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5 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 [...]

16
6 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
7 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 [...]

92
7 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
11 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
11 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 [...]

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Inside the Drafting of Avery Bradley

Henry Abbott did something rare: he convinced Dan Fegan, a powerful agent who represents John Wall and many NBA players, to allow Abbott to trail him during the chaos of draft day.

Lucky thing for us: Fegan also represents Avery Bradley, the C’s first-round draft pick. And given Bradley’s recent ankle injury, convincing a team to pick Bradley in the top 20 proved to be a lot more work than convincing the Wizards to take Wall. Abbott had an up-close look at the last day of that work, which involved calling all the GMs in the 15-20 range and sending one of Fegan’s agents to spend the day with Bradley’s family in Seattle, where he was instructed to gently prep them for the possibility that Avery might fall far much further than they had expected.

It also involved constructing a way to pitch Bradley to Danny Ainge, Sam Presti and the other GMs in Bradley’s range, and that narrative is an encouraging one for Celtics fans:

After talking it out, he rejects that approach, and settles on a different theme: Bradley is the 2010 version of another Fegan client, Jrue Holiday. The two, he says, are “eerily similar.” Both were touted, coming out of high school, as top five talent. Both played out of position in college, for a team that won less than expected. Both slipped from the top five on the draft board, even though — as goes Fegan’s talk — time will show both are among the best picks in their respective drafts.

Fegan seems able to get any GM, owner or coach on the phone in moments, and does, nearly all day. Larry Bird, R.C. Buford, Danny Ainge, Mark Cuban, Sam Presti … They and many others hear this pitch…

And maybe it works. Fegan delivers his Bradley-as-Holiday talk to Ainge Thursday afternoon, and sure enough the Celtics pluck Bradley 19th.

Go read the whole piece. It’s a fun read, with nice photos alongside.

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