Bob Ryan Feels Better Now

I really dislike Bob Ryan and I really hate when he writes about the Celtics

can we agree to just never post or link to any of his work unless its to make fun of him and his worthless opinions.

sorry for the rant

Mr. Ryan,
In the past I have respected your work. Now I have to ask…when did you turn into the Celtics version of Dan Shaugnessy? 1) You continue to trash the Celts roster beyond the 3 all stars in the same article where you say you haven’t taken a “close look” at the rest of the league. Isn’t that your job to know what’s going on around the league? 2) You say you’ll never take back what you said in the first place after the KG deal. Fine, but why would you judge the team at that point anyways? Ainge was obviously going to make more moves and he’s added 3 legitimate veteran rotation players to his bench. 3) You somehow lump the Celtics in with teams like the Sixers, Bobcats, and Hawks, which simply blows my mind. Star talent wins in the NBA and the Celtics have 3 great stars. If you really want to argue the Celtics aren’t a legit contender at this point that is one thing, but to compare them to the dregs of the Eastern Conference is downright misinformed.

This is the email I sent Bob after his latest “article”

Detox does wonders for a writer’s perspective. ;D

gee, what would bob ryan know about the NBA and the celtics.

how could he have an informed opinion without backing it up w/ stats?

bob ryan will be in springfield someday for crying out loud….what other experts on c-blog can you say that about.

good email nebist.

Since asterik’s are the topic of the day, I think we should put an asterik next to the most recent articles Bob Ryan has been mailing in, noting that the aging process has taken full effect and not to get too worked up over what he puts out.

Another point guard…GP for 3!!! ;D

Blow-harded through his first column was, it was accurate. This one, half-baked though it may be, is pretty accurate. Ainge gets credit for snagging Posey. But there’s still the matter of back-up point. Rondo could crash and burn mightily. But to me, the bench is still a concern but the mortgaging the future is the real beef, and always will be.
I agree that Ryan’s lost his mojo a la Schaughnessy, but I agree with him on this stuff.

Is it really that hard to compare the C’s bench to the benches of the top teams in the league? Stats aren’t neede for that analysis. Does anyone care if a sportwriter gets put in the HOF?

I can’t believe the Globe management suspended Ryan a few years ago. How dare they. They aren’t going to the HOF. It’s like saying no one can question Doc’s coaching moves because they never coached in the NBA.

Bob Ryan hasn’t been relevant since Ross Perot last ran for president. For him to write the idiotic initial column about the Trinity and the Cs being barely a playoff team was idiotic, and now he’s trying to backslide now that the Cs have brought in a few veterans.

I’d rather have Jason Kidd’s wife lying down behind my car in the driveway screaming and carrying on than read a Ryan column lately.

You know what’s ad about Bob’s articles?? He exactly right. When the trade went down the team was abrely a play-off team if that. Now that Ainge has filled out the roster, it’s a much better team. Of course he’s going to write about the team when the trade first happened, what’s he gonna do, not write an article about one of the biggest trades in sports this century? AT the time, he was right. Now he is right again. He didn’t back track, Ainge changed the team. Which Bob said needed to be done. Just because he didn’t verbally Fellate the team doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Guys seriously why do you get so worked up about a writer? I just don’t get it. I either agree or disagree with him and move on. The only time I dislike it is when a writer is consistently mean spirited and focuses on players activites off the court. He does that a little but he not totally.

It’s official….Bob Ryan is tied for first in the “Worst Boston Sports Writer” category with Jackie Mac and Dan Shaughnessy.

Well Good Morning Mr. Ryan, wake up and smell the coffee. Take a sip of hot java and pass it along to the other naysayers.

What gives Bob. Danny pulls off one of the biggest trades in franchise injury and before we can sneeze, you start wee weeing on our bench, 4 through 12, etc. As I posted the day all the bench negativity soon occured, give Danny a chance to catch his breath and don’t think for a second with all we have invested in the big 3 are we going to stand pat. Now we have Possey Bob and you feel a little better- whoopee.

