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27 mins ago

5-on-5: Predicting All-Star Reserves

I was a panelist on the 5-on-5 today at ESPN, choosing reserves for the Eastern and Western Conference all-star teams. I took two Celtics, as noted below. Hit the link to read the rest. 1. Which East and West point guards should be chosen as All-Star reserves? Ryan DeGama, CelticsHub: East: Deron Williams, Rajon Rondo [...]

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1 day ago

Greg Stiemsma’s Contract To Become Fully Guaranteed

The C’s gave their 26-year-old rookie a vote of confidence before Tuesday’s game. By not waiving the seven-footer, Stiemsma’s contract will become fully guaranteed on Friday, allowing the shot blocker to breath a little bit and perhaps unpack some boxes for good in Beantown. Here’s Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston with some reaction from Stiemsma and [...]

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2 days ago

5 Questions With Kemba Walker

I had a chance to talk with Bobcats rookie Kemba Walker prior to the Celtics game against Charlotte on Tuesday night.  Here is what the UConn star, who is averaging 12.3 points, 4 rebounds, and 3.6 assists per game had to say. 1. How much communication have you had with Michael Jordan this year? Walker: [...]

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3 days ago

I Am Awesome!

Yes. This is a “pat myself on the back” post because a) I’m a jackass and b) I predicted something correctly. Back on January 8th, I predicted that the next ten games will tell us everything we need to know about this Celtics’ team. If they struggled, it was time to blow it up. If [...]

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3 days ago

Pierce Wins Eastern Conference Player Of Week

One day before he’s scheduled to pass Larry Bird for second on the Celtics’ all-time scoring list, Paul Pierce won the Eastern Conference Player of the Week award. Pierce averaged 22 points, 6.3 assists and 5.8 rebounds in four Boston wins, playing point forward in Rajon Rondo’s absence. Pierce is only 9 points behind Bird [...]

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4 days ago

Garnett’s Wondrous 3-point Rant

Via ESPN Boston’s Chris Forsberg, who knows a great, playful rant when he hears one, here’s Kevin Garnett discussing his not-so-newfound aptitude for three-point shooting after the C’s took down the Grizzlies. “When I walk around the streets, y’all stop acting like y’all shocked that I can shoot 3’s. Everybody in Boston, everybody in the [...]

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In Praise of Tanking?

I don’t have time today to take a detailed look back at the Spurs 1996-7 campaign, but I remember media openly discussed the fact that the Spurs didn’t exactly rush David Robinson, Sean Elliott and others back from injury as their record got worse and worse.

And then comes this excerpt from the San Antonio Express-News in a longer piece (worth reading, for sure) about the Admiral’s upcoming Hall of Fame induction:

A little more than a year later, Robinson threw out his back, then broke his foot, forcing him to sit and watch for the last 31/2 months of the 1996-97 season.

A frightful, 62-loss disaster ensued.

“Ridiculous,” Robinson said, recalling the year in which most of the Spurs’ front-line players went down with injuries. “It was a mess.”

It was also the start of something divine. The Spurs won the lottery in 1997 and claimed the No. 1 draft pick, power forward Tim Duncan.

Duncan has since led the Spurs to four NBA titles.

-snip- (TM Rob Neyer)

“That was a loss that was a win,” former Spurs guard Avery Johnson said. “It’s amazing when you lose and you’re winning at the same time. When you’re going through it, you don’t even recognize it.”

The Celtics (15-67) and the Grizz were actually worse than San Antonio that season, and I think we’d all admit the C’s were not trying their best to win games once the season became hopeless. All of the bottom-feeders had Duncan in mind, and they adjusted their rotations and commitment to winning accordingly.

There have been all sorts of proposals—some decent, some ridiculous—about how the league can prevent an annual race to the bottom. Should the league abandon the lottery in favor of an NFL-style system in which the worst team gets the first pick? Go back to the coin flip system it used until the Ewing draft in the mid-1980s, in which the two worst teams would flip a coin to determine who picked first? Should every NBA team be involved in the lottery, as Malcolm Gladwell suggested?

I don’t know what the answer is, but I know that 1997 season was among the most tankalicious in league history.

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