May on the Gaston Wonder Years

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gaston's reign: Absence of success

By Peter May, Globe Staff, 9/28/2002

In the end, it got to be less and less fun for Celtics owner Paul
Gaston. A onetime regular at home games, he became a virtual FleetCenter
recluse, to the point where he didn't even show for the last two team
pictures.

 He stopped speaking to the press, even though his favorite words before
his self-imposed embargo were either ''no comment'' or ''off the
record.'' And even yesterday, when the Celtics were sold, he was asked
if he could elaborate on his clearly ambivalent feelings of severing
ties with the team after 19 years of it being a family-run business.

''No,'' he said. ''Not really.''

He said his mood yesterday ''mirrored the weather.'' He has been the
chairman of the board since 1992, although his father, Don, bought the
team in 1983.

Until last season's remarkable run, the Gaston fils legacy was one of
frustration and failure. There were six straight years without a playoff
game and eight straight years with a losing record.

Some of the misfortune was due to bad luck (the death of Reggie Lewis in
1993) and some was due to bad timing (the retirements of Larry Bird in
1992 and Kevin McHale in 1993). But some of it was self-inflicted.

During Gaston's run, he ditched Dave Gavitt, a move that still makes
Bird seethe. Partly because of that, Gaston could never get Bird to
commit to working for him in Boston. It was Gaston who brought in M.L.
Carr to run things in 1994, then gave Carr the green light to coach in
1995 and run the team into the ground the following season in a thinly
veiled attempt to land Tim Duncan in the 1997 draft. That, too,
backfired.

It was Gaston who opened the vault for Rick Pitino, paying him a
princely $50 million to turn things around and giving him total control,
leaving a puzzled-to-this-day Larry Brown, who was inducted into the
Hall of Fame last night, waiting by the phone.

And it was Gaston who, after saving some $20-something million when
Pitino left and raising ticket prices, humiliated his basketball
management team this summer by giving them no money to re-sign Rodney
Rogers at the same time they were making public declarations as to
Rogers's value and the need to retain him. Gaston took a stand for
fiscal responsibility regarding the dreaded luxury tax, and his
basketball team was forced to retool. The new owners will get a whopper
of a payroll. We don't know if they'll get a better team.

Last year, Gaston came close to selling the team to Boston-area
businessman Steve Belkin, but the deal never closed. Celtics chief
financial officer Richard Pond always said that his boss would listen to
any offer, but would only sell if there was one that was too good to
turn down.

That's what this deal was.

''He could have done like the Red Sox did and spread it out over two
years and possibly made even more money,'' said Pond, who became
Gaston's voice in the end. Pond's future with the new management team is
unknown.

Gaston remained true to his word. He listened to all offers and accepted
one that, basically, he could not refuse. He always said he had a duty
to the stockholders - most of the stock is owned by him and his family -
and he came through yesterday. He will walk away with a ton of cash.

''Ultimately,'' Pond said, ''this is a good deal for everybody. It's
good for the Gaston family. It's good for the team. It's a little bit of
a rejuvenator; it's more like a toy to [the new owners] compared to what
it was for Paul.''

That's for sure.

This story ran on page F8 of the Boston Globe on 9/28/2002.