SB Nation User Blog: indeedproceed

Big Baby's Fight: Just a Tribute To Basketball Jesus?

indeedproceed — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:22:52 -0000

Glen "Big Baby" Davis is only 23 years old, and as his nickname implies, he's not the most mature of the Celtics. However, is what he did anything new? Not according to Dan Shaughnessy.

According to Dan the Man, Big Baby is nothing special. Athletes have been acting their age for years, and even his holiness Larry Joe had an ill advised adventure in amateur late night pugilism.

Per Shaughnessy's article:

t’s not a good situation. But let’s not throw Big Baby out with the bathwater. This stuff is as old as dirt. Young athletes have been doing goofy things at odd hours since before the days of the original Big Baby, George Herman Ruth.

It even happened to Larry Bird.

That’s right.

Larry Bird.

On the night of May 16, 1985, in the middle of the Eastern Conference finals between the Celtics and Sixers, Bird was involved in a scuffle that started at a now-defunct bar called Chelsea’s and spilled out to the corner of State Street and Merchant’s Row. After the altercation, Mike Harlow, a bartender/former Colgate football player, claimed he was sucker-punched by Bird. Nick Harris, a man who was with Bird and Quinn Buckner on the night of the incident, was treated at Massachusetts General Hospital’s emergency room that night.

There was a lawsuit and a settlement. The Celtics told Bird to stay away from Harris. None of the parties ever talked about it.

Ever.

First of all, if Larry Bird punched you in the mug, the correct response is 'thank you sir, may I have another'. If this thing called a 'Mike Harlow' would have had the foresight to make a cast of the four knuckle imprints on his face, he could have parlayed his late night encounter into a lucrative career as a novelties salesman, but that's neither here nor there.

Shaughnessy isn't just relying on a 'Mike Harlow" either. He's got a fairly famous source in the article.

In MacMullan’s new book, Bird says, "Max was out of shape when he came back. He didn’t do the rehab the way they asked. I was so pissed at him, because he was so good . . . He got his money, and he quit. I like Max, but that’s the bottom line.’’

"So it was all me?’’ Max said before the Celtics’ home opener Wednesday. "We got four Hall of Famers on the team, but the reason we didn’t win was all my fault? I must have been a beast!’’

He was laughing, but he was serious.

"Hey, we got a guy who gets his hand busted up in a barroom fight. That wasn’t me. But I’m never going to win this one. He’s Larry Bird!’’

Max has a point. Bird’s right index finger was badly swollen in the days after the fight. He claimed he injured it May 18 in a game at Philadelphia, two days after the fight. He shot 46 percent in the ’85 playoffs. In his other two MVP seasons, when the Celtics won the championship, he shot 52 percent each year.

So where does all this leave us? Let's assume the story is true as told, but where does it leave us? Baby was out at 4 am with his buddy, who was intoxicated. They got into a fight and now Baby is deep in the doghouse.

Bird gets into a bar-fight (well technically it's an 'out of bar fight') and the team settles and moves on. The team loses in the finals that year while Bird suffers through below par shooting and a supposedly (according to Danny Boy) swollen finger on his shooting hand. Bird gets a wrap from the newspaper on the nose and the team pays out to keep it quiet. Baby gets a broken finger (allegedly from the fight, but we all know Wyc did it in a fit of rage) and dragged through the papers, and apparently he is facing suspension. What can we learn from all this?

Well we can learn that first and foremost teams take care of their superstars. If Garnett had thrown a right hook at someone for saying salacious sentences about his lady, the team would rally behind him. Wyc would really behind him, because he's part of the face of the franchise, because he's Kevin Garnett, and the Kevin Garnett we all know from the TV commercials doesn't party until 4am and get in fights.

But there is a second lesson here which I think ought to be just as important. This isn't 1985. In 1985 the NBA wasn't clean cut. Compared to today's league, and the expectations from managment as well as fans regarding players' conduct, the league back then was a loosely organizated assortmant of ruffians and vagabonds. Go ahead and youtube "Mchale Rambis"..then youtube "rondo miller". You have to watch closely, the difference is subtle.

