Ainge Watch Ainge Watch Ainge Watch

[wayray@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

~ Things we hear from Bob Young, Arizona Republiic

Lionel Hollins, the former Arizona State star and Suns assistant coach, is almost certainly going to get a head coaching job during the NBA off-season.

Our spies tell us that Hollins is the top pick for two jobs, and one may be a big surprise to folks. We hear Danny Ainge would like to hire Hollins in Boston, which makes some sense. Hollins was an assistant on Paul Westphal's staff when Ainge played for the Suns.

But the shocker could be right in Memphis, where Hollins is serving as an assistant to Hubie Brown. We hear Brown, 70, is mulling retirement. Hired by Grizzlies President Jerry West, Brown has done a remarkable, quick-turn-around job in Memphis and could win the league's Coach of the Year award after getting the Grizzlies into the playoffs this season. 

If Brown decides his work is done there, we hear West will replace him with Hollins.

Hollins once served as an interim head coach for the Grizzlies in Vancouver, British Columbia. That was for different ownership. 


~ Celtics: The Playoff Joke

Jim Donaldson: The only place Celts should be headed is home  01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, April 15, 2004  Clear your throat. Loosen up those vocal chords. Prepare not to cheer, but to do your best high-pitched imitation of former Colts coach Jim Mora. Ready? Here we go: "Playoffs? Don't talk to me about playoffs. Are you kidding me? Playoffs?" We're talking today about playoffs. But of the NBA -- not NFL -- variety. Which, in New England, results in the same sort of exasperation and incredulity expressed so emotionally, if not exactly eloquently, by Mora back in 2001, after Indianapolis lost for the fourth time in five home games and he was asked about postseason possibilities. The Celtics are in the playoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs? They just finished the regular season five games under .500. When you're five games under .500 you shouldn't be going to the playoffs, you should be putting the balls in the rack and going home for a long, not-so-hot summer. Playoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs? The Celtics don't deserve to be in the playoffs. Then again, neither does anybody else in the woeful Atlantic Division, except the New Jersey Nets. The C's slipped into the playoffs through the back door, even though they have the sort of team that ought to be shooed off the back porch. Or, if you prefer, swept off. Speaking of sweep, that's almost certainly what Indiana, the top seed in the Eastern Conference, will do to bumbling Boston this weekend. Playoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs? The Celtics head into the playoffs having lost five of their last six. Which, by the standards of the substandard C's isn't all that bad. After all, the Celtics won the grand total of exactly one game between Jan. 23, when they defeated Washington, and Feb. 27, when they beat Toronto. Starting with a loss at New Jersey Jan. 25, the Celts dropped 13 of 14, their only win coming at Philadelphia on Feb. 7. For those scoring at home, that's five weeks and one victory. Playoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs? There's this sneaky f!
 eeling t

hat no one is more surprised than Dealin' Danny Ainge, the Celts', ahem, executive director of basketball operations, to see the C's in the playoffs. At least this year. Boston made it to the Eastern Conference semifinals last year, after reaching the conference finals in 2002. But Ainge determined that was as far as the team, as constituted, was ever going to go. So he decided it was necessary to take a step -- Several steps? A giant leap? -- backward in order to eventually -- Hopefully? Miraculously? -- add another championship banner to the 16 already hanging from the rafters at the FleetCenter. None of which, of course, was won there. They all date from the glory days of the old Boston Garden. Both that building and those days are long gone. As Rick Pitino, himself now back in the college ranks where he belongs, once pointed out: Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish are not going to be walking through the door. Instead, Ainge shoved star forward Antoine Walker out the door last October, along with Tony Delk, trading them to Dallas for Raef LaFrentz, Chris Mills, Jiri Welsch and the Mavs' No. 1 pick in 2004. LaFrentz wound up playing just 17 games for Boston, averaging less than 8 points and 5 rebounds a game, before being placed on the injured list for the remainder of the season following knee surgery. Mills was traded in February, along with Mike James, as part of a three-way deal with Detroit and Atlanta that brought Chucky Atkins, Lindsey Hunter, and another first-round pick this year to Boston. By that time, coach Jim O'Brien was long gone. He quit in frustration (although the officially-approved phraseology of the reason for his resignation was "philosophical differences") in January, a month after Ainge had traded Eric Williams, Tony Battie and Kedrick Brown to Cleveland in exchange for Ricky Davis, Chris Mihm, Michael Stewart and the Cavs' 2nd-round pick this year. Consequently, the Celts are heading into the playoffs -- Playoffs? Are you kidding me? Playoffs? Not with a head coach, bu!
 t with o

