Re: ESPN Insider: Dismantling the Celtics

[Dan Forant Sr <dforant1@nycap.rr.com>]

One reason I don't subscribe to ESPN Insider. The Celts this season will
make many eat crow.
At 06:03 PM 8/11/99 -0700, you wrote:
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>Recycled, hodgepodge, hogwash article!
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>A
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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. 
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>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. 
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>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. 
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>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. 
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>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. 
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>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. 
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>Remember Chauncey Billups as the third pick in 1997?
>Mercer as No. 6?
>Remember the signings of Travis Knight and Chris
>Mills? 
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>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. 
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>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. 
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>*snip*
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