Thanks in part to public friendly (and image conscious or more likely image managed) players like Larry Bird, Majic Johnson, or Micheal Jordan, NBA players are expected to just be better. Better athletes, better looking, heck just overall better people.

So I guess before we get all rilied up about how Glen Davis was "only being 23", or how "Larry Bird even did it, let's not over react", maybe we ought to keep in mind that times have changed. It shouldn't surprise anyone that someone named "Basketball Jesus" could get away with a sucker punch in the wee hours of the morning over 20 years ago, but in the age of blogs, and face-space and my-book and that god foresaken thing called twitter, it shouldn't surprise us that Big Baby getting in a fight at 4am and sidelining himself for months is a big freakin deal.

Marc Spears: Celtics want money from Davis too?

indeedproceed — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:19:19 -0000

The Celtics re-signed Davis this summer to a two-year contract worth $6.3 million. The Boston Globe reported that owner Wyc Grousbeck is considering suspending Davis for his actions.

"Wyc has been on the warpath for two days over this," a league source told Yahoo! Sports. "They want to get money back from him."- Yahoo Sports' Marc J Spears

Update: Our resident Cap Expert Roy Hobbs points out in the comments that the above mentioned concept of the Celtics' getting money back from Glen is severely flawed. Monies recovered from a player go to charity, not to the team

Thoughts and more quotes after the break.

My first reaction was "no-no-no-no-no" because every time a team goes after an athlete's money it seems petty, but I can't fault the team for wanting to get money back when their player was injured in an incident that was entirely preventable, and was completely unrelated to basketball.

2:28 [Comment From IndeedProceed] Your head says Cleveland is the best team in the east. On paper...

indeedproceed — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:29:17 -0000

2:28 [Comment From IndeedProceed] Your head says Cleveland is the best team in the east. On paper it looks like Cleveland is the best team in the East. What does your gut say though if Cleveland faces Beantown in the ECF?

2:28 KDonhoops(Kelly Dwyer): Oh, CLE. The Cavs destroyed them last year. Pierce had no chance with LeBron.

Ball Don't Lie Central Preview Chat 10/19

Cleveland Cavaliers Print Finals Tickets (via BDL)

indeedproceed — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:26:09 -0000

Via BDL

Cleveland Cavaliers- (n), formerly mediocre basketball team from Cleveland, Ohio. See also: HUBRIS

via www.waitingfornextyear.com

The picture to the left (actually above) is of the ticket lot that would be for the actual NBA Finals – four games nonetheless. Obviously, the team feels relatively confident that LeBron, Shaq and Company will at least find themselves among the top eight teams in the east.

With that, printing the whole batch of tickets now would likely be less expensive than printing, binding and mailing one set now and then doing the same thing come March or April.

However, given what has occurred over the past 40 years (the XL patch can remind us all), I would not fault any Cleveland fan if they felt any sort of superstitious jinx-like event by merely looking at the tickets.

Are you kidding me Cleveland? Maybe it would be better to just go on ahead and manufacture a Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy too, and just stay home. I mean this is Cleveland, Ohio. The town that made this video.....and this video. (both hilarious)

Do you really need to spit in lady fate's mug and tempt the basketball gods? How many games has LeBron James missed due to injury? Like 3? Seems like he's due.......

The Confidentally Optimistic Bill Walker

indeedproceed — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:30:55 -0000

via multimedia.heraldinteractive.com

Bill Walker is the one. He's the guy the true die-hards know is our best shot. Not to win a championship, not to be an All-Star (at least this year), but he's our best shot at being "the young guy that makes good". We've been taunted and teased before, but sometimes...sometimes it works out. The last guy that worked out was Rajon Rondo. Before that it was "Big" Al Jefferson. We've been disappointed before though too. Gerald Green, Oriene Green (don't trust anyone named Green), Sebastian Telfair, the list goes on. But this kid is special. He brings an intensity on the court we didn't see from either Gerald or Oriene. Off the court he brings a sense of responsibility and duty that would make Ray Allen blush. Today's news just reinforces what we already know about ol' Billy.

