Enough Whimpering

agreed

We’ll not go quietly into the night….

We’ll not visit Secaucus(sp),NJ for a least a decade. I know it, Danny knows it.

Let’s trade Pierce. At least when we lost 18 straight the rest of the nation was paying attention to our franchise. It was…a novelty. I prefer that over a first round bounce by the Raptors. But of course there’s the whole marketing end of things. I would love to see Pierce go to the Blazers. Trade him for nothing. Just let him go. The Blazers will rock and Nike’s headquarters will be only a half an hour away from it all. Then we can all migrate west and get season tickets at the Rose Garden. The Celtics can be sold and the banners will be placed in the Smithsonian (not the “basketball hall of fame” which is actually a McDonalds with a large play area for basketball enthusiasts; plus, Red is from DC, so it makes sense). Who’s game?

We all kept the hope alive to get Durant or Oden. Now we should cross our fingers and hope Connelly is there at 5. If he is, then we pick him, and if we are able to do that, then we will have gotten very lucky. Then, we trade Pierce to whomever he wants to play for. No matter what we get in return, for we shall have a young great big and a young great PG. Rondo will be our back up PG. We will throw him at the opposing team when they are least ready for it, a veritable changeup. Perhaps we can trade Pierce to a team in order to pick Brewer. Brewer, Connelly and Jeff are three young guys I am happy to watch develop together. We then sign a vet free agent to fill the four spot.

Nothing is going to change until Danny goes — he doesn’t get any more passes from me. Horrible trades, disastrous decisions on draft day, pathetic personnel choices (Doc). And Wycless isn’t going to change a thing until the seats are empty. And that, my suffering friends, is what has us doomed: it’s not because we didn’t get Oden or Durant, but because we have Danny and Doc and Wycless running the show. We can sit here and fantasize all we want about which players will help the Celtics and how, but really, that’s not the root of the problem. So, as one of our fellow suffering Celticsbloggers says, “FIRE DOC. FIRE DANNY. FIRE THE DANCERS [ed. note. — same thing as getting rid of Wycless].”

I never thought I’d say this. But I agree. It may be time to trade Pierce. We’ll probably never be a Championship caliber team while he is in top form. And if that is the goal. Then we should go at it full speed ahead. This is a deep draft. Maybe we can add another pick and a young veteran. Maybe a Loul Deng type player. That might be too much in return. I dont really know. I’d hate to blow it up. But what do we really have here anyway. This is a deep draft. Lets complete our young core this year and let them develop together.

Danny sounded gutshot today, with no idea what to do. He was planning on playing golf today. Now he has to work the phones to put some farkakte deal together that will sell a few tickets and get us up to 39 wins. He’s had enough of this – the owner and he will have a mutual parting of the ways after this year for sure.

Between the Rivers extension and Ainge’s comments on the radio today my confidence is completely shattered. And it has nothing to do with the team’s bad luck in the lottery.

yEah Jeff we have bleed a while (24 Hours) now we need to get up and fight some more. Surely hope is something we must have and not the bitterness toward ownership and management coach. The knee jerk reaction like trading paul pierce while mourning is not wholesome for us and if we trade Paul pierce we will surey pay for it as if he too died like bias and lewis. Reading this site all since the season ended has been very depressing. we have been a (Self)pitying bunch as if someone cares how we feel. I am sure we have been the laughing stock of the Visting blogger from other teams. We must come alive and it start with Pierce and Jefferson. our task is doable and I hope we and danny find the way. So bring on the crazy proposals on draft pick trade free agents et al. The healing process starts with pain and we have had enought of that. so lets move on. what can and should be done that is practical and real. we also need to get over it doc and danny are here and will be for a while and all the hoping out loud on this site is not going to change that. beside it is a tired and depressing refrain and is tied to the past. we need to look to the future. 16 in 30 is done. only a few of us even remember those good ole days and they started with a losing season- before Red. weather we like it or not remembering them will not bring them back. We are Now confronted with a new day and a new age After Red.
Finally, in the last 20 year a lots of mistakes were made by old owners old G M and presidents and old coaches. They are all gone as well. so lets leave that B—- S—- behind and start to see thing as they can be not as they use to be.

