The devil made him do it

[Berry, Mark S]

This is fine, except Ainge's quote was taken out of context. He
indicated he thought he'd deal some of the kids for a veteran last
summer -- and he came very close on draft night with Iverson (Philly
pulled out), and he came close again last month on Iverson. And by all
accounts, he's heavily in the mix for Gasol.

May is implying -- hell, he's saying it -- that the team on the floor is
one Ainge is holding up as the finished product. Obviously it's not.
Setting aside the injuries for a second (as if that's even possible),
it's clear the plan isn't just to let these kids grow together. He
obviously wants to package some of them for an impact player. Now ...
how many of those have changed teams since last season? It takes two to
tango.

There is a very real question as to whether or not Ainge can pull off
this kind of deal. But it's clear to everyone -- except Peter May,
apparently -- that he's trying. 

Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: celtics-bounces at igtc.com [mailto:celtics-bounces at igtc.com] On
Behalf Of Eggcentric at aol.com
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:43 AM
To: celtics at igtc.com
Subject: The devil made him do it

< In an interview with Chad Ford of ESPN, Ainge actually said, "I never 
really envisioned having this many young players on the team at once." 
Huh? He drafted them. He traded for them. If he didn't envision it, 
who did? > - Peter May

< There are a lot of people in the NBA who like some of the Celtics' 
young players, but not as much as the Celtics like them. The widely 
held view on most of them is that they'd be serviceable reserves on 
a good team. > - Peter May
---------------------------------
Oh boy, this one's on Danny
Ainge deserves blame for failures of Celtics

By Peter May   |   February 4, 2007

When Ryan Gomes was not picked to play on the nine-man, second-year 
team for a game against the top rookies during All-Star Weekend, Doc 
Rivers offered the following explanation: "Our record [bad word]."

Yes, it does. And so does his team.

The coach doesn't (bad word), although you'd think he's the spawn of the

devil by some of the things you read. No, he's not going to Springfield
as 
a coach, but he's not Roy Rubin II, either. The players, individually,
don't 
(bad word). In fact, we've seen some positive signs in all this mess.
It's 
the amalgamation that has become the 2006-07 Celtics that (bad word).

And that is on Danny Ainge.

He has assembled this team and it was pretty clear even before Paul
Pierce 
went down that it was flawed. (It was 10-14 after the Dec. 20 loss to
Golden 
State, playing the league's easiest schedule.) Pierce's injury not only 
underscores his value to this team, it has shown that what remains
simply cannot get 
the job done on any reasonable basis (like, for instance, a single win
in a 
month).

I found it amazing to read a remark by Ainge this past week before he
went to 
China. In an interview with Chad Ford of ESPN, Ainge actually said, "I
never 
really envisioned having this many young players on the team at once."
Huh? He 
drafted them. He traded for them. If he didn't envision it, who did?

The team he has constructed and given to Rivers has been unable to win
on any 
consistent basis. The players he has given to Rivers have shown they can
play 
in the NBA, some better than others. But thrown together, there is
simply too 
much callowness and not enough savvy. It's a doomed experiment. There's
no 
history of young players growing together, maturing together, taking
their lumps 
together, and, at last, winning together. The Bulls tried that after
Michael 
left.

Right now, Celtics fans can see Al Jefferson putting up nice numbers,
which 
he is doing. Delonte West is showing a toughness the team sorely needs.
Gomes 
is a rock. Tony Allen appeared to be coming into his own before his
injury. 
Rajon Rondo shows promise. Gerald Green can be entertaining and,
occasionally, 
effective. But Green, Gomes, and Rondo were not chosen to play in Las
Vegas at 
the Rookie-Sophomore game -- and it wasn't just because the Celtics'
record 
(bad word). Charlotte has two players in the game. The Trail Blazers,
Knicks, and 
Grizzlies each have a representative. Their records (bad word).

There are a lot of people in the NBA who like some of the Celtics' young

players, but not as much as the Celtics like them. The widely held view
on most of 
them is that they'd be serviceable reserves on a good team. (Pau Gasol 
doesn't want to come here, for instance.) How do you win with that kind
of team? 
Yes, you could parachute Gomes or West onto the Spurs and my guess is
that San 
Antonio wouldn't suffer at all. And that is part of the problem going
forward, 
because when (or if) Ainge does deal any of these guys, they're likely
going to 
prosper in their new environment, if for no other reason than they won't
be 
playing with each other anymore.

And Bob Lobel will be saying, "Why can't we get players like that?"

