RE: Jumaine Jones

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks, Egg. I went back and found it in the archives. Did everyone just
miss this?! Isn't this a pretty darn inflammatory post? And yet no replies?
Did I miss them?

I guess we all suspected as much, but for Ainge to come out and state it so
matter of factly is surprising. Forget any optimism with Banks... if Obie
and Antoine are both back, it will be more of the same. Long stretches of
the Delk-Pierce-EWill-Antoine-Battie group, with Antoine playing "point
forward" and the take-turns offense. The easy thing would have been to fire
Obie. That's what Ainge should have done. Take the heat for firing him after
two playoff trips, but do it for the future of the franchise. But he didn't
do that.

So, the next option is dealing Antoine. Obie and Antoine are joined at the
hip. If Antoine is there, Obie will let him do what he wants. That's the
deal he made with Antoine. And, looking at the roster, he really doesn't
have much choice. What's he going to do, bench Antoine in favor of Hunter?
Of course not. So Antoine gets free reign to play his game (ugh). And as
long as Antoine is playing Antoine's game, Banks will look a lot like Kenny
Anderson and Milt Palacio and Tony Delk and Shammond Williams and JR
Bremer-a short guy standing at the 3-point line, waiting for Walker or
Pierce to kick it out to him.

Obie and Antoine both will be gone before the 2004 season. The battle over
style of play and, as someone already pointed out, the looming battle over
the allocation of playing time between "Obie's guys" and "Danny's guys" will
be the reason. Antoine may not even make it past the trading deadline,
although I think a draft-night trade next summer is more likely. And Obie is
too stubborn to step off the train tracks. What's discouraging is we're
going to waste a season sorting those things out.

Mark

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Eggcentric@xxxxxxx [mailto:Eggcentric@xxxxxxx] 
Sent:	Tuesday, July 29, 2003 4:00 PM
To:	Berry, Mark  S; Celtics@xxxxxxxx
Subject:	Re: Jumaine Jones

< Egg, I've been away and only caught your reference, in passing, to a 
comment Ainge made to JB along the lines of "now I need to convince 
Antoine and Obie..." Is that accurate? Did Ainge really say that? 
Because if that's true, then we're doomed to the same mediocrity and 
unwatchable basketball this season. Please fill me in. > - Mark Berry

Welcome back, Mark.  Here's JB's post of July 26th -   
 
< From my brief meeting with Danny Ainge, I found him refreshingly 
candid and enthusiastic. None was more surprised than I, for him to be 
volunteering that O'Brien and Walker were still issues, blocking his 
efforts to instill a point guard driven offense. He seemed far too 
spontaneous to be a "mendacious SOB."
    
The other thing he told me; that the Celtics were certainly going to 
sign another point guard, has seemingly gone by the wayside, as the 
confused efforts at signing Best,  somehow led him to another, too 
small for the two, "combo guard," Mike James.
    
Unless he has another trick up his sleeve, to acquire that point 
guard, he's lost me. I have deep reservations about Banks' ability to 
handle the job alone. What if Banks starts sloppy, lots of fouls and 
turnovers and the losses pile up? Oh yeah: "we don't really need 
another point guard, because we have Antoine." I'll be waiting for that 
quote.
    
If Ainge has a plan, he must be getting it from the "Angel Moroni," 
because it seems to be changing every 24 hours. >  - JB Metz