Let me add that if Ainge has the opportunity to draft Mike Conley and declines, it will be be viewed in a few years as a drafting error equivalent to taking Ron Mercer instead of Tracy McGrady in 1997.

[quote=“Jeff”
blah blah blah…
[/quote]

…or, you could just watch the sox and pats and be happy ;D

And as part of moving on, I vote to lock all of the crazy conspiracy theory threads…

I’m ready to move on. Despite getting beaten down twice, I love the lottery! Presuming it is legit, which I do, I think it is the fairest way. Congrats to those winners, for those like us that lost out, time to get busy.

i used to drink the kool aid but i think reality has set in:

we are just taking leftovers and scraps now

plus

we still have doc

our future is a .500 team at best, 7th or 8th best seed, 1st round exit…sure we may be competitive…championship level…far from…no matter how danny drafts or any trades he might make…there is no mchale & parish for joe barry carroll trades out there…

the nba more than any other professional sport is based on superior talent…

in other sports you can get by team chemistry, coaching, momentum, luck…not in the NBA…the NBA is a players league…

we have to face the facts…we do not have upper echelon talent…individually or as a team…yes we have a few nice pieces but so do most teams…this isn’t to say that I’m not rooting for the celtics…its’ just a reality check…

I think the C’s need to keep the pick…

I think that trading Paul Pierce would have us losing just as many games next year as we did this year (…and nobody is going to give up QUALITY All-Star talent that is rising for a player that may run out of gas in the next 3/5 years).

I think that we trust Danny to get us the best player available (I’m kind of hoping for Mr. Yi at this point! He could bring some excitement to Boston also…)

I think the nucleus of PP, Al, Rondo, a healthy Wally off the bench, a healthy TA, and the draft pick could take us to respectability next year. An improved Gerald along with Gomes, West, and Perk only sweetens the nucleus. Next year still can be a lot of fun!

Does anybody else think that allowing Theo’s contract to expire really could be beneficial for us? We are going to need some big time $$ to sign Al and the rest of these youngsters soon enough! Letting Theo’s contract expire could be a huge boost for Boston!

Is our alchoholic friend Vin Baker finally off the books?

at least Oden and Durant went to teams that cannot hurt us unless we meet them in the finals…Glad the Bulls didn’t get either one….Oden might actually keep the Lakers from catching us in number of banners.

My take is that while no one can prove that we tanked, it is true that PP and some others could have played when they didn’t. The team is better than a second worst record. After devastating Tuesday I can only rationalize that we don’t deserve the first or second pick. Now we must get better by our own GM’s and coach’s skills. That is what we really deserve and getting a fifth pick is really nice.

I also am among those who believe that they will try their hardest not to pick it,i.e. I expect a trade. Maybe they won’t be able to get it done. There are other teams, such as Atlanta, which want to trade. Maybe also Seattle will try, who knows.Yet, the gist of it all is that this summer we must get better and while I am happy with Ainge so far because of his drafts, his skills as a GM have yet to ne fully revealed. Is Danny capable enough of making the correct moves including trades to bring us to the highest level of competition? This is a big summer for him., but he is his own man. He really sees things with patience and self confidence. On that note, he could very well be hesitant again and not be too hasty.

Gustusias, I disagree on the tanking. Gomes said it himself. While playing well, he was taken out of the game for most if not the whole 4th Q and we eventually lose. He was told by Doc that they didn’t want to “hurt their draft position”. Purposely not playing your better players to increase your chances at losing and getting a better pick, is “tanking”. I also believe that Pierce and several others were healthy enough to play more games than they sat out with the injury excuse.

We were not the only team tanking, Memphis, Atlanta, Milwakee were too.

