Rebuilding It Is ...Again

20 years. Let that sink in.

I understand the positives of this deal and I understand the rationale behind it. Shoot, I don't know if I'd do anything different. What I do know is that I'm sick and tired of rebuilding.

First of all, make no mistake about it. Don't let Danny sell you on a shot that we have a competing this year. Could we once again squeak into the playoffs and even make some noise if we catch lightning in a bottle and the other teams collapse? Sure. Will we? Lets just say the odds are against it. The goal of this year is ringing loud and clear.

Play the kids.

Right or wrong, Jefferson, West, and maybe Allen will be starting this year. Banks, Perk, Reed, Gomes, and even Green and Greene will get time to run as well. The experience will be invaluable and I'll probably be very happy with the results at about this time next year. Who knows what numbers they'll be puting up even by the All Star break.

But right now the only number that keeps staring me in the face is 20. I'm a greedy bastard when it comes to winning. So is every Celtic fan over the age of 25 (or so). We remember the winning. We lived through the ML Carr rebuilding. He preached patience. We lived through the Pitino disaster. He lacked any hint of patience. We lived through Chris Wallace and Paul Gaston teasing us with some success only to throw out patience and Vin Baker our team all to pieces. Now we've got Danny Ainge, who by all accounts knows what he's doing. But once again, he's preaching patience and thats a tough pill to swallow 20 years in a row.

The one saving grace is that I have a super weak spot for developing young players. Watching Al Jefferson and company bloom this year will be a joy in of itself. Doc, for all his lack of game management skills, is by all accounts, perfect for this job. So that's something. But it doesn't replace winning. I know we'll win our share of games. With Paul around, we're guaranteed to hover at least around .500 and that means we aren't the Baby Bulls part II. This is good too. Losing breeds losing and we don't want that.

All I'm saying is that we've snapped the ball and punted this year. It better give us good field position next year or I'm gonna be really ticked.