Re: Ron Mercer Chat.

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

Hi Mishra:

In a way, I found the Mercer transcript pretty bland. It's easy to
forget that these celebrity American jocks may actually lead fairly
boring lives and have fairly boring insights. The part that stood out,
though, is when Ron talked about how the NBA is all about business, a
curious reply in response to a question about whether Rick Pitino has
changed as a college versus a pro coach.

Ron said: "The pro level is more of a business.  In college, you have
good relationships.  In the pro level, you have good relationships as
well, but it's more of a business.  Whether it's friendships or
whatever, there comes a time when it's going to be a business decision,
and you have to go with it."

Maybe this isn't a "hint, hint" statement. Very plausibly, it could just
be that Ron was remembering what happened to Chauncey Billups, who had
convinced him last year to switch his uniform number to "5" so that they
could be #4 and #5 (the Celtics backcourt of the future). If I knew we
would be so weak this season, I would have been happy to keep that
once-promising experiment alive (even though both Toronto and Denver
have also given up on Chauncey as a future point guard).

While I think Kenny Anderson will also get shopped at season's end, I
don't think KA was the "one player" who complained to Michael Holley
about "Guiliani" Pitino's dictatorial style and the room checks in
Washington D.C. It just didn't add up. I can also imagine Rick Pitino
may feel that Ron's breakout, ball-hog, contract season has damaged the
Boston Celtics' winning chances far worse than Antoine's analogous year
last season, and that Ron just isn't showing any tangible plus side on
defense, passing or rebounding to make up for it.

I will personally root for Ron Mercer to have a great conclusion to the
season in hopes that such an elegant basketball player won't get traded
for a mediocre power forward. But I guess, like Starke & Alex & Paul M.
to a degree, that the writing is spray-painted on the wall.  If only the
rest of the guys were performing far better all-around (particularly
Antoine and Kenny), we could more easily afford to keep a Ron
Mercer-type scorer even at 50-70 million. I hope Mercer finally flashes
reasonable all-around skills in the second half, but I'm not convinced
that will happen even if we all badly want it to (and are bewildered why
it isn't happening!).

Maybe it could all start tonight against Penny Hardaway.

Joe

P.S. I noticed when I visited the Celts page that there will be a chat
on Tuesday with Chris Wallace, which should be interesting to those of
us who wonder what the heck he does on the team (except recruit Bruce
Bowen).

****
skmishra wrote:

> There is a pretty good Ron Mercer chat transcript at:
> http://www.nba.com/interactive/chat/mercer_transcript.html
>                                              - Mishra