From: Mark Piotrowski <markp@edu15.coe.ufl.edu>
To: Celtics@igtc.com
Subject: laugh or cry?
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 09:45:09 -0400
sad because its true....another find from Boston Sports Media Watch:
The Celtics have been a dynasty since choosing Duncan - right?
Wednesday, Jun 4, 2003
Sports Column by CHAD FINN
The NBA Finals begin tonight, but David Stern might as well hand the
important hardware to Tim Duncan now. Championship trophy, Finals MVP
trophy, whatever else the two-time NBA MVP desires.
There is no reason to play these games. The league's best player is
the centerpiece of the best team. Another championship for Duncan and
his high-flying buddies is a foregone conclusion.
It's almost unfair . . . unless you are a Boston Celtics fan. Then
you believe a cry for fairness is a losers' lament, one more sorry
case of Green Envy.
Because your team is blessed.
Your team has Tim Duncan. And so much more.
Ever since that wonderful May day in 1997 when the ping-pong balls
bounced their way, the Celtics have enjoyed an Auerbachian run of
dominance. They won the right to draft Duncan, and they haven't
stopped winning since.
With the Celtics favored to overwhelm the Los Angeles Lakers in the
NBA Finals for the fourth straight season, with banner No. 20 a mere
formality, the time seems appropriate to reflect on the rise of the
latest Celtics' dynasty.
It began, of course, with Duncan. He is the fulcrum of it all, the
foundation, the slam-dunking, shot-swatting embodiment of Celtic
Pride.
"Without Tim, who knows how all of this would have turned out," said
coach/chief architect Rick Pitino, who waited until after the lottery
to accept the Celtics' job, just in case they didn't land the top
pick. "It seems foolish to say, but without Tim, maybe I would have
been a failure here."
Pitino, the only man ever to win Coach of the Year and Executive of
the Year four seasons in a row, laughs at the sheer silliness of such
a notion. "Yeah, I'd have gone scurrying back to college with my tail
between my legs. Ha. Imagine that."
Duncan was the surest thing to come into the league since Shaq, so
Pitino figured he could gamble with the sixth overall pick, which had
been pilfered from Dallas. Pitino considered taking Kentucky's Ron
Mercer, but the remarkably self-aware coach soon realized he was
overrating a player simply because he coached him in college.
"The last thing I want to do is flood the roster with my old Kentucky
guys," Pitino said. "Ron is a fine player and a nice young man, but
he looked like Stojko Vrankovic compared to the kid."
So Pitino chose the kid, a skinny high-schooler from Florida.
Someday, Tracy McGrady's number will hang alongside Duncan's in the
FleetCenter rafters.
Duncan at one, McGrady at six. "Not a bad draft in retrospect,"
chuckles Pitino. But the dynasty was not built in a single day.
Pitino's first Celtic team featured Duncan and precocious second-year
forward Antoine Walker, along with Rick Fox and David Wesley, a pair
of veterans whom Pitino had the wisdom to re-sign soon after
accepting the job. The talent was there. But success took its sweet
time.
While Duncan was a unanimous rookie of the year selection, the
teenaged McGrady was too raw to contribute, and the 1997-98 Celtics
labored until the waning days of the season. That's when Pitino made
a crucial decision. He abandoned his beloved full-court press.
"It was something of an epiphany," Pitino said. "I realized that you
have to coach to your players' abilities rather than forcing them to
play a certain system that may not best suit their skills. I learned
that you can't fit square pegs into round holes."
Coincidentally, Pitino's next best-selling motivational book was
titled Don't Try To Fit Square Pegs Into Round Holes. Oprah loved it.
Call it the luck of the Irish, but those early struggles? They were
blessings in disguise. The Celtics' 36-46 record gave them the 10th
choice the following year, where Pitino again turned a lottery pick
into a jackpot.
Cue the commish: "With the 10th pick in the 1998 draft, the Boston
Celtics select, from the University of Kansas . . . Paul Pierce."
Decent pick, Rick? "When Paul started to slide on draft night," said
Pitino, "we were stunned. We just had to get him. I mean, even the
worst talent evaluator in basketball history - I'm talking about a
real nitwit here, like someone who, oh, I don't know, might give a
stiff like Travis Knight $22 million - couldn't screw that pick up."
Pierce was a draft-day steal, but he wasn't Pitino's last. Three
years later, on the suggestion of omnipotent personnel guru Chris
Wallace, the Celtics spent a late first-round pick on an unheralded
19-year-old French point guard. Tony Parker was deftly quarterbacking
the Celtics' offense within a year. "Tony's the best thing to come
out of France since a personal hero of mine," said Pitino. "Napoleon."
Pitino's personnel genius is not limited to drafting players. He's a
savant at discovering them, too. In 1997, Bruce Bowen had played a
total of one NBA minute. Pitino must have recognized something
special in that 60 seconds, because he signed Bowen and molded him
into one of the game's premier defensive stoppers.
Then there was the day a ripped but raw power forward from Div. II
Virginia Union showed up at the 1999 training camp. The coach watched
the man-child snatch every rebound in sight, and realized he'd be a
fool not to offer this havoc-wreaking beast a contract. "This kid is
the next Paul Silas," said Pitino, showing his usual respect for
Celtics history. That's how Ben Wallace came to wear the green and
white.
And that's how a dynasty came to be built. The starting five that
will take the court tonight is a Dream Team unto itself: Duncan,
Wallace, Pierce, McGrady and Parker. Walker, the selfless captain,
proudly carries on the Celtics' storied sixth-man tradition, while
Fox, Bowen and Wesley provide depth that is the envy of the league.
How superior are these Celtics? It has come to this: They have become
sympathetic to their former rival, the always-a-bridesmaid Lakers.
"You have to feel bad for Shaq and Kobe, not having a single
championship between them," said Pitino, his words sincere as always.
"Even with two great players, it's tough to win anything if you don't
have a capable supporting cast. I can't imagine us winning with, say,
just Antoine and Paul, no matter how hard they'd try."
In the era of the salary cap, Rick Pitino has proven that building a
champion takes luck, serendipity - and most of all, a savvy general
manager.
"And having Tim doesn't hurt," said Pitino, deflecting praise as
usual. "I don't even want to imagine what might have happened if he
had never walked through that door."