Celtics Official Site Symposium: Part I

Posted by Hayes Davenport on Dec 14, 2010 1213212 commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F2010%2F12%2F14%2Fceltics-official-site-symposium-part-i%2FCeltics+Official+Site+Symposium%3A+Part+I2010-12-14+16%3A45%3A28Hayes+Davenporthttp%3A%2F%2Fcelticshub.com%2F%3Fp%3D12132

As far as technological prowess goes in the NBA, the C’s are wired. About 50% of the roster has a super-active twitter account, one of them basically pioneered celebrity tweeting, and another has a devoted community of online Call of Duty gamers that he sometimes communicates with during games via hand signals.

A bunch of them also have “official sites.” These are glossy homepages containing their bios, their foundation informations, their fake blogs, etc. It’s basically everything the player’s PR team wants to tell you about the player.

Some of the Celtics don’t have official sites. Shaq, for example, somehow doesn’t. KG doesn’t because he probably considers the Internet to be a poor use of his time. Ray’s is under construction, unless you’re talking about his side project manufacturing bite sleeves for training attack dogs.

But a few of them do. And for some reason I feel like it’s worth your time to take a look at them.

This is the first part of a primer introducing you to Celtics player homepages, beginning with the team’s and possibly the NBA’s best: paulpierce.net.

Paulpierce.net is quite simply the class of NBA player homepages. If there were any more on this site it would be too much, any less too little. To enter it into your search bar is to enter official site Elysium.

DESIGN

On the landing page, you’re presented with a majestic set of rotating images, combined with a variety of quotations containing the word “truth” and compelling you to reconsider each quote and think about how it applies to Paul Pierce. All the images are great, and there’s a nice variety of game action, championship celebration, and photoshoots where he wears a fedora. As a bonus, the images and quotes rotate at different speeds from each other. It’s that extra effort that makes for great web design, folks.

Most importantly, there’s not too much going on here. Note the fonts: bold, but not flashy or cyber-futuristic like you’ll find on many NBA player pages. No triumphal music. No excessive animated intros and blinking gimmickry all over the place (*cough*). This is a dignified site for a dignified small forward.

WRITTEN CONTENT

Actually worth reading, which distinguishes paulpierce.net from every athlete homepage ever. His bio is totally engaging and mercifully short on inspirational nonsense, and there’s a whole page on the always-repeatable story of how Pierce earned his nickname. Elsewhere, there’s an entire section dedicated to the 2008 championship run, with a short essay about each round with quotes. I read all of them and it was amazing.

Best of all, none of it is in the first person as if Pierce wrote it himself, the cardinal sin of sites of this kind. For example, Amar’e Stoudemire did not write this. Paulpierce.net has too much respect for you to make preposterous claims.

VIDEOS/OTHER MEDIA

No shortage, and almost all of them are watch-worthy: all of his late night appearances are up, plus a couple of great commercials including my favorite where he tucks himself in with the 2008 banner and kisses the O’Brien trophy goodnight. (I can’t link to it). My only complaint about paulpierce.net is that by some horrible accident they forgot this one:

JUDGMENT

Bravo, paulpierce.net. You stand as a shining example for NBA player official sites…no, all official sites. May your tasteful design be cached in search engines forever.