Tanks For The Memories

Welcome to the other side Jeff.

No surprise about this. That’s why we will see Doc on the bench next year. A job well done. The question will be whether we see him there the year after.

At least Gaston had the sense to move ML out of the coaching job once the season was over, not extend him.

Why management won’t fire Danny Ainge or Doc Rivers.

Despite this team’s poor performance this season (injuries and youth to blame), attendance has not suffered and the viewing T.V. audience has actually increased (last night’s interview with managing partners). Thus the bottom line has not suffered. To the contrary!

Our youth seems to be developing.

In trading Raef Lafrentz for Theo Ratliff the team actually saved around 12 million in long tearm salaries.

But Ratliff NEVER contributed! How can management be happy about covering Ratliff’s $11,666,000 salary? Insurance paid it! Add anther $11, 666,000 to the 12 million saved in the Raef trade. Why should management complain about saving more than 23 million?

So, under Danny’s watch, attendance has not gone down, T.V. revenues are up, management has saved more than 23 million in salary debt etc. Is everyone a WINNER?

The real hit comes at the salary cap level. While Ratliff may be a free gift for management, under the salary cap Boston has $11,666,000 less to spend on a much need free agent. Thus what management GAINS, Danny and Doc lose.

What Ratliff may actually gain for the Celtics: If he’s retained and remains injured, he’s only a salary cap hit that will allow us to resign some of our promising youth. If traded, he could help bring us the veteran help needed.

To those management savings, add Danny’s $$$$ savings in having “bought-out” Vin Baker’s ridiculous contract. From Management’s viewpoint, Danny is like a son!

Even Red Auerbach knew that disgruntle players/ locker-room misfits etc. can destroy a team from within. Thus the Mark Blount and Ricky Davis trades. Plus, we can use the 1st round draft choice and we needed another scorer to take the heat off of Pierce.

The implications of Management retaining Danny?

The Danny Doc team stays together for at least another year threatened only by Doc’s demand for a contract extension and management’s concern about fan reaction if the team continues to underperform next year.

True or not, the players and coaches should not be saying things like this.. it could result in some trouble.

Albin I couldnt agree with you more….really foolish, you’d think Doc, in particular, would have learned his lesson.

And we want to give this guy an extention? Maybe as a reward for his tanking abilities? We are in trouble!

Since the Charlotte debacle, this team has attracted special attention for the egregious way they have tanked. The Bucks and Grizz have done it also but the Celts get first mention in the media b/c they have just been so stupid about it. This is just the latest example and it’s an embarassment. And the winner of the 2007 lottery is….the Philadelphia 76ers. I believe in karma.

Duplicity in the media and especially in sports is so annoying! Everyone knows but “none can say”? It’s not the ACT of tanking, it’s what said about it that’s punished. A confusion of values! Why is the “dirty” deed excused while the spoken word “punished”?

I was really fuming after last night’s game. It was so obvious that Doc was not trying to win the game. Ray should not have been playing PG down the stretch. Telfair should not have been at the 2. He should have called a time out to set up the last play. Powe almost upset his tank plan by playing too hard down the stretch (he doesn’t know any other way) but Doc came through in the end.

Gomes’ quote tells me the players knew Doc was tanking and didn’t like it. I don’t expect the top pick because we didn’t earn it. I would rather have the 3rd most ping pong balls and get them honestly than to have the 2nd most and get them by tanking. This disgusts me.

Utterly disgraceful.

Message sent, message received….Received by the players…received by the paying fans…received by David Stern.

I hope the young players under contract who got the message from management have the character to come to camp in shape. Because their coach and management clearly has shown no character at all.

I hope Stern lets us choose 5th….instead of using the words of Gomes and Rivers and taking away the pick altogether.

But we’re told that all the players love Doc. How could Gomes possibly be unhappy with Doc?

Please stop this madness. The 18 game losing streak wasn’t a tank job and it put us out of playoff contention. The league isn’t going to punish the Celtics anymore then it is going to punish Atlanta, Milwaukee, Memphis or any of the others positioning for the draft.
The lottery is based on probability and that isn’t going to be changed by some divine intervention based on who deserves what. Danny and Doc would need to have their heads collectively examined if they were to do anything to minimize a chance at one of those top two picks.

Stop with the damage to the collective psych of the players and developing a losing tradition argument. It’s all just another excuse to complain. We have been given a chance to get a big gift, lets not worry about how it is going to be wrapped.

the sad end to this whole lottety was to have it happen in front of the 57 team with russell, sharman ramsey, etal present. no matter that maybe it was necessary to better the odds, it left a bad taste in the mouth. i don’t blame the c’s or doc for the tanking, i blame the system. it was a setup for a team like the c’s this year. in the end, if they went for all the wins it would have been a bigger disaster.

The losing attitude of this organization is pathetic. I’m tired of it. I don’t see how Oden or Durant will transform this team into winners with Doc at the helm. I hope I’m wrong, but unless a coaching change is made and a quality vet is brought in, next year won’t be much better than this year.
Danny and Doc should be ashamed.

Win or lose, there’s bound to be detractors, haters, complainers etc. No such thing as playing the management/lottery game as others do. That the ‘57 team was in attendance….do you think that they were NOT aware of the implications of this game’s outcome? They may be old but they’re not dumb!

If you have to go through this hell, then you can hopefully get something out of it.”
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An hopefully, so can we….as in a real NBA coach.

Either way, WIN OR LOSE, they should be fired? Talk about duplicity in sports, hypocritical opinions seem rampant among fans as well!