This was supposed to be the season the kids made it or didn't. Yes,
injuries 
have derailed the plan, but injuries happen to every team. Rick Carlisle
lost 
his three best players for more than a month -- one for the year -- and
still 
managed to get the Pacers into the playoffs in 2005. But this situation
has 
spun so out of control now that the prevailing questions are (a) Why
bring 
Pierce back at all? and (b) Greg Oden or Kevin Durant? And there still
is almost 
half a season remaining.

I don't know what Ainge has in mind in the weeks leading up to the
trading 
deadline. I would guess he is loath to do much of anything that would
improve 
the team to the point where it wins just enough not to get a legitimate
shot at 
Oden or Durant (assuming they come out). But at some point he needs to 
identify two or three of these guys as keepers and trade the rest,
understanding -- 
and not caring -- that the ones he lets go may flourish in their new 
surroundings. Let's see what these chips that Ainge says he now has are
worth.

As West put it on media day, "Once you've checked into the NBA, it's
man-up 
time. Who needs to have their hand held? Who needs to be in the young
category? 
Go get in the kiddie pool. It's adult swim, you know what I mean?"

We do.

Stealing his memories

More than a few eyebrows were raised recently when a 1984 NBA
championship 
ring belonging to former Celtics owner Don Gaston popped up on eBay with
an 
asking price of $25,000. An e-mail to the seller revealed that he did
not get the 
ring from Don or his son, Paul Gaston. No kidding. The thing was hotter
than a 
furnace in February, which Don Gaston realized when he tried to locate
the 
ring. (He also has one from the 1986 championship team, which he was
able to 
locate.)

The Gaston family enlisted the help of Rich Pond, the former Celtics'
man of 
many important titles, and Pond quickly got in touch with the seller and

demanded the ring be returned to Gaston.

"Don's reaction was that he wants the ring back," Pond said. "He never
gave 
the ring to anybody. It's not something that he wears. It may have been
stolen 
a while ago and he never knew it."

In further correspondences with the seller, who Pond said turned out to
be a 
ring dealer, Pond was told that this was not the first time the ring had
been 
up for sale, although no one could remember any outcry like the one this

potential sale created. "The whole thing is very strange," Pond said.

He is continuing to try to get the ring returned, but he also knows that
the 
seller bought it from someone, who probably bought it from someone, who,
well, 
you know how that goes. Don Gaston, Alan Cohen, and Paul Dupee purchased
the 
Celtics from Harry Mangurian and won a championship in their first year
of 
stewardship, 1984. They took the team public a few years later and Cohen
and 
Dupee eventually got out, with Don Gaston turning things over to Paul
Gaston in 
the early 1990s.

Ramsay shares a few passing thoughts on Inman

The death of former Portland general manager Stu Inman last week at age
80 
brought back some wistful memories from Dr. Jack Ramsay, who coached the
1977 
NBA champion Blazers, which Inman had put together.

"He was just a very dedicated, old-school basketball person," Ramsay
said. 
"He loved the game, the nuances of the game, and he was a great judge of
talent. 
He worked very hard at what he did and he went everywhere and anywhere
if he 
thought there was a prospect he should see."

Inman will go down in NBA history as the only man who passed on both
Larry 
Bird and Michael Jordan when they were eligible for the NBA draft. The
Jordan 
story is well known; the Blazers had the No. 2 pick in 1984 and took Sam
Bowie. 
Ramsay was the coach at the time. "We already had two quality [shooting]

guards in Jim Paxson and Clyde Drexler," Ramsay said. "And we had no
center. So it 
was a very logical decision on our part. And no one knew Michael was
going to 
be as good as he turned out to be."

Six years before that, the Blazers had the No. 1 and No. 7 picks in the 
draft. Bird was eligible. Portland passed on him at No. 1, taking Mychal
Thompson 
(Bill Walton was injured and would soon leave for San Diego). The
Celtics 
picked Bird at No. 6 and Inman later said Bird likely would have been
taken No. 7, 
even though he had some misgivings.

"I didn't think his body would hold up," Inman said, when asked about
his 
reasons for not drafting Bird. "He had that beer-drinking,
softball-player image 
and you wondered how well he took care of himself." Inman said he had
one 
conversation with Bird that spring and suggested getting together. "He
said he was 
playing softball," Inman said. "I said I'd get back to him, but I never 
could. His phone was disconnected. The athletic department said they'd
take 
messages, but you know how that went."

Larry unreachable? Shocking.

Etc.