nly an interim coach, John Carroll, who had been O'Brien's assistant. When O'Brien left, the C's were 22-24, which was good enough for second place in the dreadful Atlantic division. Under Carroll, the Celts have gone 13-22 and finished fourth out of seven. And how did the Celtics finally clinch their playoff spot? Fittingly, they did it while losing four in a row on the road, including defeats at the questionable hands of the woeful Washington Wizards, winners of 25 games this season and the awful Atlanta Hawks, who included 3 wins over Boston among their paltry total of 28. The Celts will, however, have a coach on the floor for their first, and almost certainly last, playoff series of 2004. They've activated 37-year-old Dana Barros, the former Boston College standout who hasn't played in two years, for the opening, best-of-7 series with Indiana. Barros has been sitting on the Boston bench for the last month as an assistant. Now, he'll come off the bench if the C's need help at guard in the playoffs. And we're supposed to be excited to be excited about these playoffs? Are you kidding me?	

~ Mark Stein
ESPN
Danny Ainge always says he's not going to listen to the fans or the media during his reconstruction of the Boston Celtics and Glen Grunwald is Exhibit A to back that stance. Grunwald did exactly what the Toronto public -- and Vince Carter -- demanded a few summers back by re-signing Antonio Davis, Jerome Williams and Alvin Williams to big contracts. Those signings convinced Carter to commit to the Raptors long-term.
	
Look what all that got Grunwald.
Carter's constant struggles with injuries have made it impossible to count on him as a franchise player. Grunwald was then forced to take on another expensive contract (Jalen Rose) to move out Davis and Junkyard Dog. His successor, as a result, will inherit one of the league's top 10 payrolls.
In spite of the existing talent on the roster, and there is some, more than one general manager we've asked about the Toronto job tends to scrunch up his face in an expression that translates to: "That mess isn't going to be easy to fix."

That said ... if Ainge has made a mistake so far, it was trading 'Toine too soon. Because of the modern-day marketplace, where only the unquestionably elite players get the megamillions now, Walker has been saying all season that he will not opt out of the final year of his contract. Meaning that, as he enters that final season at $13.6 million, Walker becomes a trade asset. Teams will inevitably want his expiring contract, which threatens to invalidate Ainge's argument that he couldn't have gotten more for 'Toine than Raef LaFrentz and Jiri Welsch.


~ Ainge's Celtics Can't Even Tank Right
Mark Cardinal - Bentley Vanguard

Reader Warning: You may want to avert your eyes from these numbers. 35-46, .423 winning percentage, 18-22 at home, 17-24 on the road. 23-30 within the conference. Losers of five straight. You must be asking yourself, what poor lottery team in the NBA has had such an atrocious season? However, what's sadder than these numbers is that the team with this record is making the playoffs! How is that possible! For the remaining faithful out there, you already realize that this record belongs to none other than your Boston Celtics. 

The Celtics are so bad they cannot even tank a season right. The biggest loser in all of this is Danny Ainge. He did everything within his power to strip the team of all its talent and send it into the lottery. It's a shame the Eastern conference was not capable of cooperating with the wishes of the Celtics. For the long-term future of the Celtics franchise, this is probably the worst thing that could have happened. They are backing into the playoffs as losers of five straight only to march to their doom against the only elite team in the conference, the Indiana Pacers. For all the Celtics fans out there who are happy they made the playoffs, plenty of others will enjoy the nuking the Celtics are about to receive. It will be over in 4.