It only gets worse!

[damekmo@teleport.com]

Got the following off the Newgroup. Apparently it's from Peter May's
column. Makes you want to cry.

> ... Guess who led the NBA in personal fouls over the two-year period prior
>      to this season? None other than the Celtics' Danny Fortson. It was not
>      even close. In his first two seasons, Fortson was flagged for 526
>personal
>      fouls in 130 games. ''That's no surprise to me,'' Fortson said. Theo
>      Ratliff and Ervin Johnson were next with 472 apiece and Shawn Kemp
>weighed
>      in with 469. If you went by minutes, Fortson committed a foul every 6.1
>      minutes, compared with Ratliff at 1 per 8.6 minutes and Johnson at 1 per
>      6.9 minutes. That still isn't close to Jim McIlvaine (1/4.9 minutes) or
>      Travis Knight (1/5.6 minutes). It makes you understand why Denver didn't
>      mind parting with Fortson, but it does make you wonder what the Celtics
>      were thinking, especially with the new rules. Rick Pitino notes that
>      Fortson knocks people down in practice, gets called for it, and then
>      wonders what he did wrong. ''I don't think he'll be any worse than
>Vitaly
>      [ Potapenko] once he starts playing,'' the coach said. But when will
>that
>      be? Fortson is a power forward, an undersized one at that. Power forward
>      is where Antoine Walker plays. Fortson can play center, particularly in
>      the East against a lot of teams. But then you're cutting into other
>      players' minutes. ''What a year I'm having,'' Fortson cracked before a
>      recent game. ''Just my luck. A broken foot. The new rules. A contract
>      year. But I didn't really worry about the rules because I knew if I sat
>      there and thought about them, I was really going to be messed up. I
>think
>      when I get out there, I feel so pumped up that it's tough for me to stay
>      out of foul trouble. I'm trying. I know I put myself at a disadvantage
>      when I do that. I want to play aggressive, but at the same time, I don't
>      want to worry about not being too aggressive. Because as soon as I start
>      worrying about not playing aggressive, I might not be me out there.''

When is the trade deadline?


Paul M.