From: wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: Way Of The Ray <wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: celtics@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Ron Borges: Celtics Need To Be Bad To Get Better
Date: 09 Apr 2004 08:45:40 -0500
Celtics need to be bad -- real bad
By Ron Borges - MSNBC
Updated: 4:24 p.m. ET April 08, 2004
Sometimes, people say, you can't win for losing. In the case of the Boston
Celtics, they can't win by winning.
When Danny Ainge took over as director of basketball operations of the most
storied franchise in the NBA just over a year ago, he made clear what his
aim was. A lottery pick.
The Celtics may have won more championships in history, but adding flags to
the rafters was not yet Ainge's concern. Titles are everyone's goal, but
Ainge knew they wouldn't do that any time soon, so he immediately began
doing what he felt had to be done -- demolish the old team to build a new
one.
The Celtics did reach the Eastern Conference finals two years ago and the
playoffs last season, but few people were fooled. This team wasn't a player
or two away from challenging the best of the West. In Ainge's opinion, the
old team couldn't even challenge the best in the East, which says something
when you consider that at the moment only four teams are above .500, and
the Celtics aren't one of them.
Yet after struggling through a dismal season, the Celtics suddenly have
made a stretch run Ainge never expected and would have been just as happy
to have avoided. Boston has somehow won 12 of its last 18 games to create a
tenuous hold on the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern
Conference. Although winning may be the aim, this was not the plan. Not
this year, at least.
The Celtics were supposed to slip into the depths of the East, but the
conference is so inept they couldn't do it despite their best efforts and,
some would argue, Ainge's. With only a handful of games left, they might
yet yield the final playoff slot, but that is no longer the important point
in Boston. If one cannot win in the playoffs, what is the point of making
them?
The important point in such a circumstance is not to add talent while
squeaking into the postseason by clinging to the bottom rung of the
conference standings.
What is important is the odd idea that somehow they have lost no matter
what, because they have lost their shot at a lottery pick, which Ainge knew
his team desperately needed if they were to transform from a perennial
also-ran into the kind of team they were in the '60s with Bill Russell and
Bob Cousy, and the '70s with John Havlicek and Dave Cowens, and the '80s
with Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish.
Recently, legendary ex-Celtics' coach Red Auerbach, the club's president
and historical conscience, lauded the job Ainge had done in rebuilding but
also hinted that while Ainge has imported some talent, like Ricky Davis,
Jeri Welsch and Chucky Atkins, that does not herald the transformation
required to return Boston to the competitive balance it once held with the
Los Angeles Lakers, their long-time rival and repeated victim over the
years.
"I like this team,'' Auerbach told the Boston Herald, "but always remember,
we need a little more help. That's where it's at. The five or six guys
Danny's got are good, but it's difficult to sustain it for 48 minutes.
I think they're doing pretty good, considering.''
Perhaps too good. Too good for the Celtics own good. Good enough to just
make the playoffs but never good enough to join the Eastern Conference's
elite, let alone compete on an even footing with the West's top teams. Not
until they get worse can the Celtics get better it seems.
Much worse.
So, while the Celtics limp toward becoming a playoff team with a losing
(35-43) record, are they improving or regressing? Are they winning or
losing? Are they retreating from excellence by gaining the playoffs?
Not even Ainge may know for sure, but he may have his suspicions while
worried fans fear that what he said when he first arrived is true -- the
only way to return to what they once were is by first becoming the image of
another once proud franchise that has fallen on hard times. For the Celtics
to rise again, first they must become the Chicago Bulls, a team now so far
removed from all those championships won by Michael Jordan that the memory
of their dominance is barely visible.
To win, the Celtics first must lose. This season, playoffs or not, they did
the opposite. They lost by winning just a bit too much.