Friday, June 23, 2006
Trouble Every Day
First of all, sorry for yet again falling off the face of the planet, but this summer is going to probably have a couple more sudden mini-sabbaticals. Big changes are in the works, including relocation, career re-evaluation and reconciliatory gestures with angry kinda-ex-girlfriends. As always, I beg you to bear with me and appreciate yr continued interest in the site.
Anyway, as we approach the draft, the talk out there in Celtics land is downright terrifying. A friend tells us he heard a report on WEEI this morning that Ainge is looking to move up in the draft, dangling Perk and the #7 for whoever will bite in the top 5. This is being done, apparently, in order to acquire the services of LaMarcus Aldridge, aka, "the guy no one really wants to pick because everyone compares him to Mark Blount."
Admittedly, I don't follow college hoops beyond the local Jim Calhoun ego stroke-a-thon, but I've read all the reports on Aldridge and if this is true it's so fucked up it almost hurts to ponder. We're trading our only viable big man (and the only legitimate draft steal from the Ainge era) for a guy who is at best, two years away from being a semi-upgrade. Perk may not be all-world, but he's tough, he can rebound, he can block shots, and he has shown more improvement over the past three years than any of our other lauded draft picks. Not to mention, he has developed into something of a fan favorite.
Of course, Perk's biggest weakness is that Coc doesn't like him, which has been apparent in the way he screws with his minutes, pisses all over him to the press, and generally mishandles his career. It's a testament to Perk's simple yet patent contributions that Coc still has to find a way to put him on the court, but I can only imagine what kind of monstrous spin the organization is going to unearth in order to justify trading our toughest interior presence when toughness and interior presence are exactly what the team has lacked for the past 10 years. Sorry Wyc, you can't blame this one on Ricky D!
As for Aldridge, who the fuck knows, but from a point of simple logic, most draft scenarios have Aldridge probably available at 7 anyway. A typical mock, shaped by the putative promises that are floating around, looks something like this
1) Toronto – Bargnani
2) Chicago – Tyrus Thomas
3) Bobcats – Morrison/Gay/Roy
4) Portland – Morrison/Roy
5) Atlanta – Sheldon Williams
6) Minnesota – Gay/Roy or Aldridge
7) Celtics – Aldridge/Gay/Williams
Of course, we can all choke on the irony that if Coc and Scalafuckhead had simply ditched the last game of the season, we could have picked Aldridge up at 6 where he's virtually guaranteed to be available. It is my relentless hope that if this trade comes to pass, someone in the legitimate media points out that this one superfluous salve to Coc's wounded ego could cost us Kendrick Perkins.
And then there's the whole deal with re-signing Paul Pierce, and the apparent promise being made to him that we will trade the young players for some of superstar Paul's beloved "veterans" in an effort to annihilate what little progress the franchise has made over the past 4 years and content ourselves with being a perpetual 7th seed in the playoffs. The obvious candidates include: Green/Jefferson/picks for Jermaine O'Neal. Conditional pick/Inmate #42 for Mike James sign-n-trade. LaFrentz/pick for Ratliff "save Wyc $11 million" deal. Or the ever popular, "Dan Dickau for two future second round picks."
In all cases, the winds bode ill fortune. Wyc has decided that it is more important to preserve his goofy trophy-friendship with Paul Pierce than it is to build a winner, and the franchise will be relegated to perpetual "tinkering" status while the entire league ebbs and flows around our static irrelevance. In the words of the great Eric Gaffney, "as the world dies the eyes of god grow larger."
Anyway, as we approach the draft, the talk out there in Celtics land is downright terrifying. A friend tells us he heard a report on WEEI this morning that Ainge is looking to move up in the draft, dangling Perk and the #7 for whoever will bite in the top 5. This is being done, apparently, in order to acquire the services of LaMarcus Aldridge, aka, "the guy no one really wants to pick because everyone compares him to Mark Blount."
Admittedly, I don't follow college hoops beyond the local Jim Calhoun ego stroke-a-thon, but I've read all the reports on Aldridge and if this is true it's so fucked up it almost hurts to ponder. We're trading our only viable big man (and the only legitimate draft steal from the Ainge era) for a guy who is at best, two years away from being a semi-upgrade. Perk may not be all-world, but he's tough, he can rebound, he can block shots, and he has shown more improvement over the past three years than any of our other lauded draft picks. Not to mention, he has developed into something of a fan favorite.
Of course, Perk's biggest weakness is that Coc doesn't like him, which has been apparent in the way he screws with his minutes, pisses all over him to the press, and generally mishandles his career. It's a testament to Perk's simple yet patent contributions that Coc still has to find a way to put him on the court, but I can only imagine what kind of monstrous spin the organization is going to unearth in order to justify trading our toughest interior presence when toughness and interior presence are exactly what the team has lacked for the past 10 years. Sorry Wyc, you can't blame this one on Ricky D!
As for Aldridge, who the fuck knows, but from a point of simple logic, most draft scenarios have Aldridge probably available at 7 anyway. A typical mock, shaped by the putative promises that are floating around, looks something like this
1) Toronto – Bargnani
2) Chicago – Tyrus Thomas
3) Bobcats – Morrison/Gay/Roy
4) Portland – Morrison/Roy
5) Atlanta – Sheldon Williams
6) Minnesota – Gay/Roy or Aldridge
7) Celtics – Aldridge/Gay/Williams
Of course, we can all choke on the irony that if Coc and Scalafuckhead had simply ditched the last game of the season, we could have picked Aldridge up at 6 where he's virtually guaranteed to be available. It is my relentless hope that if this trade comes to pass, someone in the legitimate media points out that this one superfluous salve to Coc's wounded ego could cost us Kendrick Perkins.
And then there's the whole deal with re-signing Paul Pierce, and the apparent promise being made to him that we will trade the young players for some of superstar Paul's beloved "veterans" in an effort to annihilate what little progress the franchise has made over the past 4 years and content ourselves with being a perpetual 7th seed in the playoffs. The obvious candidates include: Green/Jefferson/picks for Jermaine O'Neal. Conditional pick/Inmate #42 for Mike James sign-n-trade. LaFrentz/pick for Ratliff "save Wyc $11 million" deal. Or the ever popular, "Dan Dickau for two future second round picks."
In all cases, the winds bode ill fortune. Wyc has decided that it is more important to preserve his goofy trophy-friendship with Paul Pierce than it is to build a winner, and the franchise will be relegated to perpetual "tinkering" status while the entire league ebbs and flows around our static irrelevance. In the words of the great Eric Gaffney, "as the world dies the eyes of god grow larger."
# posted by Dr. Chestnutt @ 10:52 AM 
