"Southie" on the Celtics

[Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

    I don't know if you all read Mike Fine regularly, and I thank Josh
Ozersky for recently posting one of his relatively obscure Patriot
Ledger (a newspaper located in the "haht of Southie") articles.

    Anyway, this guy Mike Fine probably ranks ahead of everyone locally
-- Bulpett, BSG etc.-- in terms of digging up quotes and demonstrating a
balance of critical insight and true diehard fandom. And he doesn't let
his own voice intrude too much on the narrative, which is something
everyone else does out of habit.

    Here are some news clips, first about the guy who won a starting job
in training camp (which to me kind of confirms exactly what Paul M. has
been saying about Boston's lack of depth or quality talent, although I
refuse to give it full credence). Anyway, if you look at Mike Fine's
articles you can tell after two lines that the Globe's Springer or May
could never have come up with that angle or that scoop.

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    WALTHAM – Don’t tell coach Rick Pitino this, because if he knew,
he’d probably have a heart attack, given how he feels about offseason
conditioning.

    Boston Celtics forward Eric Williams didn’t pick up a basketball
over the summer. Nor did he run 10 feet, let alone step in a gym. “To
tell the truth, I didn’t do anything. I just ate right, that’s it,” said
the five-year veteran. “I had a lot of off-the-court things going on.”

    Before you get the idea that Williams was hanging around street
corners at 4 in the morning, think again. “I’ve got a mortgage company.
I’ve got a record label and things like that,” he said. “So I put a lot
of emphasis on that. No basketball, no running or nothing.”

    Williams got together family and a small group of solid
acquaintances and began a company that rehabilitates run-down buildings.
The work involves identifying dilapidated and abandoned properties and
making them habitable again. Williams said such properties make the
neighborhood look “sour. I’m building them back up and making them look
nice and trying to establish a nice-looking community in the
neighborhood where I grew up.”

    Williams has always been something of a neighborhood hero. “One
thing about me, I always went home and was able to walk around the
streets with no problem. They know me for coming back and with the
little things I used to do before with no publicity – sponsoring summer
leagues, sending kids over to Minnesota to play out there, donating
jerseys back to the high schoolers – little small stuff that I don’t
want recognition for from the media. I just want a comfortable level at
home, where I can walk the streets.”

    With all this going for him in the offseason, Williams barely had
time to pick up a ball, but he said it’s nothing new. “I’ve pretty much
been doing this for six years, so I pretty much know what to do at what
time, and I pretty much stayed away from basketball,” he said. “I took a
break from it all as far as running and conditioning – just everything.
Not a newspaper – nothing. I didn’t even look at the Olympics. I pretty
much got my mind off of basketball so I could come into it fresh when it
was time. It’s working for me so far. I came in with my weight down, and
I just started playing ball. I worked on my jump shot, and I’m taking it
one day at a time.”

    The amazing thing is that Williams looks great and has been playing
well. Pitino said he has a chance to start when the season opens in two
weeks, and that he’d like to get the forward to expand his shooting
range.

    Pitino shipped Williams out of town in the first place when he was
hired to replace M.L. Carr, who’d drafted the former Providence College
star. Concerned that Williams was overweight and not in shape to play
his defensive style, Pitino sent him to Denver for two second-round
draft choices. A year later, he appeared in only 38 games for the
Nuggets before Pitino reacquired him along with Danny Fortson, Eric
Washington and a future No. 1 draft pick.

    Pitino was happy, and so was Williams, who’d managed to secure a
six-year, $26 million deal from the Nuggets. He’s scheduled to make
$3.89 million this year with a player option of $4.45 million next
season. If he takes that option, he’s due another $10.56 million for the
next two seasons."

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    And this on "Danny Boy", arguably a classic, old-school Celtic
player who became a victim of our headless-chicken, Poultrino
player-evaluation system that has netted us Ding Battie and Moiso, and
forced us as fans to become apologists for their games.

"Danny Fortson debuted with 18 points and 18 rebounds.  “He’s a
presence,” Cowens said. “He flat-out knows how to rebound. He’s going to
go get basketballs, and he can make shots, he can make free throws. He’s
got some skill to go along with that brute force.”

Said teammate Antawn Jamison: “You hear stories about how he’s a good
rebounder, but the man really finds a way to get to the boards. He’s
relentless. I thought I had a good knack for rebounds, but this guy, he
has a homing device on them. That’s unteachable.”

Still, Fortson is battling old demons: personal fouls. “I have to play a
little smarter,” said the forward, who has career averages of 15.5
points and 11.7 rebounds when playing at least 30 minutes. “Sometimes I
bring some of that on myself with silly fouls, touch fouls, but I’ve
still got to be aggressive. I’m a young player – I feel like a rookie
being out here and playing.”

“I love his attitude about not accepting losing, about not accepting
anything other than 100 percent,” Jamison said. “I didn’t know his
passion was that high. Once you get a guy like that on the court who’s
bulling and fighting and scrapping, it kind of circulates among
everybody else.”

It’s a shame the Celtics couldn’t have found a way to accommodate
Fortson, but, then, they’ve got Walter McCarty and Vitaly Potapenko
instead (Together, they account for $7.3 million in cap space this
season.).

The Celtics signed Fortson to a $38 million deal before trading him and
Dana Barros for Robert Pack, Hot Rod Williams and a first-round draft
pick. They did accomplish one goal: getting him out of the Eastern
Conference and away from the Knicks. "

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