Great article

["Greg Odegaard" <grodeg@kalama.com>]

For my first posting in some time I add this nice piece to the mix.

Having seen the new Star Wars (Yoda rules) and Elvis Costello (just last night
here in PDX, email me Joe for that), today's game makes for a great weekend. A
win would be a plus too.

Thanks and enjoy,
Greg


Celtics find success thanks to an unlikely trio up top

     May 17, 2002
      By Dan Wetzel
      SportsLine.com Senior Writer
      Tell Dan your opinion!




      The last time the head coach was a head coach (at the college level),
his team won 10 games, total, over his final two seasons.

      The general manager started his career in basketball by publishing a
hoops yearbook out of West Virginia. The director of player personnel is best
known as a local AAU coach.

      The Boston Celtics might be the NBA's most storied and successful
franchise, with 16 championship banners and so many retired numbers it looks
like a Keno game could break out from the tributes that are proudly hung from
the FleetCenter rafters. But when it comes to its current braintrust, you
can't get any more unorthodox than coach Jim O'Brien, GM Chris Wallace and
personnel man Leo Papile.


            Eric Williams says coach Jim O'Brien gives the Celtics 'great
confidence.'(AP)

      They are also a group that has put together one of the final four teams
playing -- a white-hot entry in the Eastern Conference finals that begin
Sunday against the New Jersey Nets. Not to mention the restored pride and
promise to a once-elite franchise that had slinked through the most
dispiriting stretch of its history.

      "The thing is they all know basketball," said Celtics forward Tony
Battie. "Just look at the record. What more do you want?"

      They want nothing else in Boston, which despite having the most
impressive pool of former NBA greats to draw from for expertise, are
completely bucking the league trend of putting ex-players in leadership
positions ranging from coach to general manager.

      Instead, it has a coach who not only is one of just five coaches in NBA
who isn't an ex-player, but failed as a college head coach -- just one winning
season in five years (1989-1994) at the University of Dayton. It has a general
manager who made his name publishing the Blue Ribbon College Basketball
Yearbook and a personnel director that still proudly holds the most scorned
and least respected title in basketball, AAU coach.

      And don't think these guys just have titles, part of a bloated front
office. They are the front office. Sure, Red Auerbach is still vice chairman
of the board and team president, but he turns 85 this year and has been
semi-retired and living in Washington, D.C. for years.

      The Celtics front office is easy to sort out. It's Wallace, Papile,
O'Brien and four assistant coaches. That's about it. There aren't any old
Celtics stars around unless you count radio color commentator Cedric Maxwell
or "marketing consultant" Bob Cousy.

      Meanwhile, Kevin McHale runs Minnesota, Don Nelson coaches Dallas, Dave
Cowens is in Golden State, Larry Bird was at Indiana and even a secondary
former Celtic, Rick Carlisle, works the sidelines of Detroit.

      But Boston just drilled those Pistons in their series 4-1, and everyone
in green is still seeing red that O'Brien not only didn't win coach of the
year honors (Carlisle did), but he got just two votes.

      You can hardly blame the voters, they probably couldn't remember who the
low-key Celtics coach was -- although, they know now.

      O'Brien has to be the most unlikely head coach in the NBA. He is
basically a career assistant, working over 500 NBA and NCAA games at the side
of his mentor, Rick Pitino. But unlike many Pitino protigis, O'Brien took on
few of Pitino's personality traits. In fact, he is almost the anti-Pitino --
he's soft spoken, rarely animated on the sideline, never seeks the spotlight
and doesn't dress in flashy suits.

      Professionally he's the ying to Pitino's yang. Where Pitino is a
brilliant college head coach -- four Final Fours and a national title -- he is
less than overwhelming, especially during the stint in Boston, at the NBA
level. O'Brien, on the other hand, is a guy who couldn't win in college -- he
once posted a 4-26 season -- but has the golden touch in the pros.

      "He was my college coach too, and I've always believed in him," said
Antoine Walker, who played for Pitino and O'Brien at Kentucky. "He's just a
great coach. I've known for a long time."

      What O'Brien has done with the Celtics is amazing. He was named interim
coach in January 2001, when Pitino finally resigned after 3= seasons of
frustration. Boston's record was 12-22 at the time and O'Brien was expected to
just finish out the season before the Celtics went in a new direction with the
crumbling team.