Per Today's Herald:

Bill Walker is another of those great positive thinkers.

Mere days after having the fourth knee surgery of his young life, the 21-year-old Celtics forward said yesterday that the recovery process “is going to be one of the easiest rehabs I’ve had. Of all my injuries, this is going to be the easiest one.”

Doctors have told Walker, who turns 22 on Friday, that recovery will take 6-8 weeks, but Walker has a shorter period in mind until his return to the court.
“Four weeks,” he said, jaw set, during a visit to the team’s Waltham practice facility for treatment.

Honestly I have never been as disappointed in the Celtics as I was when Danny Ainge opted to let Leon Powe walk when all it would have taken was a minimum contract offer. It wasn't because Leon Powe was going to be an All-Star this year, it was because Leon Powe never gives up, he never surrenders, and he never waivers in his drive and confidence in himself as a player. You need guys like that on your team. They don't complain, they don't cause problems. They just sit, they play their role, they learn, and they wait for their chance like a pitbull waiting for a big juicy steak. That's Bill Walker right there. That's why he's different.

Yet Another Celtics Preview: Ball Don't Lie

indeedproceed — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:26:10 -0000

It's that time again. Ball Don't Lie, the best general NBA blog out there (and a fine friend of SBNation) has come out with a shiny spiffy super spectacular preview of our beloved Boston "Basketball" Celtics. Some excerpts and thoughts below.

The meat of the preview as always comes from the man with the adamantium fingers, Kelly Dwyer. Basically he uses 800 words to tell us what we already know; that is our season rides on a certain six foot twelve inch power forward with possible office stationary in his knees.However, in proper BDL form he brings the in depth insight.

For one, his injury isn't a typical basketball-styled malady. There's nothing to fall back on, no "oh, I remember Boozer having that a few years back, he wasn't right until January, but he was fine eventually." Apparently his tendons had to be stapled back onto his right knee. Apparently he was limping around in practice last week. Apparently things are going to be fine by the end of October. Apparently, C's fans haven't had fingernails to chew since last February.

Additionally, because Garnett is such a unique player, there's no real telling from game to game just what his teammates need to do in his absence, should there be an absence to make up for. Because he does so much defensively to disrupt a game, alongside the usual all-world stat lines, it's not as simple as looking to run more for Paul Pierce or letting Rajon Rondo dominate the ball a bit more.

The second paragraph especially speaks to what is at the heart of the problem we faced last year. Even with a dramatically improved Glen Davis, and somehow better (for one out of two playoff series) Rajon Rondo, we still weren't THE Boston Celtics from 2008-2009. It wasn't like we were the same but worse...we were a completely different team. Different identity, different style. That's what Garnett brings beyond stat lines and cool commercials.

However, Dwyer isn't all doom and gloom. I don't know if you heard, but we added some decent players this offseason.

On Rasheed Wallace:

Rasheed can't replace what Garnett brings at all angles if KG were to step aside, but he's just about the closest thing there is to that.

On Daniels:

Marquis Daniels can really play. I have misgivings about his ability as a reserve point man, but he can help this team if the motivation is there.

Beyond that, it's mostly rosy with a touch of possible not that terrible gloom. Basically Dwyer's take is that we're going to be as good as Garnett is healthy, but after that we have all the tools.

On Rondo:

Rondo has a great chance to become the fifth All-Star on Boston's roster. That's up to him, and on a team with this much peer pressure, I don't expect Rondo to fall backward like he did for some stretches in 2008-09.

On Perkins:

Kendrick Perkins, assuming he continues to stay in shape, will continue to improve. He's not even 25 yet, and if Kendrick Perkins is the weak link in you're starting lineup, than you're doing pretty well.

