ESPN Insider: Dismantling the Celtics

[Champ 17 <celticky33@yahoo.com>]

Recycled, hodgepodge, hogwash article!



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Funny how the Boston Celtics are quickly taking on the
aura of a bygone era,
how much they are beginning to resemble that green
team that played its games in
the old Boston Garden. 

Not funny maybe, if you're a dyed-in-the-wool Celtics
fan, because the uncanny
resemblance is not to those great K.C. Jones teams or
those indomitable Red
Auerbach teams that made the Garden an arena to be
feared. 

No, these Celtics are taking us back to the days of
M.L. Carr, when they were laughed at by opponents
and spat upon by angry fans as they made the
transition
from the Garden to the Fleet Center, where the roster
has required an annual enema. 

Instead of building a winner, Rick Pitino appears to
be
inviting calamity. His first team won 44 percent of
its
games, the second 38 percent. His roster has been in
turmoil, the result of poor drafting, bad trades and
horrible free-agent signings. 

Under the leadership of top executive Paul Gaston, the
Celtics have been more interested in achieving fiscal
responsibility than on-court success. The only
reasonable excuse for dumping Ron Mercer in Denver
for Danny Fortson and two guys named Eric (Washington
and Williams) is rumor
of an impending sale. Fortson is only 6-foot-6, and
Pitino hated Williams' game
before the forward had reconstructive knee surgery. 

The Celtics, according to Pacers president Donnie
Walsh, have been shopping
Antoine Walker as well. Walker reacted with horror
when Pitino followed him
from Kentucky to Boston. He told other players he left
school after his
sophomore year to get away from the slick martinet. 

But the Celtics appear to have had no real plan since
going 15-67 and dumping
Carr for Pitino, who buys and discards like a window
shopper. 

Remember Chauncey Billups as the third pick in 1997?
Mercer as No. 6?
Remember the signings of Travis Knight and Chris
Mills? 

Kenny Anderson may have wondered why the Celtics took
him from Portland,
and the answer may have been that Paul Allen was
willing to pay Anderson's
salary for a year and a half. But now it's the Celtics
who will pay, and they have
tried unsuccessfully to move the point guard who is
ill-suited to Pitino's style. 

For that matter, hulking forward/center Vitaly
Potapenko is no greyhound, but the
Celtics beat the trade deadline last winter to get him
for their '99 first-round pick
-- No. 8, Andre Miller, who would have been the ideal
playmaker for Pitino. 



*snip*



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