This clash act couldn't go on - Ryan (Globe)

[Eggcentric@xxxxxxx]

''Doesn't he understand? O'Brien was the only source of stability in the 
organization, and now he is gone.<''  - Ryan
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This clash act couldn't go on
By Bob Ryan, Globe Columnist, 1/28/2004

The only surprise is that it took 43 days. Jim O'Brien has been a Spiritually 
Dead Coach Walking since Dec. 15.

That was the day Celtics basketball honcho Danny Ainge traded Eric 
Williams, Tony Battie, and Kedrick Brown and stuck O'Brien with Ricky 
Davis and Michael (Yogi) Stewart. Chris Mihm was not a problem. O'Brien 
could have lived with Mihm.

You know what trading Williams was? That was Ainge plunging a dagger 
in O'Brien's heart. Williams was his favorite Celtic player, the solid 
veteran who simply "gets it" in a way that some -- no, most -- never do. 
And do you know what inflicting Davis on the Celtics was? That was 
Ainge making O'Brien pledge allegiance to what he could only feel was 
the basketball version of the antichrist.

I will not soon forget the funereal atmosphere at the FleetCenter that 
December night. The entire coaching staff was morose. The team had 
just won five games in succession and morale was at a season high. 
This is the hope-springs-eternal Atlantic Division, remember, and the 
staff truly believed their team was finally jelling and would have a 
serious chance to unseat the Nets. And then, in their eyes and minds, 
it was gone. Poof. They were left with the chilling realization: Does 
he really want us to coach Ricky Davis?

O'Brien tried it for six weeks, but yesterday he stopped kidding himself. 
He was no longer comfortable working for a boss with whom he seemed 
to be at cross purposes, and so he did the honorable thing. He offered
his resignation. I wouldn't think Danny tried very hard to talk him out 
of it.

There are many words to describe the current state of the Celtics, but 
the one that leaps out at me is "chaotic." There have been some noted 
lows in franchise history, but few have been lower than this.

It's not the record. They've had worse 46-game records, but that's not 
the point. It's the feel of the entire enterprise. There is a growing sense 
that the organization is adrift, that Ainge is trying to move too fast 
and that while he may know his basketball, he is a little weak in the 
people department. How could he not know what O'Brien had come to 
represent to this franchise?

Doesn't he understand? O'Brien was the only source of stability in the 
organization, and now he is gone.

Let's go back three years to the departure of Rick Pitino. When O'Brien was 
named to succeed him, people shrugged and said, "Who cares?" He had been 
the loyal lieutenant, barking out things on the sideline, but he had kept 
such a low public profile that no one had any sense that he could be a 
leader. 
And yet the team responded, and improved, instantaneously. For one thing, 
the Celtics began winning on the road as soon as O'Brien took over, a 
phenomenon that continues to this very day. You could win a lot of bar bets
 by asking people, "What is the only team in the NBA with a losing record at 
home and a .500 record on the road?" Around here, we know the answer.

O'Brien commanded respect in the locker room from the moment he took over. 
He impressed the players by being smart, dogged, and sincere. His innate 
integrity was evident to everyone. It was a team of mismatched parts that 
never had an inside game, but he guided it within two games of the NBA 
Finals two years ago and past the vastly more talented Indiana Pacers one 
year ago. It is an article of faith that the outcome of that Indiana-Boston 
series would have been reversed had the coaches been switched.

A lot of people, myself included, were aesthetically offended by the 
bombs-away, 3-point-shot approach to offense O'Brien championed, but I 
never doubted that he had arrived at the decision to play that way only after 
a great deal of thought. He simply concluded that going over to the 3 gave
 his team the best chance to win. In a better world, he'd have a guy he could 
give the basketball to on the low box and ask him to score, but until that 
day came . . .

The Antoine Walker trade shook things up, but I don't think O'Brien really 
objected to it, and by Dec. 15, he and his team seemed to have things 
figured out. But trading Williams and Battie, two players for whom O'Brien 
had a strong we've-been-in-the-trenches-together feeling, was more than 
just annoying. It was personally offensive. It was Ainge saying, "I don't 
care what you've built, or what kind of relationship you have with your 
players, or, frankly, about this year. I've got a plan, and if you don't like 
it, too bad."

And I doubt O'Brien needed to hear from Ainge that one reason he made 
the trade was his confidence that O'Brien could coach anybody. O'Brien 
didn't want to coach just anybody, and he surely didn't want to coach 
Davis, a player for whom defense and hard work are alien concepts.

You've got to wonder whether Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca would 
like to have a do-over and forget the whole thing. They have jumped 
into the NBA, at great expense, a good 15 years too late, and now they 
are presiding over a certified disaster of a franchise.

The team isn't remotely close to winning that 17th title. The average 
game is an eyesore. The ticket prices have excluded the average fan, 
and the ones who can get in are blasted out by the idiotic noise that 
infests every NBA arena (AMEN - Egg). The team's best player is having 
an increasingly horrible year (Paul Pierce has no business in this year's 
All-Star Game). And the only reason things weren't any worse was 
Jim O'Brien.

But it's no longer his worry. It's John Carroll's. And Danny Ainge's. And 
let's not forget Wyc and Steve, who might as well be lighting matches 
to thousand-dollar bills. I'll bet Jim O'Brien is feeling better than he 
has in, well, let's just say six weeks.