And possibly the brightest spot of the article, Dwyer gives major props to the Captain (which shouldn't be that big a surprise considering this).

The rock here is Paul Pierce. He put the Celtics on his back to lead them into the playoffs with Garnett on the pine last year, he carried the team for years with no help, and though he might level off a bit in his 12th season, he should be there again in 2009-10. No matter what's falling or rising around him. Points, points in the fourth quarter, helping the team toward the win.

All in all, Dwyer expects good, but not nessecarily great things.

The team will win. As high as the low 60s, if KG is around and playing as well as can be reasonably expected. Possibly the high 40s or low 50s, if KG struggles. I hope this doesn't come off as flip, but the team is just going to have to try and make it to the playoffs with tendons intact. This group is made for the postseason, and the trick is going to be getting there with everyone on board this time around. You already knew that. Let's see what happens.

The rest of the article is worth checking out, there is this awesome picture:

via a323.yahoofs.com

There's still other stuff worth seeing, so I recommend you check it out in its entirety.

Do I like that I don't even see the words "Unquestioned 2009-2010 NBA Champions"? No. I don't. Do I like that the phrase "Best team ever assembled within the realm of understood written history" does not appear even ONCE in the article? No sir. However that aside, great work.

BDL Ranks The top 10 NBA coaches of the last decade

indeedproceed — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:30:14 -0000

BDL Ranks The top 10 NBA coaches of the last decade

#10: Larry Brown #9: Pat Riley #8: Jerry Sloan #7: Scott Skiles #6: Mike D'Antoni #5: Flip Saunders #4: Stan Van Gundy #3: Hubie Brown #2: Phil Jackson #1: Gregg Popovich

===========================================================

6 of them haven't won a title. 7 Haven't won the COTY award this decade. 4 of them have been run off rather dramatically from a team they had previous success on. Not one is named Doc Rivers. Shenanigans!

EDIT: You can have your say with Mr. Dwyer in this live chat (going on now)

"It’s crazy," Garnett said after his second practice of training camp yesterday. "I was over there t...

indeedproceed — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:31:17 -0000

"It’s crazy," Garnett said after his second practice of training camp yesterday. "I was over there talking to Tony Allen and he was telling me about his knee, and he told me, ‘Kevin, don’t think about your leg,’ and I try to keep that in the back of my mind. I just try to play, man."

Asked to place a percentage on his recovery, the forward shook his head.

"It’s not a matter of what I can’t do or whatever - just from power and strength and not having the option to play, is difficult," he said. "Like you see when I sprint, I can’t just (makes sound of revving motor) like I want to. Eighty-five percent, 90 percent would be pretty accurate."

Mark Murphy from the Herald via Truehoop

"I think the LA Lakers, considering their team of Gasol, Kobe, Tru Wariar (Artest), and considering...

indeedproceed — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:15:28 -0000

"I think the LA Lakers, considering their team of Gasol, Kobe, Tru Wariar (Artest), and considering their schedule, are really poised to challenge the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls’ record of 72 wins. Their schedule, their first 21 games, four of them are on the road…one against Okalahoma City…one against Houston…one against Denver. Ok, lets call that a loss…..one against Golden State…the Lakers should be 20-1 after their first 21 games.

Should they win it all? Ummm..Well I think, if they’re all healthy, I like the Boston Celtics."

-Reggie Miller, paraphrased from NBA Real Training Camp Livestream

Live Streaming Training Camp Footage

indeedproceed — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:36:27 -0000

Live Streaming Training Camp Footage

(via BDL)

Looks like its part of a NBA2k10 promotion, its gonna stream live at 1pm today with the Nuggets, Thurs (10/1) with the Lakers, SATURDAY (10/3) WITH THE CELTICS, next Monday (10/5) with the WIzards, next Tues (10/6) with the Hawks. Awesome.