Article from ESPN's Page 2

[Jonathan Brainin <jbrainin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

SHOULD PAYING FANS "JUST SAY NO" TO THE BOSTON CELTICS?



Chuck Hirshberg is a Celtics fan  from way back; and to tell you the 
truth,the recent "work" of Danny Ainge is making him sick -- and 
turning the NBA's most-storied franchise into the hoops version of 
roadkill. Worse yet, Ainge and the Celtics new owner are literally 
stealing the money of the C's hardworking fans. Hirshberg thinks he has 
a classically American solution to the whole ugly mess -- a total fan 
boycott, which should appeal to history-conscious New Englanders.

Give me liberty or . . .  | From Chuck Hirshberg


"See to it, every one of you, as you love the honor of Boston ... that 
the children of Adams and Hancock prove they are not bastards. Let us 
prove we are worthy of Liberty!"
  -- Wendell Phillips

"Sometimes you want to hug Danny Ainge. And sometimes you want to whack 
him."
  -- Larry Bird

  What do you think, children of Adams and Hancock? Does the Boston 
Celtics' Director of Basketball Operations need a hug? Or does he need 
something more bracing, right upside the head?

  Obviously, the latter. Not literally, mind you; that wouldn't do any 
good. Remember, this is the same guy who was completely unintimidated 
when 7-footer Tree Rollins tried to bite off one of his digits. What 
Danny -- and more important, the entire Celtics organization -- need 
now is a blow to the only organ that matters in professional sports: 
the Almighty Wallet. And you can do it, Celtics fans. Do you hear me? 
You hold the destiny of your team in your hands, as surely as your 
colonial ancestors once held the destiny of our budding nation.

  By now, it is more than obvious that the NBA's most storied franchise 
is in the throes of a horrid, undignified death, like some sort of 
half-squashed roadkill. The proper question to ask is not, "Who's to 
blame?" but "How to fix it?"

  On the other hand, what the hell. "Who is to blame?"

  It's certainly not all Danny's fault. In the mid-1980s, with Red 
Auerbach still a prime mover in the organization, Boston pulled off two 
brilliant coups, which should have secured the franchise's greatness 
for another generation. First, they maneuvered their way into the 1986 
lottery to draft Len Bias, who, in case you've forgotten, was the 
LeBron James of his day. Then they used the 22nd pick in the 1987 draft 
to snag Reggie Lewis.

  The impulse among Celtics haters to enjoy the demise of this once 
too-proud dynasty is understandable, but please don't enjoy it too 
much. The deaths of those two athletic geniuses are just tiny glimmers 
of the lives our country loses to drugs, every damn day.

  But here's the part you can enjoy, Celtics haters. It started in 2002, 
after Coach Jim O'Brien magically transformed 12 sulky underachievers 
into the second-best team in the Eastern Division. Granted, that's 
still not very good; but after more than a decade of futility, it was 
enough to completely rejuvenate the franchise.

  Suddenly, the Celtics were worth something -- not only in the 
basketball world, but in a financial sense, too.

  So team owner Paul Gaston delightedly prepared to sell the franchise 
to a group headed by Wyc Grousbeck for $360 million -- an NBA record. 
Boosters o' the Green rejoiced. Not only was their team decent again, 
it would soon be freed from the miserly Gaston, under whose 
penny-pinching regime the roster had grown so short that O'Brien 
sometimes had trouble assembling 10 healthy bodies for a decent 
practice. Grousbeck and company promised to spend more.

However, Gaston proved to be not only mean, but avaricious, too. 
O'Brien had based the Celtics' game on vigorous team defense and the 
three-point shot. He'd found a perfect player for this style in Rodney 
Rogers, a muscle-bound moose with a feathery touch. All Rogers wanted 
to re-up with the C's was fair market value -- about $3 million. But 
that would have put Gaston over the salary cap, cutting ever-so-gently 
into his enormous profit margin. (His daddy, Donald, had bought the 
team with a group of investors 20 years earlier for just $19 million.) 
So Rogers ended-up in New Jersey. Worse, Gaston then dealt point guard 
Kenny Anderson to Seattle for Vin Baker.

  The Baker debacle is too sad even to dwell on. Point guard has been a 
problem for the C's ever since.

  Enter Danny.

  "AINGE SAYS ANTOINE WALKER WILL NOT BE TRADED," read the AP headline 
last May. "I will never make a phone call in that regard," he lied to 
The Boston Globe.

  Meanwhile, the Celtics gave every indication that the future was now. 
This is how Celtics fans got screwed. This is how you, the fan, always 
gets screwed.

  Let's make believe you live in suburban Boston, in a middle-sized 
house, with a middle-sized yard, two middle-sized kids and a 
middle-sized income. And let's make believe that -- unlike, say, a 
sportswriter -- you work hard for your money. And, also unlike a 
sportswriter, you rarely get drunk before you make a substantial 
purchase.

  Finally, let's make believe that those two middle-sized kids of yours 
love basketball, and all summer long are begging you for Celtics 
tickets.

  Hmmm, you think. A half-season ticket plan can be had for as little as 
$1,680 a person. Ouch! You'd have to give up a lot, but think of the 
life lessons your kids will learn!

  Teamwork: They'll see the Celts won't win unless Walker and Paul 
Pierce share the ball.

  Discipline: Everyone has to do their job on D, no matter how 
unglamorous.

  Leadership: Jim O'Brien -- perhaps the only coach in the league who 
truly seems to have the respect of his players -- is a nightly 
education in that.

  Okay! You'll put it on a credit card and pay it off by the end of the 
year. Just make sure the kids understand: There'll be no Disneyworld 
for a long, long time, and we'll have to cut down on trips to Red 
Lobster. But it'll be worth it to see playoff-caliber basketball.

  We love this game, don't we, kids?!

  Then Danny goes and trades Antoine, though he said he wouldn't. That's 
not a very good lesson for the young'ns.

  O'Brien was devastated, but he didn't complain. He got the team 
winning again, with teamwork, discipline and leadership. Then Ainge 
traded O'Brien's favorite player, Eric Williams, the Hardest Working 
Man in Basketball, along with another favorite, Tony Battie (plus 
Kedrick Brown).

  That was it. Ainge encouraged O'Brien to stay, but O'Brien declined. 
Perhaps he felt like the mouse in the old story who was offered $1,000 
to lick the cream off a cat's whiskers. "The pay sounds great," the 
mouse told the cat. "But the location is crap."

  And that's what all you Celtics fans should be saying now. You've been 
suckered, taken, used. Don't stand for it! Do you think Wyc Grousbeck 
feels your pain?

  "[Basketball] is a monopoly, like cable TV," he told the Boston 
Business Journal last year. "No one is opening an NBA franchise in 
Worcester. So we can be comfortable with our financials."

  If you ever want a decent team again, you have got to make Grousbeck 
uncomfortable with his financials. You've to make him understand that 
Boston won't sit still for bad basketball, just because the players 
wear green.

  It's simple: STOP BUYING CELTICS TICKETS!

  If you have season tickets, stop using them. Believe me, you won't be 
missing anything. Let Ainge sit by himself in an empty gym and watch 
the road-kill die.

  I'm a little bit serious, Boston. Samuel Adams wasn't always just a 
bottle of suds. Once upon a time, he was the very essence of your great 
city, a man-and-a-half who would rather die than be lied to and 
cheated.

  "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitu