Friday, June 29, 2007
'All these blind alleys and dead ends'
Sure enough, the Celts' move last night provokes a 'WTF?!?' ... I've learned this in recent years: If you're not instantly wild about a Celts trade, if you have to turn it upside down to look at it from multiple angles, if you find yourself muttering, 'Well, it might work - I think,' if you're a bit sad to see one player go, you might as well admit it's another crap shoot with speculative upsides mixed with more than a little doubt and dread. ... Putting up with the 2007 season for what? No big-man addition -- again? ... Great. Danny says we might be in contention for the Eastern Conference. But weren't we already there when Danny took over and proceeded to blow up the team? ... I wish they had gone for Noah or Yi -- and kept Delonte. ... From Reader No. 1:
Update -- Here's another 'WTF?' ... But here's someone who likes the deal. Glen Davis might be a big positive surprise. ... And another thumbs down. ... BunkoSquad wants to play high-stakes Monopoly with Danny. ...
Sure enough, the Celts' move last night provokes a 'WTF?!?' ... I've learned this in recent years: If you're not instantly wild about a Celts trade, if you have to turn it upside down to look at it from multiple angles, if you find yourself muttering, 'Well, it might work - I think,' if you're a bit sad to see one player go, you might as well admit it's another crap shoot with speculative upsides mixed with more than a little doubt and dread. ... Putting up with the 2007 season for what? No big-man addition -- again? ... Great. Danny says we might be in contention for the Eastern Conference. But weren't we already there when Danny took over and proceeded to blow up the team? ... I wish they had gone for Noah or Yi -- and kept Delonte. ... From Reader No. 1:
Hey, we were right - Danny Ainge traded the pick!
The bright side: it was only a couple of years ago that we were talking about trading Sourpuss Paul Pierce even-up for Ray Allen.
And we didn't have to trade Big Al...
...and we got rid of Wally World (runnerup to Andre Kirilenko in the NBA's JD Drew Lookalike Contest).
The not so bright side: ESPN - especially the part about "just one of a number of debilitating injuries for the Sonics..." (Pop quiz: who will be the first Boston sportswriter to remember that Bill Walton was the last veteran superstar with bad feet for whom we dealt?)
And alas, this doesn't seem likely to help the team very much - certainly not as much as a Kevin Garnett trade (and how much longer is Allen's shelf life)?
And... on a personal note, it's the 2nd time in 4 years that Danny Ainge has traded the favorite player of our family's biggest Celtic fan. When Antoine left, there were many hard words in this household for Trader Danny - and we kept wearing our #8 jersey. This time around, the word is - "I'm just sad" about Delonte.
The Mystery, as Peter has noted is why wasn't Robert Swift in this trade? "
What's left for Celtic fans? How about Virtual Reality? In a Virtual Celtic World, Red Auerbach is your Avatar General Manager, ripping off the Trail Blazers #1 pick in a Virtual Deal for (yes) Antoine Walker 3 years ago... just in time for Greg Oden to understudy Tim Duncan (thanks to a favorable bounce of those Virtual Ping Pong Balls in 1997)...
We need is a big thick book on the Celtics and how The World Has Changed to make sense of all these blind alleys and dead ends. We have a lot of not so thick Celtic books, many useful but none shedding light on what has happened in the last 20 years. How about it, Boston sportswriters?
Update -- Here's another 'WTF?' ... But here's someone who likes the deal. Glen Davis might be a big positive surprise. ... And another thumbs down. ... BunkoSquad wants to play high-stakes Monopoly with Danny. ...
