Bird watching in Boston futile

[Boston Sports Fan <bostonsptsfan@yahoo.com>]

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Bird watching in Boston futile 
Ron Borges

Hall of Fame forward can't save Celtics as he once did


Feb. 16 - They are Bird watching in Boston these days
but what they think they see is not what is really in
front of them. Beaten down Celtic fans look at Larry
Bird and see resurrection. They see the man who won so
many games and more than a few championships somehow
coming back to Boston next season and saving a team
that has fallen on the very definition of hard times.
What they are seeing is a mirage. 
LARRY BIRD CANNOT save the Celtics this time, the way
he did as a young player coming out of Indiana State.
Back then his play transformed another horrific Celtic
team into an instant playoff contender because he
could do what few others could. He could carry a team
to victory alone, like Jordan and Magic could. You can
do that in shorts and a T-shirt if you are good enough
and brave enough. You cannot do it in a suit and tie. 
With the firm announcement recently that Bird will not
enter the front office of the Indiana Pacers after he
coaches his last game for them this spring, word
almost immediately began to circulate that he was not
really going to slip off to the golf courses of
Florida as he said but rather would come home to
Boston to save the Celtics once again, if only they
would ask. 
FOBs (Friends of Bird) every where in the city insist
Bird would return if Rick Pitino would just go away.
Bird has said nothing like that publicly but privately
he may indeed be hinting about it because Boston is
the scene of his greatest triumphs in basketball. It
is the city where he grew from being the hick from
French Lick into a smooth talking media superstar and
it is a city that would do anything to have him back.
But the fact is the Celtics as presently constituted
stink and Larry Bird could only change that if he
could put on a uniform once again, which he cannot.
They are not a good basketball team today and weren't
a good team the day Pitino first arrived in town three
years ago as the savior of the moment. 
Pitino was the coach of the national champion Kentucky
Wildcats then, a rebuilder of broken programs in
college basketball and briefly in the same capacity
with the New York Knicks. But few of the moves Pitino
has made to try and change the nature of the 15-win
team he inherited have worked out and so the team sits
in a morass of mediocrity, riddled with too little
talent and too much salary. It is a bad team going
nowhere, these Celtics are. Not even Larry Bird can
change that. 
When Pitino came to Boston he did so only after Celtic
management agreed not to have the retired Bird in its
front office. Bird knew this and left graciously but
he has not forgotten it and hence would probably like
nothing better than to come back at the cost of
Pitino's job. There would be sweet revenge in that but
the thirst for revenge can be a terrible thing in the
end for all involved. 
It would be a mistake for Bird to come home to roost
in Boston because although Pitino has done little with
his personnel moves to improve the team he inherited
and probably more than a few things to hurt it, the
day he lost Tim Duncan in the NBA lottery his fate and
that of the Celtics was sealed for a long time to
come. 
With Duncan, the Celtics would be winners today.
Perhaps not NBA champions but surely winners. They
would be a playoff team and a title contender and
Pitino would be deified because the other parts, like
mercurial Antoine Walker, would already be there and
Pitino would know how to coach them. 
But when those lottery balls stopped bouncing three
years ago, Tim Duncan unexpectedly ended up in San
Antonio and the Celtics ended up with nothing but
troubles, troubles Pitino has not been able to
overcome and frankly troubles Larry Bird won't be able
to overcome either. 
If Bird is truly thinking of following Pitino after he
arranges what people believe will be a buyout of the
remaining $30 million and four years on his contract
at the end of this season or next, he should
reconsider before it's too late because the Boston
Celtic problems run deep. 
Like their colors, they are mostly green. Mostly
imposed on them by a salary cap that is choking them,
blocking their way to improvement the way Karl Malone
can block the way to the basket when he wants to. 
Larry Bird was a great basketball player and a good
basketball coach but he's not an accountant. 
And that's the only thing that can save the Celtics
for the foreseeable future. 
A very smart accountant.

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