 The MEDIA is desperate enough so that when there’s NO NEWS they attempt to MAKE NEWS. They exaggerate, embellish and promote stories as long as they have an audience to preach to.

What is even more disturbing are the naive comments by fans…hooked line and sinker by nonsense about the impropriety of noncompeting in a survival game where the rules are already etched in tradition! If you want to belong aqnd survive, you play by the rules…err, traditions of how it’s done. Anything less is nonsense.

By the way, these rules secretly etched in tradition ONLY apply to TANKING!!!

Obviously we all wanted to have a winning season and go deep in the playoffs, but once that was over and we were bound for the low ranks of the lottery we were best served by losing. Chris Broussard on ESPN the other night had a great point. At that point of the season when you know you aren’t getting in the playoffs there is a legitimate reason, other than just dropping farther down towards a higher pick, for not putting your very best squad out there. You need to take a look at the end of the bench to see what players can do given a bigger amount of minutes. They are trying to evaluate what they have for the upcoming season and which players are worthy of being a part of the team. I think if we were healthy, although I think we’d at least be in contention, and we were ony playing our rotation of 8 guys, we’d all be upset at not being able to take a closer look at guys like Allan Ray, Powe, and Rondo.

Had we not had players sitting, we wouldn’t have Rondo playing all these minutes and be convinced he is our future at the point. Delonte would still be playing with Rondo seeing a few minutes a night. We wouldn’t be able to see Ray get enough time to get more confidence in his shot and look to be a solid backup 2. (if we end up with Durant and he plays 3 and Pierce is in at 2 then we can likely trade Delonte, although I’d rather not, and not be in bad shape) Powe is also a player who can come in and defend well and rebound and score but we wouldn’t really know that. I know we thought these guys had the ability, but this gave them the chance to prove it. As sad as it was to say, my objective for each game was to play a hard close game with teams with this lineup, but to lose it at the end. Not too unlikely against the better teams. Only against teams like Milwaukee, Memphis, and Atlanta did we have to really worry about the outcome. Those games were a little depressing though knowing we could easily crush them with our team healthy. Long term this was the best outcome…

Classified Memo to Wyc Grousbeck:

Congratulations on the second worst record in the NBA this year.

For those teams who came up short, but put their best effort forward each and every game, best of luck in the upcoming lottery.

For those teams who made a mockery of the lottery system, held healthy players from competition, purposely put forth less than a maximum lineup and effot, and compromised the integrity of this great game, the following will apply:

-You will draft in the lowest possible position that the current lottery system will allow. That will be the ping-pong balls “fall”.

If there is any public questioning of my decision in this matter, what happenned to Jeff Van Gundy will look like a Carribean cruise compared to what will happen to you.

Sincerely,
The Commish

cc: Atlanta Hawks
    Milwaukee Bucks

With the 5th pick in the NBA Draft, The Boston Celtics select:

I would rather have the 3rd most ping pong balls and get them honestly than to have the 2nd most and get them by tanking. This disgusts me.

i wouldnt

Moskqq said:
The MEDIA is desperate enough so that when there’s NO NEWS they attempt to MAKE NEWS. They exaggerate, embellish and promote stories as long as they have an audience to preach to.
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In this case, moskqq, they’re stating fact….as confirmed by the two quotes under he title of this thread.

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Moskqq also said:
What is even more disturbing are the naive comments by fans…hooked line and sinker by nonsense about the impropriety of noncompeting in a survival game where the rules are already etched in tradition! If you want to belong aqnd survive, you play by the rules…err, traditions of how it’s done. Anything less is nonsense.
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Yes, moskqq, those idiotic and naive fans who purchaced NBA League Pass and bought tickets to Celtics games should applaud tanking….for they are getting the maximum bang for their buck. They should applaud and encourage the newfound traditions of the most storied franchise in sports history…..losing on purpose… As a fan for more than 40 years, the thought process that this is somehow good, whether it yields the desired result or not, is plain sickening.

Management sent the message to Ryan Gomes….Paul Pierce….Al Jefferson…Delonte West. Their combined weight coming into camp will probably be around 1100lbs….Management doesn’t respect the game….why should someone under contract?

Are people really this offended by the Celtics tanking? I think the comments by Doc and Gomes were disgraceful (we all knew it was happening, but it should NEVER be revealed to the media by players and coaches), but this is something that has been going on for a long time. While I dont like the idea of intentionally losing games, and would never do that as a coach, its something that needed to be done to give this franchise its best chance at landing a future star…and possibly someone who can return this team to contention.

Remember that article a few days ago that had a Doc quote in it like:
“That’s why you never lose a basketball game on purpose. The basketball Gods always come back to get you.”
Yeah, Doc. That’s great..

Think maybe Doc is just that bad a coach?

Last year Doc was critized for winning games that moved us from 6th to 7th in the draft order. what a difference a year make. NOT
also before the first in 1957 there were 1956 1955 ant below where fans stayed with the team until russel and Hension (draft picks came along. so the story goes…………….

eh… it’s no big deal to me. IMO, it was crazy that they let pierce come back at all this year. They should’ve shut him down in January and then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation about the c’s intentionally losing games. We would’ve had the worst record in the league all sewn up by April 1st.

Here’s an interesting stat… There are 8 teams that have records in their last ten games that are as bad (3-7) or worse. The Lakers are 2-8. How come no one is accusing them of tanking?!

Agree with dr_awesome on Pierce. The sitting after the 53 minute effort cemented the red flags.

 Nice try, EJPLAYA, there are three teams who have been tanking overtly for most of the season.