Barea developing his game
The NBA luminaries won't be the only All-Stars playing basketball in Las

Vegas during All-Star Weekend. The D-League All-Star Game is also that
weekend, on 
Saturday, Feb. 17, at Mandalay Bay. Hey, the Celtics will have at least
one 
six-degrees-of-separation connection in the game: Joe Wolf, who appeared
in two 
games for the 1992-93 Celtics, is the coach of the Western Division
team. He 
coaches the Colorado 14ers in the D-League. The Eastern Division team is
being 
coached by Sidney Moncrief, whose D-League job is the head coach of the
Fort 
Worth Flyers. The rosters will be announced this week and former
Northeastern 
point guard Jose Juan Barea could be chosen. The kid has made quite an
impact 
since the Mavericks assigned him to their Fort Worth affiliate in
January, 
averaging 27.3 points, 7.8 assists, and 5 rebounds in his first eight
games. Last 
week, he earned Performer of the Week honors -- the first NBA-assigned
player 
to do so -- for twice topping the 40-point barrier with games of 43 and
41 
points.

Anthony deserves Star treatment
When was the last time an NBA scoring champion was not picked for an
All-Star 
team? How about never? What were the Western Conference coaches thinking
in 
not picking Carmelo Anthony as a reserve? Yes, he did a dumb thing in
New York. 
But he apologized the next day, took his medicine from the commissioner 
(15-game suspension), and has continued to play well since he returned.
Because of 
that, Anthony should get the nod when commissioner David Stern names at
least 
one replacement for the Western team because Yao Ming is not going to 
participate. There's also a chance that Carlos Boozer won't go because
of a knee 
injury, which would create a second opening for the Western squad, which
should go 
to Josh Howard. How the Mavericks can have only one All-Star
representative is 
mind-boggling, but it also points to the depth in the West.

Risky business for Nocioni
Bulls forward Andres Nocioni hinted last week that he may not be able to
play 
for Argentina in this summer's Olympic qualifier in Las Vegas. The
reason: He 
will be a free agent (assuming he hasn't signed by then, of course) and 
wisely wants to protect himself (see Gasol, Pau, for a reference). "I
want to be in 
Las Vegas," Nocioni said in a teleconference with reporters. "I want to
play 
for the national team to qualify for the [Olympics], but I cannot say if
I 
will be able." Nocioni, of course, has been a mainstay of the Argentine
national 
team ever since he drove baseline and dunked over Kevin Garnett and Tim
Duncan 
in the 1999 zone qualifier in San Juan. "I want to play for Argentina,
but I 
don't know if that will happen." The championships run from Aug. 22 to
Sept. 
2, which could bode well for Nocioni, in that he should be signed by
someone at 
that point.

Tickets truly on sale
Wondering who all those people are at Celtics games these days? People, 
sometimes young people, sitting in the good seats, to watch the team
with the worst 
record in the conference? Well, here's one possibility, as voiced from a

season ticket-holder with seats in nosebleed territory. "Throughout the
year, as 
subscribers to Celtics Beat, the team's online newsletter, we've been
getting 
offers for 50% off much better seats. The most recent offer was for the
Spurs 
game last week. Needless to say, next year we'll pass on the season tix
and 
just buy some decent seats for 50% off. Quality over quantity." That
e-mail came 
out before the Celtics-Clippers game Friday. The Celtics also sent out a

similar e-mail for the Clippers game, offering $60 loge seats for $30
and $30 
balcony seats for $15. At 2 p.m., there were plenty of tickets
available.

Roped into taking long trip
This is the time of year when the rodeo hits San Antonio (and honestly,
does 
it get any better than that?) and the Spurs go on an extended road trip
with 
periodic stops at home. This year, the Spurs will travel more than 7,500
miles 
in playing nine straight road games, starting with last Sunday's tilt in
LA 
against the Lakers and closing with a Valentine's Day appointment in
Auburn 
Hills, Mich., with the Pistons. They will have gone almost a month (Jan.
26 to 
Feb. 20) between games at the AT&T Center. The Spurs are 1-2 on the
trip, beating 
the Lakers while losing to the Jazz and the Suns on back-to-back nights.
It 
was the first time this season that the Suns have posted a win against
San 
Antonio, Dallas, Utah, or the Lakers. Those four teams pinned six losses
on the 
Suns in the first nine games (when Amare Stoudemire, who had 24 points
and 23 
rebounds Thursday, was still not quite fit). Since then, Phoenix is,
ahem, 34-3, 
(not including last night's game with Utah, against whom the Suns were
0-2).

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