 
Minor. 
``I remember that there was a whole lot of talking going on,'' Minor said
last week. ``It got to the point 
where both of us knew something was probably going to happen.''
Minor and everyone on the team had been around Day long enough to know that
he was a fierce and often 
humorous trash talker. 
``Hey,'' Day began to taunt, ``don't be mad at me that you're a shooting
guard with the shootin' range of a 
power forward. Don't be mad at me just because you can't shoot beyond 15
feet.''
The talking occurred as the team scrimmaged. As it continued, the men began
to guard each other more 
physically. 
``You know how you can say something that's funny but has just enough truth
to irritate somebody?'' one 
ex-Celtic said. ``That's what was happening there. Todd struck a chord with
Greg.''
Apparently, Day sensed it. Minor was seething. After practice, Day did a rare
thing: He stayed on the court 
late, waiting for players to exit the gymnasium and, presumably, the
premises. He knew Minor, at 6 feet 6 
inches and 220 pounds, was one of the strongest men on the team. 
But Minor did not leave with the rest of the team. The angry man waited for
Day in the locker room, 
cursing. As Day entered, Minor approached and said he wanted to fight. Day
declined. Minor persisted, 
following Day. Day picked up a chair to discourage Minor but did not throw
it. When he put the chair 
down, Minor charged, held him against a locker, and pounded away. Lister and
Fox were also in the room. 
Lister told the men to stop, separated them, and took Minor into a nearby
shower area to calm him. 
``A lot of things happened that probably shouldn't have,'' Minor said. ``I
don't want to put Todd or anyone 
else down. I'm just trying to let bygones be bygones and move on.''
Lister, the oldest Celtic (38), talked with Minor for nearly an hour after
the fight. Minor said he and Day 
were able to resolve their differences in the next couple of weeks. Other
Celtics issues, though, were not 
tucked away so easily. 
Coaches in crisis
Their plane landed in Indianapolis the night of Dec. 12. The Celtics were
5-14, losers in six of their previous 
seven games. Carr had maintained his optimism all season, even after ghastly
defeats. The coach was 
already 100 games into his coaching career and still hadn't received a
technical foul, rare in a league where 
coaches often receive technicals on purpose to inspire their teams. But Carr
wanted to show that he could 
keep his poise. Players expected him to snap one night on the court; instead,
he snapped at them one 
afternoon on a bus. 
Late that night, players and coaches deplaned and boarded a bus that would
take them to their downtown 
hotel. As the players began to settle into their seats, the bus driver
alerted Carr that someone had taken his 
nameplate. Carr didn't like what he heard. He stood in the front section of
the bus and faced the players. 
``OK, fellas,'' he said, ``who stole the nameplate?'' No one spoke. Carr
asked again. No one said anything. 
The team arrived at its hotel, but the issue was not over. 
The next morning, Carr raised the question again. Who stole the nameplate?
The driver explained that his 
company would hold him responsible if it were missing, so he needed it to be
returned. The Celtics were on 
their way to Market Square Arena for a short shootaround. They had scheduled
a players-only meeting to 
discuss the Nameplate Thief. By this point, the players were having fun. ``I
think guys were waiting for 
him to get upset about basketball,'' one player said, ``not stuff like
that.'' The agreement during the players' 
meeting was that the offender would come forward, but the players would go to
Carr as a united front, 
telling the coach only that the nameplate had been found. 
Still, no one admitted taking it. 
Carr was annoyed. Later that afternoon, the Celtics boarded the bus again,
about two hours before they 
would face the Pacers. But they weren't talking about Reggie Miller. They
were still discussing an item that 
may or may not have been lifted by a player. Carr announced that he was going
to make the players walk to 
the arena - about a 2-mile trip from the hotel - if the nameplate was not
returned. Privately, they laughed 
and whispered among themselves, saying they would take cabs to the game. 
They did not have to walk the streets of Indianapolis in their fine silk,
cotton, and chamois clothing. They 
arrived via bus, without the elusive nameplate. Eventually, a collection was
taken and the bus driver was 
finally at ease. That ended part of the mystery, but it ruptured the respect
some players had for Carr. 
Many players would go to Johnson and tell him that he should be the head man.
Johnson wanted a head 
coaching job and was promised by Carr that he would get it with the Celtics.
But later that night in 
Indianapolis, he wanted to resign. 
The Celtics lost to the Pacers because Miller, a brilliant 3-point shooter,
was given enough room to launch a 
3-pointer at the buzzer in a tie game. He made it. Another Celtic defeat.
Another Celtic defensive 
breakdown. A few minutes earlier, Walker and Johnson had argued. 
Johnson was challenging Walker to work harder. Walker was bothered by the
criticism and, after a 
turnover and subsequent timeout, walked by Johnson and said, ``Are you happy
now that I messed up?''
This was not received well by a man who had a Hall of Fame career, a man who
was known for making his 
best plays in close games. At different times during the season, he expressed
concern over Walker's 
apparent arrogance. Why did he think he wanted him to fail? That's what he
asked Walker during the 
timeout. The entire team witnessed it. 
