RE: The pressure is squarely on Danny Ainge now.

["ryan nelson" <ryanmnelson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is why I am glad obie is gone:

1.  he developed zero young players.  I don't know if Brandon hunter is
any good, but I'd sure like to find out.

2.  he could not coach during the game.  Remember the Nets series 2
years ago.  I always harp on it because he refused to make adjustments
and put the right players on the court (erick Strickland was the mvp of
the series and couldn't get any time in the middle games).  If your team
starts every game by going down 20, you might want to think about
switching things up.  His substitution pattern was terrible.

3.  The reliance on the three pointer.  So he loses Antoine and they
still chuck the three.  Walter Mccarty is a nice player for 10 minutes a
game to come give some energy but I'd rather we have somebody who can
PASS and dribble.  Terrible terrible game planning, no offenseive
continuity.

I give him credit for getting his players to play hard, which is a huge
part of the nba but to win you need to know how to coach Xs and Os.

Now lets hire somebody new, with some fresh ideas.  Will the brain
doctor be part of the screening process?

rmn


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-celtics@xxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-celtics@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Snoopy the Celtics Beagle
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 5:56 PM
To: celtics@xxxxxxxx; Celticsstuffgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: The pressure is squarely on Danny Ainge now.

I'm an Obie fan.  I make no bones about it.  I think that he had the
right 
idea and was constructing a playoff-caliber team.  Then Danny kept 
detonating the roster with trades that didn't pan out.

Despite the sound and fury over the other guys, the first trade was 
essentially Walker for LaFrentz.  Walker is fitting in well in Dallas,
and 
Raef is out for the season.  In addition, the C's supposedly traded
Walker 
because he wasn't playing the kind of team game that Ainge wanted for 
Boston.  So, we give up Eric Williams and Tony Battie for Ricky Davis.

Now, I admit that Davis is doing better than I expected.  He hustles, 
passes, and does a lot of the "little things" that you want players to 
do.  He also--occasionally--scores a lot of points.  But he's a
defensive 
disaster.  We were better off with Antoine, who at least played 
defense.  No, Walker didn't believe the running game would work--but
that's 
because he was right.

With Ainge's destruction of the roster now complete, the C's have no big

men to go inside, no player like Walker to take the pressure off Pierce,

and no one to play consistent offense or defense.  The team was forced
to 
go back to shooting a barrage of threes just to try to be competitive, 
because absent Raef, Chris Mihm, and Vin Baker, there was NO inside 
presence to mention.  Blount is ok, but he drops too many passes under
the 
hoop.  I get nervous when someone passes him the ball.

Obie tried.  He mostly kept the peace when Ainge kept pulling the
parquet 
out from under his feet with no warning and no choices.  He wasn't one
to 
air things in the press.  But you could tell he wasn't happy with this 
situation, and something finally blew--most likely Obie's temper.

I know a number of people blamed Obie for the team's current mess.  I
say 
it's not his doing.  The Celtics kept putting him back at square one
every 
time he made progress.

Now, Danny has everything he wants his way. Like his friend Larry, he
can 
pick the coach he wants.  He's traded away the players he didn't want
and 
gotten the ones he likes.  All, ostensibly, because the C's couldn't win

this season and he wants the Celtics to win a year or so down the 
road.  Well, he has his chance--and the attendant pressure.  If the C's 
don't play well the rest of the season--an increasingly likely 
proposition--Danny will have to produce a playoff-ready team next
season.

I don't think he can.  I think O'Brien had the right idea, but didn't
get 
the support he needed.  The notion that players were routinely traded
with 
little or no input from the coach is absurd, especially in 
midseason.  Danny is anxious to "make his mark".  well, we can certainly

smell it way over here, the way he's been pissing on the team.

In looking at the accomplishments of Danny Ainge vs. Jim O'Brien, I have
to 
say the wrong person left.

Snoopy the Celtics Beagle
Please visit the <http://www.celticsbeagle.net/>Celtics Beagle Website