The Herald has a really interesting piece regarding how ‘Sheed feels about his mounting technical fouls:
“The last two teams I’ve been on, here and Detroit, after they made up the Sheed Wallace rule about the techs and the suspensions, this team is talented enough and that Detroit team was talented enough to win a game without me.. . . . It’s like being injured where you might have a little stinger so you’ve got to sit out a game or two. It’s like that. What’s your team going to do then? They’re going to step up.”
I definitely had to read that again to make sure I read it right. For the record, let me just re-quote the interesting part:
It’s like being injured where you might have a little stinger so you’ve got to sit out a game or two. It’s like that. What’s your team going to do then? They’re going to step up.”
Quite the window into irrational thinking, don’t you think?
Well Rasheed, what happens if other members of your team have “real” stingers? Like maybe right now. To ‘Sheed, it seems he’s not too concerned with being suspended and missing games. On a personal level? Fine, if that’s the way you feel, how can I tell you otherwise? But he has a team to consider. A team that had to start at center last night because of these little stingers. I knew of ‘Sheed’s antics, anger management problems, and other eccentricities before he came to Boston, but I never thought he wasn’t a team player.
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Reflections on a Decade: The 10 Best Personnel Moves of the 2000s
December 31st, 2009Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be reflecting now and then on the last decade of C’s fandom.
Forthwith, the 10 best personnel moves of the aughts:
#10: Celtics sign Antoine Walker to six-year, $53 million deal and trade him to Miami for Curtis Borchardt, Qyntel Woods, the rights to Albert Miralles and two future second-round picks (Edin Bavic, Nikola Pekovic) as part of a five-team, 13-player trade. (Aug. 2, 2005)
You have to know when it’s over. And six months after acquiring ‘Toine largely to appease Paul Pierce and an angry fan base, Danny Ainge knew it was over for Employee #8. He understood ‘Toine would never be an All-Star-level player again, that he wanted far more money than he was worth and that it was time to end—permanently, this time—the tenure of Antoine Walker in a Celtic uniform.
(Side note: The C’s acquired ‘Toine from the Hawks in February 2005 for a package headlined by Gary Payton, Tom Gugliotta and a first-round pick that became Rajon Rondo. That’s right, the C’s gave this pick away to get Antoine Walker back in 2005. How lucky is Boston—and Danny Ainge—that this pick found its way to a cheap-o franchise like Phoenix which would be more than willing to give it away for nothing?)
(Side note #2: If you want to read a feel-good magazine story that looked hilariously ridiculous just months after it ran, check out this ESPN the Magazine piece about the C’s re-acquiring ‘Toine. It’s all about how Danny Ainge overcame his personal distaste for ‘Toine’s game, how ‘Toine lost weight and reinvented himself as a low-post threat and how the C’s brass never fully understood ‘Toine’s positive impact in the locker room. Less than half a year after this story ran, the C’s unloaded ‘Toine for nothing).
In the first of many, many sad codas to ‘Toine’s Celtic career, the team accepted nothing in terms of basketball talent in exchange for shoving his salary off onto someone else. The C’s waived Borchardt and Woods before the start of the 2005 season, meaning neither ever suited up for the C’s in a regular season game. Miralles, Bavic and Pekovic never played for Boston, either.
Part of being a smart executive in the salary cap era is knowing when you’ve screwed up and finding a way to undo the screw-ups as quickly as possible. Announcing to the world, “I have made an awful decision” isn’t easy. Lots of GMs aren’t willing to do it. Ainge is, and the C’s are better for it.
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