      At the time, no one was all that confident that Wallace or Papile, two
other Pitino hires, were going to last long either.

      But the Celts played better than .500 the rest of the season and owner
Paul Gaston turned the franchise over to these guys.

      Forty-nine regular season and seven playoff victories later, the
franchise is back -- the promises of Pitino finally fulfilled. It was a team
effort and at least one reason why Celtic fans, who still despise Pitino,
should be thankful for his ability to hire well.

      O'Brien has the full respect of his players, who believe in his work
ethic, his game strategy and his honesty off the court. Assistant Dick Harter,
who has worked under Pat Riley, Larry Bird, Chuck Daly and Dr. Jack Ramsey
during a 40-year career, calls him the best X-and-O guy he has ever met.

      O'Brien, a film and preparation junkie, got the entire roster to buy
into defense first. He has connected perfectly with the team's two superstars,
Paul Pierce and Walker. He's built confidence in the role players by believing
in them sometimes more than they do.

      "He gives us great confidence," said Eric Williams. "He'd tell me all
the time, 'you are a great 3-point shooter.' He said it a million times before
it sunk into my head. But once my confidence got there, I believed I could
shoot the 3 as well as anybody in the league."

      The 6-foot-8 Williams is shooting .556 from behind the arc for the
playoffs.

      Said O'Brien, "I believe in positive reinforcement."

      That style turned out to be just what ailed the Celts following the
tumultuous Pitino years. While Pitino was a coaching star, the face of the
franchise and frequent commercial pitchman, author and public speaker, O'Brien
does none of those things. He'd kind of prefer if no one ever recognized him.
His ego is small.

      "He takes all the criticism and puts it on his shoulders," said
Williams. "Even when it's our fault, he takes the blame. If a guy is going to
sacrifice himself like that for you, naturally you are going to sacrifice
yourself for him."

      Walker was won over for good one day last season when he had to return
to Chicago to attend his grandmother's funeral. O'Brien said he'd be there,
but with the constraints of the season, Walker didn't expect it to happen. But
then the coach walked into the South Side church to pay his respects.

      "For him to come to my grandmother's funeral with all that was going on
showed it was about more than basketball," said Walker. "He showed a lot to me
personally. I've got his back. I'd do anything for him."

      Which is why none of his current players care one bit that he isn't a
former player or even know his college record.

      "Whether you have former players or guys like me who never played, you
need people that coach," said O'Brien, in his simple but undeniably true way.
"I didn't play but I spent my entire life doing basketball. It really doesn't
matter. It goes in circles."

      Meanwhile, Wallace and Papile have also spent their entire lives in
basketball -- just not playing it in the NBA or learning at the knee of some
all-time great. These guys took the road never traveled to the top.

      Which didn't stop them from pulling off one of the best trades of the
year when in late February they plucked Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk from
Phoenix in exchange for Joe Johnson, Milt Palacio, Randy Brown and a
first-round pick. The move gave Walker and Pierce the supporting cast they
needed and changed the direction of the season -- the Celtics are 24-12 since
Rogers and Delk joined the roster.

      Both men have a keen eye for talent -- they loved Pierce when nine other
teams passed on him -- and are proof positive that the most button-down
establishment in the league can hit on all cylinders under the guidance of
basketball minds that came from less than regal training.

      Wallace proved he knew the game starting in 1981 when he founded Blue
Ribbon, the ultimate preseason college yearbook, and found that not only
devoted fans, but every NBA scout in the country was reading his scouting
reports on players. Eventually NBA teams started hiring him as a scout and he
wound up as director of player personnel for Miami before Pitino brought him
along to Boston.

      As for Papile, he's been a colorful figure on the fringes of the game
for years. He's worked a few since-folded minor leagues, established a
high-powered AAU team (Boston Area Basketball Club) and served stints as a
college assistant at Boston University, Suffolk and Cleveland State.

      Now he has huge input in everything from draft selections, trades and
even doubles as the team's resident "capologist," which is a talent few would
have predicted for the straight-talking, body-building summer coach.

      But then isn't this all unexpected -- the Celtics' rebirth, the playoff
run, the fact that Boston is four victories away from another matchup with,
perhaps, the Lakers? Why should the unlikely backgrounds of the brain trust be
any different?

      "Everyone believes in those guys," said Walker. "Everyone here knows
they know what they are doing."

      Just look at the record, not the resumes. What more do you want?