Fw: [Celtics' Stuff Josh - HOOPPSWORLD

["Lance Jacobson" <lancejacob@xxxxxxxxx>]

Whoops.  It's not just Bucher but ol' Celts fan Ozersky who noted that Pierce
was not embarrassed by being on a losing team, he was beaten by the guy he
supposed to cover.  But, that's a rant, isn't it?  Pierce is the BEST Celtic
since Acie Earl so we can't whisper a single criticism. . . .
----- Original Message -----
From: CeltsSteve@aol.com
To: Celticsstuffgroup@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2002 1:31 PM
Subject: [Celtics' Stuff Josh - HOOPPSWORLD


ics Report
Josh Ozersky

HOOPSWORLD.com
Sep 7, 2002, 12:31pm

Like the War on Terror, or the current season of Sex in the City, the Celtics'
off-season keeps getting worse and worse. Where will it all end? First the
U.S. team manages to get eliminated from medal contention, against two
countries we could conquer with the Kentucky National Guard. The second, and
more humiliating of these games ends with Paul Pierce gettting faced by a guy
without any vowels in his name.

THEN, the news comes that Travis Best, the cream of the free agent point guard
market and a guy everyone expected to get a mid-level exception, became
available at bargain basement prices. Naturally, the Celtics refused to offer
him anything less than the minimum wage. Yes, another division rival got
possibly the best backup point guard in the league, because we weren't willing
to offer a 1.4 million contract. Now, maybe Best would have signed with Miami
anyway; where would you rather live if you were a 25-year-old single
millionaire? But the celerity with which Best turned us down, and the
subsequent word from Chris Wallace that the Celtics may go with what they have
at the position, made me feel doubly sad. Because the week's twin misfortunes
were but two faces of the same evil.

Yes, I'm talking about sin. Sin, brothers! Both the Celtics, and Team USA,
undervalue team basketball. And both have cause to be embarassed.

As you watched Argentina, and then Yugoslavia, dissect us, did those teams
remind you of anybody? As they back cut, slipped defenders, threw long upcourt
passes, and picked for each other? As they executed a selfless and cerebral
brand of basketball that made the greatest athletes in the world look foolish?
They reminded me of the Boston Celtics of the past -- teams who year in and
year out, out-passed, out-smarted, and out-played athletically superior teams.
They were able to do it because of certain basic principles: that no one can
out-run the ball, for example. Or that a point guard is primarily a
distributor, not a shooter.

If only the current version of the Celtics played like the Argentines! We now
have three point guards on the roster who are all primarily shooters. We won't
be getting a fourth, who can actually set people up; that would have cost
something, and anyway, we don't need a real point guard. All we need is two
superstars who can go one on one on every play. That's the way it seems the
Celtics think, and I find it eerily like Team USA's thinking.

In a way, it's not fair to bring up the money. GM Chris Wallace is under the
same absolute constraints with Best as he was with Rodney Rogers. "$50,000 can
put you over the tax," Wallace told me. And we know from Steve Bulpett's press
release in last week's Herald that CFO Richard Pond is basically the team's
chief executive. But money has nothing to do with the invisible role of the
point guard in the Celtics' system. And I suspect that "system," if you can
call it that, will come back to bite us at some point, just like it did Team
USA, the 1996 UCLA bruins, and the 1987 Atlanta Hawks. Despite what Jim
O'Brien thinks, passing, and not three-point shooting, are what is most
desperately needed in the Celtics unimaginative, moribund, energy-sucking
offense.

Other tid-bits from my conversation with Wallace:

-- He's not ruling anything out, but given the presence of Delk, Bremer, and
Williams, he doesn't see "signing a point guard just for the sake of signing
him." What Wallace is after are "difference makers," but it remains to be seen
whether one will be available at rock-bottom price.

-- He is high on both Bremer, whom he called "mature and focused," and
Williams, whom he said could be better than Dana Barros as a three-point
shooter. "Right now, he's comparable, and he could be better," he said, adding
that Williams was also a "serious minded" young player.

The overall dyanmic of the team, Wallace feels, might be better served by
getting another big man. Most teams carry 5 centers and power forwards, and
the Celtics only have 4 --and that's counting the gumbilike Bruno Sundov. I
asked Wallace if the Celtics might have some interested in getting a "cop" or
enforcer to supply some much-needed intimidation.

"I think this 'cop' thing is overrated," Wallace said. "it's not enough for a
guy just to be a goon, if he doesn't have a feel for the game. You've still
got to put the ball in the basket; he has to have some other skills to bring
to the table, some scoring or rebounding." Of course, he also has to be
available for the minimum wage.

Sad times! But the wages of sin are rarely happiness, in basketball as in
life.

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CeltsSteve

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