``If you ever think, for a minute, that I would want a team that I'm on to
fail ... then you're out of your 
mind,'' Johnson said, according to some who were there. 
Seconds after Miller's winning shot, Johnson walked across the court, passed
through a tunnel and into the 
visiting locker room. He told Carr, ``I want to resign.''
Johnson elected not to comment for this article, and Walker did not return
messages left with his family 
and agent. But it is known that Carr talked Johnson out of resigning later
that night. He told Johnson that 
people would say he couldn't handle young players, which would hurt his
chances of getting a job. Johnson 
did not resign. It would be 17 days before the Celtics would win again. They
ended 1996 with a 6-21 record. 
Several times during the season, Johnson was forced to restrict his style. If
a player needed to be told off, 
Johnson would do it. That was not Carr's approach. Neither was it the
operating procedure of mellow 
assistants John Kuester and K.C. Jones. Jones was so quiet during most of the
season that, when he became 
emotional after a December defeat in Sacramento, one player looked around and
said, ``Wow. He speaks.'' 
Once during the season, a veteran who is no longer with the team became upset
when Carr told Johnson to 
apologize to Walker. Why the apology? Because Johnson had used strong
language with the rookie. 
``He wanted DJ to apologize to Antoine?'' the veteran said. ``You're talking
about a Hall of Famer, with 
three championship rings, apologizing to Antoine, a rookie. That didn't make
sense.''
The players remembered it. During the season, they joked that Walker was
Carr's favorite. Some even 
called him ``Antoine Carr'' to emphasize their point. At 20 years old, Walker
was the team's best player, 
and it seemed Carr went out of his way to make sure he was happy. 
Walker and Johnson were able to coexist later in the season. When Carr became
ill in early April, Johnson 
was the head coach for a game against Orlando. Before play began, Johnson
told the team that anyone 
taking a silly shot to begin the game would find himself next to the coach on
the bench. Thirty seconds into 
the game, Walker put up one of those shots. Nate Driggers was summoned by
Johnson to replace Walker. 
As the young star walked toward the bench, Johnson motioned for him to take
the seat next to him. Later 
Johnson received the team's first technical foul for a head coach. He did it
on purpose. ``I just wanted to let 
you know,'' he told official Billy Oakes, ``that we're in this game, too.''
Johnson saw Walker at last month's predraft camp in Chicago. Walker thanked
his former coach for never 
backing down. 
xxxx
His new base is on the third floor of the Merrimac Street office, far removed
from basketball operations. 
You can look out a window and see the Green Line roll into North Station.
Against an exposed brick wall is 
a personal computer with a screen saver that reads, ``Boston Celtics
Corporate Development.'' There is a 
framed photo from 1994, a picture that includes him, his mother, and former
President George Bush in 
Maine. ``You want to know if I'm a Republican, Democrat, or Independent,'' he
says, laughing. ``I'm not 
telling. And Bush didn't ask.'' There is an unhung poster of Walker, a poster
with the Boston skyline in 
the background and a caption that reads, ``New Kid on the Blocks.''
This is supposed to be a new start for M.L. Carr, too. Because of his new
position, a position created for him, 
Carr, the executive vice president for corporate development, says he doesn't
want to talk about last season. 
``The bottom line is the sports side of the business is over for me now,'' he
says, sitting at a round table in 
his office. ``I have the utmost respect for the guys who went through last
season; it was a tough year. A very 
tough year. As a player, you don't want to have a year like that on your
resume. I hope we all came out of it 
stronger. But in the final analysis, going back doesn't help anybody. Right
now I'm trying to bring in 
revenue for the Celtics.''
He is told, though, that many are angry with him because they believe he
affected their personal revenue; 
some people, making $50,000-$100,000 a year, lost their jobs and he was able
to keep his and receive a 
$500,000 annual raise for the next five years. They wonder why he allowed
players such as Frank Brickowski 
to go to Key West when he was supposed to be rehabilitating a surgically
repaired shoulder in Boston. They 
wonder why he allowed Radja, with a surgically repaired left knee, to go to
Croatia. Why hold the plane for 
a tardy Ellison, who disrespected everyone by coming aboard toting his golf
clubs? Ellison couldn't play or 
practice because of soreness in his big toe, but he could hit the links? 
``No matter what I say, talking about this can only hurt me,'' Carr said.
``I'd rather not talk about it. It 
doesn't do me any good.''
Carr said during the year that he was the guy who should take the blame for
things that happened in the 
organization. Perhaps, he is asked, he underestimated the depth of problems
on Merrimac Street. Last year 
was a season in which office employees broke the rules. There was an office
lottery that allowed those who 
don't usually travel to take one road trip a year. But there were at least
three women who took more than 
one trip. They rode on the team plane and had their hotel costs covered by
the team. There was an office 
employee who continued to fax interoffice memos to Dave Gavitt, three years
after Gavitt was removed 
from basketball operations. 