We were supposed to be the team of young potential stars and the 76ers were the ones that played good honest basketball after Iverson/Webber were banished. Props to the 76ers, Sonics, and Trailblazers for “playing the right way”.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but part of me was rooting for loses so we would have a better chance at Durant/Oden. Never again, no more tanking ever for me. This is why Doc got his extension, he was a good tanker and was rewareded for it.

The sad part of this all tanking business is, had we not tanked for the second worst, we were actually good enough for 30-33 wins during which time Pierce was back and Big Al did not go out with a phantom injury…does anyone here realize that we could have ended up with the 5th or sixth worst record in the league which ironically won the top 2 pick in the draft…..If that is not karma i do not know what is.

If we can trade Pierce, and somehow swing a way to get Conley and Jianlian, I will be a very happy camper.

Tanking is bad and is never rewarded 8 out 10 times by the basketball gods…sure, cementing your draft position is the way to go but there was a lot of clamor here in this board for Boston to keep losing so we have the best chance at top 2 and now we seem to kick ourselves that in hindsight, maybe we should have just played it out and see how the basketball gods would reward us….even Red was probably ashamed at the C’s for blatantly tanking and we never learned our lesson, it happened 10 yrs ago and it was repeated this time round.

There is plenty to be positive about. Yeah, we got screwed in the draft, but so did the other “tank” teams, so we really can’t complain. We have Pierce, WHO SHOULD NOT BE TRADED, a top-ten player in the league who still has several peak years ahead of him. We have Jefferson, the first low-post scoring machine we’ve had since McHale. If (and yes, it’s a big if) Tony Allen returns to form, you have a nasty defensive back court of Rondo and Allen that would wreak havoc with most teams guards. Or you draft Brewer, and pair him with Rondo. You’ve got Gomes and West off the bench, which ain’t bad. Perkins seems to get it now, and I can’t wait to see him 30 pounds lighter with a healed left foot. There is still a lot of hope for Green to be a good player, if not a scorer at the very least.

I became a Celtics fan during the ML Carr years (that’s grounds to have me committed, I know), and the Celtics future is the brightest it’s been in a while. This team is very young. Once the young guys “get it,” like Jefferson did last year, they make great strides. With this draft everyone was looking for the quick fix, and to place all your eggs in the “quick fix” basket is foolish. We’ll be fine. I hope all these young Celtic players read this blog, read all the negativity, and use that as a motivation for next season.

The following is an excerpt from a John Hollinger article written in January. I thought it was appropriate to the situation we, as Celtics fans, now find ourselves in:

Even if a team wins the sweepstakes for a no-brainer superstar, as Cleveland did with LeBron James, it might not get the best player in the draft — as Miami fans certainly would argue for that draft, in which Dwyane Wade was the fifth pick.

Allen Iverson turned out great in 1996, but was he that much better than No. 5 pick Ray Allen?

Same goes for Danny Manning and Mitch Richmond in 1988, or David Robinson and Scottie Pippen in 1987.

And sometimes the consensus No. 1 flops — as top pick Michael Olowokandi did in 1998. The fifth pick that year? Vince Carter.

Or how about when Joe Smith was the first pick in 1995? The fifth pick that time was a high schooler named Kevin Garnett.

That’s not to say you’d rather pick fifth, mind you … there are some years when you’ll end up with Nikoloz Tskitishvili instead of Yao Ming, for instance. It’s just that it doesn’t always turn out so badly for the so-called “loser” in the lottery, and that’s another factor in analyzing the “tanking” strategy. For all the research teams do, the draft remains an inexact science.

I agree the draft itself remains an inexact science. It’s just that you are looking at probably two true superstars in this game for years to come.

The sad thing is we chucked out the Celtic tradition, etc, sold our souls to devil for the chance to increase our ping pong balls.

I don’t believe for a second that Stern tampered with the ping pong balls. That’s not his style. If he’s pissed off at the tanking, he would have crushed us like he does the Mav’s owner everytime he steps out of line. If he wanted to “tamper” with the rules, he would have given the Suns a pass on the leaving the bench suspension.

Stern would not damage the “integrity” of the system, and if did want to punish us, or Memphis, etc, he would have done it publicly.