Rumination

[peter delevett <pdelevett@amcity.com>]

Jim Meninno wrote: 
>The team finally looks like the well coached, well 
prepared team we have been expecting for two years now.  


You know, I think we (and the national and Boston media, to a much greater
degree) have been far too hard on the Celtics.

It's not like Pitino's entire tenure has been a disaster. The first year they
exceeded everyone's expectations, winning 36 games.  Would I have liked, and
did I expect, them to step it up a notch last season, maybe break into .500
territory and at least flirt with the playoffs? You bet. But maybe we all
underestimated the extent to which the lockout and lack of training and
preparation time would hurt our young athletes, especially Antoine. Factor in
that Mercer was chucking it up for extension-year glory, and that Kenny was
never 100% mentally or physically, and that Popeye Jones (who showed such
promise in the preseason) and Ellison never played, and it's no wonder we
underperformed. But even so, I remember someone pointing out last season that
except for the dreadful month of March, when we lost almost all the time, the
C's played .500 ball or better every other month in the shortened season.

What I'm saying is, if we really can look at last year as an aberration, then
it's not like we've been wasting our time for the past two years. Maybe this
season, in a way, is picking up from where we left off in 1997-98, with much
better personnel. (That's the other thing for which Pitino receives no credit;
he's been lambasted unendingly for turning over the roster, but who would you
rather have on the floor: a team featuring Dino Radja, Rick Fox, David Wesley
and Todd Day; one featuring Bruce Bowen, Andrew DeClercq, Travis Knight and
Tyus Edney; or the current edition, which has NBA-starter depth at at least 4
positions and features the likes of Tony Battie, Kenny Anderson, Paul Pierce,
Potapenko, Danny Fortson, Eric Williams, Cheaney and Griffin? I'd say the
man's done a pretty damn good job of assembling talent, considering what he's
had to work with.)

I don't mean to sound Pollyanna; I am first and foremost a pessimist when it
comes to the teams I follow, and I fully expect them to fail rather than rise.
But do you remember that great first season when Pitino's Celtics kept
exceeding our wildest hopes and winning games they would have lost in prior
years? Maybe, just maybe, we can get that feeling back. 

We now return you to Way of the Ray.