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8 days ago

Painful Reminders (Part I): The Celtics Drafted JaJuan Johnson Instead of Jimmy Butler

On June 23rd, 2011, Brian Robb and I stood around a high top bar table in Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square.  Before us lay one of the biggest mounds of buffalo chicken wings I had ever endeavor to make disappear.  These 25 cent flappers- one of the few indulgences afforded to the participants of our [...]

19
9 days ago

Chris Wilcox: 2012-13 Final Grade

There are a number of contextually-appropriate ways to craft this post. One would be to forgo words entirely, and represent Chris Wilcox’s entire season with a series of videos. That would involve one part of this: For every eight parts of this: Note the headline on that second clip. Someone was so amused/enraged by Wilcox’s [...]

12
9 days ago

Rajon Rondo’s 2012-13 Final Grade

Here’s a sweeping general statement involving super specific statistics that may or may not mean anything: In the 1423 minutes Rajon Rondo played this season, the Boston Celtics were outscored by 1.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sat (including all contests after he tore his ACL), Boston was better than their opponents by 1.8 [...]

94
10 days ago

Avery Bradley Elected to NBA All-Defense Second Team

Avery Bradley has been a standout defender for the past couple seasons…in the regular season anyway. Now he has a trophy to prove it. The NBA announced this afternoon that the third-year guard has been elected by coaches around the league to the second-team all-NBA defensive team for the first time in his career. Bradley [...]

13
13 days ago

Paul Pierce’s Contract: Dispelling The Myths and Stating The Facts

The first domino to fall this offseason is Paul Pierce’s contract. Until Danny Ainge figures out what he’s doing there, little else matters. As we wait for this decision, we also must face the rest of the offseason, which means it is also rumor season. With that time of year, comes plenty of information floating [...]

42
14 days ago

Final Grade: Avery Bradley (C+)

In his third year in the league, in which promising players often make brash leaps from benchwarmer to starter, from starter to star, Avery Bradley took a big step back. But his regression might be deceptive. When he returned to the Celtics’ lineup on January the 2nd after two in-season months recovering from offseason shoulder [...]

9
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A Reason to be Thankful: It’s not 1997

At halftime* last night, I flipped over to watch the last few minutes of the Wizards-Bobcats game to find the Wizards’ crew talking about how Washington hadn’t yet beaten a team in its own division (the Southeast); they were 0-14 (or something like that) before rallying to beat the Bobcats, 95-93. (If a “rally” can include two straight turnovers on inbounds passes in the last 1:30).

The network broadcasting the game put up a graphic showing the worst divisional records in NBA history. No team has ever gone through a full season without a division win. Three or four have managed just one, and none had a worse record than the 1996-97 Celtics’ 1-23 showing in what was then a seven-team Atlantic Division. (The other one-win teams were 1-15, reflecting the less division-heavy schedule teams play now). If you’re reading this site, I probably don’t have to remind you this was the M.L. Carr-coached team that inarguably tanked in an effort to get Tim Duncan.

That one win? It came against Philly in the 81st game of the season. Here’s the box score from the epic 119-113 conquest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holy crap, that was a terrible team. Fun fact: Brett Szabo, Nate Driggers and Steve Hamer never played a game in the NBA again after the ’97 season, according to their Basketball Reference pages.

So, yeah. Last night’s loss was tough but it was nice to get a random reminder of the 1997 season, when I was in college in New Hampshire openly cheering for the team to lose and then talking myself into Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer. “It’s not Duncan, but Ron Mercer should score 18 a game right away in the NBA with that mid-range jumper.” Yup.

 

*Is it possible it wasn’t halftime given that both were East Coast games? Maybe. Let’s just say I flipped over during some break in the C’s game.

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