Re: TSN: Fan's View: C's Will Regret Trading Mercer

[j.hironaka@unesco.org]

> >Now, the Celtics will again be
> >lacking heart as well as skill(....)

>
> Can you believe this crap?  I guess Chad is one of the many who voted in the
> Globe that the Celtics got screwed on the Mercer deal.  I wonder if he'd
> like to come on this list and debate some of the points above.
>
> Jim

"El Jimbo Loco"

I have no way of knowing, but my guess is that he's a 18-year-old? who gets his
Celts news by reading Peter May and listening to WEEI. If this is the case, you
should cut him some slack.

I actually think a lot of the genuine disappointment and (misdirected)
resentment stems from the fact that the 1997 draft class was so thin. Not that
it's a crime, but Pitino made things harder on himself by putting as positive a
spin on the draft as he could ("backcourt of the future" etc). Well what was he
supposed to say : "Chauncey is a BIG drop off from Van Horn...Hoo-yeah, you know
it baby!" ?

If Chauncey and Antonio Daniels were available in this year's draft class, they
arguably would have gotten picked behind five other point guards with NBA size,
speed and stats (Francis, Baron, Andre, Jason Terry, Will Avery). In the case of
Chauncey, he sports a career field goal percentage of .379 and has all but
flunked as a point guard on three different teams. For the moment, he's just
another undersized shooting guard with bench-warming credentials as a shooter.

In retrospect, Pitino came away with two of the five best available players in
that draft based on talent and NBA productivity thus far (Fortson and Battie).
That may be really depressing, but it's probably true. If Pitino had drafted
those two guys in the first place, I assume he wouldn't be getting as ridiculed
as he is now. As everyone knows, we also got a starting point guard out of the
deal (Kenny).

Anyway, I'd say give Chad a break. What irritates me slightly more is that we'll
really never have an opportunity to make well-known journalists slightly
accountable for their views, since they will all have professionally covered up
their tracks and jumped back on the Celts "glory days" bandwagon in at least as
loud and demonstrative a way as they have been presently bashing Pitino's latest
and most egregious "act of desperation". For journalists who get paid to cover
sports year after year after year, I assume all these rabble rousing flip flops
occur regularly enough that they no longer feel even the slightest bit ashamed
about it.

At least Chad likely will feel a bit sheepish if his best analytical effort and
most public "publishing" success turns out to be embarrassingly off the mark. A
lot of that stuff he wrote is genuinely funny, but I see is as a given that a
lot of my own exaggerations and hyperbole ("one if by land..." etc.) basically
sound kind of retarded as well.

Go Celts!


Joe
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