I’ll tell you now Mr. Ryan so you don’t have to worry yourself, Celt management will do what it takes to have us ready for the playoffs. If a pg comes available with the potential to fall in our laps, it will happen. If House struggles, come hell or high water, we will get that bench piece by trade deadline. If Danny said he was happy with the roster after the KG deal, fine your article has great merit, but he didn’t say that, he said the roster will change and improve. This roster is a changing amoeba, get it Bob.

Go rag on the Redsox who just dropped their second straight to the Yanks.

Dear Bob -
That “retraction” was real big of you.
Now go back to Sullivan’s Tap.
Signed,
A Celtics Fan.

Here’s the deal Mr. Ryan, you are saying our roster even with Posey is not necessarily on the level of Miami, Cavs, Pistons, are you kidding me?

Miami has a team where Shaq comes back fat and sassy last year, mails it in during the season with injuries, etc and there are even questions in mid season if they make the playoffs. D. Wade has got to be sick of dragging Shaq’s extra 50 pounds during the season. Miami puts that effort in again this season and we blow by them, period.

We can’t compete with the Cavs? Their 2nd best player in the playoffs was a back up rookie 2nd rounder who was fortunately on fire from the outside when shooting. You can’t compare the Cavs roster to ours and honestly think we are in your own words not necessarily on their level. The thing is Mr. Ryan, Rondo does not have to duplicate Gibson’s point guard totals for us to reach the finals. However without his shooting, Cavs don’t get by Pistons.

Finally for the Pistons, they looked like nothing but quiters on their own home court against the Cavs, and then again game #6 in Cleveland, quiters again. They let Lebron go one on five and stood around. They got a head case in R. Wallace who won’t even join team huddles on timeouts. Their players hate their coach. Don’t be surprised if it is the Pistons that take the big step backwards this year.

Mr. Ryan, we are NBA potential finalists, we are contenders, it is time to turn the page and deal with it.

For cripes sake, you have the perfect storm and a guy like Bob Ryan that isn’t even making knowledgable comments about the sport he is supposed to be covering.

KG/Ray Allen/PP are all at the later stages in their careers which in a way is a blessing. All will sacrifice part of their game to help us win a ring. Any of the 3 would gladly drop from an average of 23ppg to 17 if it was the better for the team and got us closer to the ring.

On Bob Ryan, he throws this out that we aren’t at the level of Miami, Cavs, or Pistons. Bob Ryan needs to spell that out why he says that. I go back to the Cavs, the NBA finalists last year. Their rookie poing guard was a bench player averaging 4.6 points a game for the season. This kid scores 21 points in game #4, and 31 in game #6 to clinch it. How come nobody told him about chemistry issues? He went from 8th/9th man off the bench to Lebron’s second fiddle, we don’t need no stinking chemistry.

Bob Ryan again needs to spell out why the Cavs, Mavs, Pistons are superior to us. They aren’t and when the regular season proves it, I should be getting your paycheck for schooling you on this.

There is no guarantee. Of all the teams I give us close but not quite a 50% chance of represnting the East in the finals. The deal is, I give no other team in the East over 40% of making it to the finals.

That being said, it may be injury, a Warrior over Mavs upset even to a lesser degree, we get in a funk, etc. But guys like Bob Ryan are ready to say I told you if we don’t make it to the finals and if we do, this last article about feeling a litter better gives him a little CYA (cover your a**) protection. Way to sit on the fence Bob, don’t forget the preparation H.

Ryan’s columns have declined more than Antoine Walker’s play. No, he’s not backtracking off the original column. That doesn’t make the original column any less ridiculous or shortsighted. At the press conference introducing KG, one of the main things Danny emphasized was that he was not done adding pieces to the roster. Obviously, Bob ignored that and wrote an utterly garbage column about a bench that was bad before it was finished. He used to be the Michael Jordan of basketball sportswriting. Now, he is comparable to Skip Bayless.

