Ainge Calls Villanueva Self-Promoter & His Accusation “Ludicrous”

Posted by Brian Robb on Nov 4, 2010 1042524 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2010%2F11%2F04%2Fainge-calls-villanueva-self-promoter-calls-accusation-ludicrous%2FAinge+Calls+Villanueva+Self-Promoter+%26+His+Accusation+%22Ludicrous%222010-11-04+21%3A49%3A35Brian+Robbhttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D10425

Just in case you had any further questions about where the Celtics orgainiziation stood on the Kevin Garnett “cancer patient” comment accusation, Celtic President of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge spoke today on sports radio 850 WEEI in Boston. In the interview, Ainge gave stauch support to his power forward, and had some choice words for Pistons power forward Charlie Villanueva on the accusations: (Via ESPNBoston.com)

“There’s one thing that I know for sure, and it’s that KG would not offend cancer patients. That makes no sense. It makes no sense on a lot of fronts. Not only is he experiencing it in his own family, but that’s just not something I’ve ever heard — in 30 years — ever say, in trash talking. What is logical in a trash talking situation for a player to say to another player, ‘You have cancer’ or ‘You are cancer’?

“And the other point I’d like to make, before we move on to real basketball, is … tweeting is about self-promotion in most cases. He’s [Villanueva] not trying to be a public servant by telling everybody. As a matter of fact he’s the one who brings light to this attention, and if anybody is offended it’s Charlie Villanueva who has brought that to attention, not KG.

“Second of all, Charlie would never tweet ‘KG said to me I am a cancer’ because that’s embarrassing to Charlie. So he tries to discredit Kevin Garnett and he tries to bring sympathy to himself.

“There’s self-promotion in tweeting — all the time. You are talking about a guy who tweets in the middle of a game. Talk about self-promotion. I just think this is just, we know who KG is. Talk about what you like or don’t like about KG this is ludicrous.”

Who to believe KG or Villanueva?

“First of all, both players have completely different stories. One guy has a twitter account where he blurts things out, that’s the first thing. Doc said he heard what KG said and I believe Doc. Doc’s not going to say that if it’s not true. I believe Doc and I believe KG.”

Head coach Doc Rivers also stood in strong support of Garnett in an interview on WEEI this morning with Dennis and Callahan, as he did last night before the game. The good news for KG? Paul Pierce hitting the 20,000 point plateau took a lot of attention and media scrutiny off this story. I still maintain that Garnett should have issued a statement earlier in the day to help with damage control in the situation, an issue Ainge spoke about more in his interview:

“If Charlie Villanueva is not telling the truth, which KG says he’s not, everybody is going to believe it and it and it becomes a story. And that’s another thing I don’t like about it. It’s too easy to just sit there on your phone and not stand in front of a TV camera and fess up to some of these things. It’s much easier to just put it out there and people are going to believe it. I don’t like that fact that anybody anywhere can just write something. You can ruin a person’s reputation … anytime you want without any consequence, I don’t like that. I think it’s wrong. I think that Charlie was wrong — and there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it — by doing this.”

Click HERE to listen to the full interview on WEEI.com