Carr shifts at the table, crossing his legs, rubbing his face with his large
hands. He repeats that he doesn't 
want to talk about last year. He doesn't want to discuss bus incidents in
Indianapolis or San Jose, Calif. In 
the latter city, he became angry with former director of team travel and
services Wayne Lebeaux. It was just 
before the trading deadline, and teams had been told at which hotel the
Celtics would be staying. But there 
was a problem there and the Celtics had to switch. Carr was angry, saying
this was a terrible error. Lebeaux, 
whose firing was questioned by Bird, had been applauded by former general
manager Jan Volk as a fine 
worker. Volk told Carr that he simply would have someone in the office send a
fax to all teams, telling 
them that the Celtics were staying at a hotel near the airport, not one
downtown. The Celtics were 11-41 at 
the time. Was the season getting to Carr then? 
Carr listens to the list of transgressions and repeats that there is no
benefit to talking about a Celtics year in 
which tension and conflict mixed, forming an explosive element that seeped
through the offices like a 
virus and, inevitably, mushroomed over the team on the court. 
Publicly, Carr talked about his team staying together and being
championship-driven. Privately, he and his 
fellow vice president, Stuart Layne, didn't work as a tandem. They didn't
like each other. During a meeting 
with flagship radio station WEEI last summer, Layne told station officials
that he wanted to give them 
stories before other media received them. Carr exploded when he heard about
that. Layne wanted the 
team's corporate sponsors to have more interaction with players on the team
plane; Carr was against it. 
``Every organization has its problems,'' said Layne, ``but we're much clearer
now, as an organization, on 
what we're trying to do.''
Then there was the public side of Carr, the one that said he wasn't sure if
he would return to coaching. But 
he did know. As Bird began talking about his eagerness to get involved with
coaching and basketball 
operations, Carr penned notes to himself. Portions of his letters were
revealed to the Globe. In one, he 
wrote that the Celtics needed to ``neutralize'' Bird because the legend was
affecting the organizational plan. 
That plan, according to the handwritten letter, was to hire University of
Kansas coach Roy Williams. ``Roy 
Williams was our choice then [1995],'' Carr wrote, ``and we should stick with
it.''
Last week Carr said the letter was written at a time when the Celtics didn't
think they had a chance at 
Pitino, whom they hired in May. Carr was disturbed when he learned that
letters had been taken from him. 
``There are some confidentiality issues, obviously,'' he said. ``Those belong
to me. They have my private 
writings, my thought patterns.''
He was asked if he was surprised that someone on his team, the court and
organizational team that had 
problems being a team, had taken something that didn't belong to them. 
``There was a Judas in Biblical times,'' he said. ``Why not now?''
Carr says he will move on, in corporate development, a wing of the Celtics he
will have to nurture. In a 
sense, it is similar to a new business in that it never has been done. He is
here, receiving little credit for 
what amounts to the Celtics' current core: Walker, Eric Williams, Ron Mercer,
Chauncey Billups, and Dana 
Barros. He drafted Walker and Williams; made a trade that allowed the Celtics
to select Mercer; brought the 
team home at 15-67, allowing it to take Billups; and signed Barros as a free
agent. At least, Carr is told, he 
survived the Celtics purge. Some who didn't make it say he looked out only
for himself. 
``I'm still here, but I'm not on the basketball side anymore,'' he says.
``And as for protecting myself, that's 
misinformation. I tried to help as many people as I could.''
Toward the end, he couldn't alter the position of anyone, including himself.
He lost clout. He lost out on 
an opportunity to go into ownership, with financial support from New Balance.
The most difficult part of 
his jobs had become much more complex than, as one of his personal letters
read, ``absorbing [fan and 
media] hits'' for chairman of the board Paul Gaston. In the end, many have
concluded, Gavitt had more to 
do with firings than Carr. The only people who were not swept out of
basketball operations are people 
Gavitt brought in (administrative assistant Carol Shackelford) or those he
often singled out for exceptional 
work (trainer Ed Lacerte, massage therapist Vladimir Shulman). Supposedly,
Gavitt did not like Volk or 
former director of publications and information David Zuccaro. So they were
fired. Or so the story goes. 
Gavitt, though, said last week that he did not suggest firings of specific
employees to Pitino. 
``I've heard that from my friends in Boston, but it's not true,'' he said.
``I did tell Rick that he should insist 
on bringing in his own people. Any coach [of Pitino's caliber] - Chuck Daly,
Pat Riley, Lenny Wilkens - 
would do the same thing. As for specific firings, no, I didn't do that.''
It wasn't the 15-67 finish that sapped some of Carr's power. It was his
insistence that he be the man to accept 
all blame. 
``Sometimes when you're driven, someone who jumps back up when they're pushed
down, you expect 
others to do the same,'' Carr said, responding to the remark. ``It's like
people saying a great player can't be a 
great coach. The reason they say that is because they expect players to do
the things that they did with ease; 
they expect it to be something everyone can do. But that's not necessarily
the case.''
The 1996-97 Celtics, the worst Celtics team in a half-century, proved that.
Those who remain only look 
ahead because there is no temptation to turn around. 
Th