Ainge, Celtics can’t keep pointing
to the future
By Rob Gill
CBS4 Sports
Special To RedsArmy.com
Wednesday
night, a rarity occurred for me. An NBA
game grabbed and held my attention.
Granted, I didn’t tune in to the Celtics-Cavaliers game until only three
minutes remained in the fourth quarter, but I stayed with it through two
overtimes and yet another bitter
The game at
TD Banknorth Garden had everything anyone could
expect in a tightly-contested pro basketball game: clutch shooting, terrific
passing, phantom fouls, brutal non-calls and one incredible mano
a mano duel between Paul Pierce and the incomparable LeBron James. (There
truly is no legitimate reference point for comparing James. No player has ever come out of high school
with the same chiseled NBA body and, of much more relevance, such an instantly
devastating offensive game. How does thirty-one
points, seven rebounds and six-point-six assists per game sound for a 21
year-old? Wednesday, he registered a
triple-double of 43 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists.)
Pierce’s
career-high and all-time building-high of 50 points kept the undermanned
Celtics in the game against the Cavaliers, and in reality, Pierce’s on-court
heroics have almost single-handedly kept his team in this season. Precious few Celtics games this year have
provided anywhere near the level of entertainment of Last Wednesday’s game, and even fewer
have done it and ended in a C’s win. They
will enter the season’s second half with a woeful 20-32 record,
five games shy of the final Eastern Conference playoff spot and the chance to
be dismantled in four games by the Pistons.
How many wins would they have amassed without the efforts of Pierce? Ten? Eight?
Once again,
the ever-dwindling base of hardcore Celtics fans has to endure a season-long
refrain about “waiting two or three years.”
That makes at least fourteen years since the Green played a regular
season with a realistic hope of making a deep run in the following postseason. Yes,
This year’s
Ainge-assembled – and re-assembled – roster has won as many as two straight
games exactly three times and has not yet put together any three-game winning streaks. That sad trend will undoubtedly continue into
March. How do I know this? Because the Celtics don’t play another home
game until March 1st, and they currently own a pathetic 4-20 road record. (Who knew that fans making faces for Jumbotron cameras, the pounding of ThunderStix
and hip-hop music during game action could be so detrimental to winning
basketball games?) Something tells me
they won’t rip off a three-game road winning streak anytime soon.
Quick: what
stands as the Celtics’ most impressive win of the season? Give up?
Why, a New Year’s Eve 19-point waxing of the Los Angeles Clippers of
course! This is almost certainly the
first time in the history of mankind that any team has proudly pointed to a win
over the Clippers as a particularly notable accomplishment.
So after
almost three years as Celtics executive director of basketball operations, what
evidence exists that Ainge has accomplished anything that should provide hope
for a fandom that long ago lost it?
Players come, players go. Draft
picks and youngsters who barely need to shave get moved around like so many pieces
in a game of “Sorry!” Could it be that
after the next two-to-three year hopefest, “Sorry!”
is exactly what we hear from Ainge?
For a
moment, let’s make a rather large leap and assume that Al Jefferson, Delonte West, Kendrick Perkins, Gerald Green et al. will
find themselves making significant contributions on a nightly basis – and doing
it for the Celtics. What would lead us
to believe Pierce will still be around to enjoy such a development? The only holdover from the pre-Ainge era is
also by far the team’s biggest asset, but he only has one guaranteed year left
on his contract (with a player option in 2007-08). He could a) opt out of his deal after next
season, b) leave as a free agent in two years, c) become the latest Celtic
shipped out of town after receiving endless praise from Ainge or, conceivably,
d) re-sign and lead a Celtics resurrection in his thirties.
By my
count, the preceding eight paragraphs contain eleven question marks. That seems about right for a franchise that
has come up with very few answers while its fans scratch their heads season
after season. At some point, “wait two
or three years” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
The term “rebuilding process” implies that a successful era concluded in
the not-too-distant past. That is not
the case in