Re: Quoting [meta]

[opi@unesco.org]

> ObCelt: I've gotta agree with Cecil here, as far as the "discussion" goes
> -- you never here from these people when the C's win, do you?  When they
> win, it makes my day in more than one way.  It might be all about
> consistency and youth (yeah, you don't want to hear it -- I don't want to
> hear lot's of things, either ... bummer) with the current team.

I don't enjoy the "youth" excuses much either. With the exception of Ford and
Tiny, the 1981 champions had a nucleus of guys 26 or younger in Max, Parish,
McHale, Bird, Robey, Henderson. The Celts "stars" this year are a bit younger
overall than that team, but they are running out of excuses.

Still when you watch the local FoxSports pieces with Vitaly happily flexing his
biceps and Pierce boasting about what a great tennis, billiards and shadow boxer
he is, you realize just how young these guys are. Pierce hass already reached
drinking age, yet he talks like he's even younger than that. Even when he's
talking tough, his eyes flutter around like he's all bashful about it and hoping
his daddy doesn't catch him on TV boasting and give him some whup-ass and extra
chores.

The Celtics are a 2-13 team wearing their green uniforms against a mostly
non-playoff-contending schedule thus far. One of the brightest spots of this
weekend is that Rick Pitino has coached Boston right back up into second-to-last
place in FG% allowed (tied for 27th place overall) at .469%. They were at .471%
coming in. To me .469 definitely sounds a lot more palatable - just like $1.99
sounds better than $2.00.

You can argue that this is ALL a problem with our personnel (no shot blocking),
but I guarantee you top-echelon teams like the championship Bulls, Utah, Indiana
or last year's Knicks would have been happy to compete for championships with a
Potapenko, as young as he still is, over whatever frontline centers they had at
the time.

If you really want a mobile shotblocker, then go give Battie the starter minutes
instead or go get Adonal Foyle and his career 3.8ppg and .435FT%. The Celts
would still give up .469% on cheap layups with our headless-chicken defense.

I don't want to get better athletes for the Pitino system (more players like
Waltah)...I want to keep the same athletes and get a veteran NBA coach. Bird
could easily coach this year's Celtics personnel to a better record than
Indiana. I wouldn't trade any of our top 8 players for any equivalent player on
the Pacers.  Griffin for Jalen Rose is as close as I'd get to pulling the
trigger on a one-for-one swap, even though Jalen doesn't compare to our guy as a
rebounder, steals or shot-selection guy.

I'm extra cranky because of the NASDAQ last week. I lost just over 35 thousand
dollars in paper value off my personal portfolio, so that should tell you how
clever I am at picking winners. :-) I should have stuck to being a grad school
socialist hippie.

Joe

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