Re: May On Missing Leadership

[jmc@ptc.com]

My take on Peter May's article:

> Basically, the Celtics were fishing in the same pond as most everyone
> else and the pickings were slim. Have you noticed who has been signed
> out of the $2.25 million slot: Brown, Tony Delk, Chauncey Billups, Derek
> Anderson (for only one year), John Starks, Sam Perkins, Bobby Jackson.
> Any of those names excite you?

Whether or not the names excite us is not the issue here.  When the 
Celtics got Dominique Wilkens, that was an exciting name, but he didn't 
help the Celtics win anything.  The issue is how much they help the 
team to excite us with wins when the regular season comes.  The WHOLE 
problem with this young Celtics team is their attitude.  They don't know 
what a winning attitude is.  They don't know how to prepare their attitude 
for each game.  Randy Brown is exciting from the perspective that he knows 
defense and he knows a winning attitude and he likely has credibility with 
the other players.  Don't underestimate the effect one player like that 
can have on a team's attitude.  Antoine has been bad for the team's attitude. 
Randy Brown won a championship in Antoine's home town when Antione was still
in college, so he might be one of the few people around who Antione will 
listen to.  

> The Celtics were left to pick from the scraps because they decided to
> give out long-term deals to Walter McCarty, Tony Battie, Walker, and
> Vitaly Potapenko as well as take on long-termers in Eric Williams and
> Anderson. Those decisions hemmed them in and will continue to hem them
> in for the next couple of years.

Peter talks as if these players are about to retire, and have no hope 
of ever improving.  None of these players has reached their peak yet. 
 
> The same person made all those decisions, as well as yesterday's to
> bring in Brown. He was the one who wasn't there.

He seems to be implying that it's a foregone conclusion that all those
decisions were disasters and and he knows it and that's why he wasn't
around.  How does Peter May know how all this will turn out?  Does he 
have a crystal ball?  No.  Why do so many people in this town feel they 
need to take every opportunity to look at everything in the most 
pessimistic light?  Do you wonder why a lot of players on major sports 
teams here leave town for less money in another city?  Maybe a little 
less cynicism is all we need to have some championship teams around here. 
LIGHTEN UP! 

Jon Mc