Look Bob, here’s the deal. This franchise was in the low of lows. We had a club that was trying to combine youth development with NBA vets (Pierce/Wally) and we didn’t have the youth developed or the vet help either. For 2 years Bob, I’ve screamed, go youth or go vet, for bejzesus sake take one fork in the road or the other.

So what did the Celts do besides the injuries, we struggled and tanked our way to 24W and the lotto came up #5, meanwhile extending Doc’s contract. As if the nightmare couldn’t get any worse, we trade the #5 and D. West for Ray Allen and we continue the dual vet/youth non-working formula in a quest for perpetual mediocrity.

Well the heavens opened up and we got KG, even though it cost us Big Al. And now Bob, suddenly everybody and their grandma seriously wants to play for the Celts: Reggie considers it, Possey signs for less so he can be with KG, other free agents too just itching to play for us.

Bob, if we played in the West, I agree with you, huge road to climb, Suns, Jazz, Rockets, Mavs, Spurs, even Warriors. But hey Bob, we play in the East.

A final question Bob, did you predict prior to the playoffs that Lebron would be in the finals? I’m not saying the suprise team may not do it again this season, but your comments make it sound like a shock if Celts happen to even get by the first round. Shame Bob, you should know basketball better than that in your position.

Since Ryan mentioned it, I’ll chip in. I’m still a bit unhappy about drafting Gabe Pruitt. As I pointed out at the time, there were three point guards taken in the second round after Pruitt (Sun Yue, Jared Jordan, and Taurean Green). Each of them was more of a pure point guard than Pruitt, particularly in their ball-handling skills.

Perhaps Ainge saw something more and made the right decision. Or maybe House can do the job, and it doesn’t matter. But right now I think I’d be happier with Jordan or Green. It’s so seldom that a reasonably short college two guard (Pruitt) can successfully make the transition to a pro point guard.

Wise (and greying) sportswriters, feeling the pressure to perform, recognize the need to “hedge their bets” when it comes to making “informed” predictions. Thus it’s no surprise that Bob Ryan now talks of a possible Celtic’s move toward #17. Now he can always claim that he too predicted such an event as possible.

We’ve all commented that a veteran PG back-up would be desirable…so what Bob says is certainly not an ORIGINAL idea. He’s actually taking OUR OWN observations and “adopting” them as his own.

What seems to be a bit of a “stretch” in logic is the overemphasis of the BENCH at the expense of overlooking the strength of our starters. That especially is obvious in Bob’s comparison of our team to that of others in the Eastern Conference. How many others can claim 3 such distinguished ALL STARS as KG, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce? In KG alone we have one of the “top-three” players in the league.

My point is that others may have a stronger bench but who has a stronger starting 5? Bob seems to “value” the quality of the bench higher than the quality of the starters. How else could he compare the Celtics to the Knicks, Philly etc.?

So Bob Ryan thinks we’ll make the playoffs now. What a relief. I was beginning to get scared that a team centered around 3 of the top 20-30 players in the league wasn’t good enough, but since his holiness has given the season his blessing, I feel much better now.

Ha ha. I love how so many people invoke the Hall of Fame when talking about Bob Ryan. He’s a writer who happened to have the good fortune of covering phenomenally great teams throughout the early part of his career.

Bob Ryan reminds me of Andy Rooney. Just a bitter old man whose schtick has gotten old. Pun intended.

I don’t gamble online but I did log onto a sports gambling website and I checked the future odds for teams to win the 2008 NBA championship. There were several western teams who odds of winning were better than ours; but of all the teams in the East, the Celtics were the favorites to win the championship out of all Eastern team conferences.

My point being, people who are willing to put their money where their mouth are, think the Celts are the favorites and Bob Ryan is saying, without any supporting analysis that there are at least 3 other Eastern teams or more better than we are.

Although Mr. Ryan has the right to remain silent, it just makes no journalistic sense to put out that type of statement without trying to back it up.