Right up until the moment the Celtics drafted "Big Baby" Davis, I was quite happy with the way the draft process shook out this year. Landing Ray Allen should turn out to be an unmitigated disaster for a team that already had an aging, overrated swing player wearing number 34. Not only that, but Ray Allen gets paid quite a bit of money, and the salary cap situation in Boston is dreadful.

I would, I must confess, rather have seen them draft Joakim Noah. I think Noah is going to be terrible. He can't shoot, he was worse than useless against bigger, more athletic players in college and he was compared to a baby wildebeest on ice in this space not entirely unfairly. He got by in college because there were very few players who were bigger and more athletic than him. But this is the NBA. Here's looking at you Chicago. The new Bulls run is ending before it began.

On one peripheral level the Ray Allen move makes sense because the last thing the Celtics need at this point is another young player. However, that is the only thing about this deal that makes sense at this moment. Paul Pierce is more of a slasher (or was before he left his speed somewhere back in 2004), and Allen is a jump shooter. But that doesn't mean they can play together. Both guys have egos, after all.

Even if the intention is to turn around and package Pierce with some young players and try to chase a big man like Garnett or Jermaine O'Neal, where is the logic in trading for a guy who makes fantastical sums of money despite the notable handicap of never having won a title, or a finals game, or a conference finals? Even better, why pair him with Pierce when all those things apply to the "Truth" as well?

Unless I miss my guess (and I'm always ready to admit that my predictions go wrong in spectacular fashion far more than they hit the mark), the Celtics have just taken the first step in the process that will lead them to the inevitable conclusion that they should have traded Al Jefferson this season. With Pierce and Allen squabbling over shots and touches, what will be left for Big Al? Or Ryan Gomes? Or Rajon Rondo? Or Tony Allen if he comes back? Or Gerald Green if he has another discernible skill beyond dunking?

Maybe I am of a one track mind when it comes to the Celtics current management team, but I think that this trade is just one more attempt to get out from under the mill stone that was, is and ever shall be the Walker trade. Since that day, Ainge has been trying to find a player to complement Paul Pierce. Ricky Davis didn't work, and Wally might have worked if he'd stayed healthy for more than 8 seconds. If this were the damn rodeo, he might have had something, but it's basketball. Obviously, Antoine did something right, but Ainge didn't like his game. Ainge must like Allen's game, but he hasn't been right yet.

I say this to avert what I fear could be a series of tragic scuffles, tramplings and scattered outbreaks of hooliganism when Celtics fans flock to their local video rental professionals to clamor for the few remaining copies of He Got Game. Don't get your hopes up, Celtics fans. Or do, so that I can laugh at you and say I told you so over and over again.

The rest of the draft was disappointing. I'm not very familiar with Gabe Pruitt, since I never got a chance to see USC play this season. I do remember Big Baby from the NCAA tournament run LSU put together in 2006. I was favorably impressed, and I felt he should have come out right away. Injuries and the fact that LSU was no longer a surprise team hurt him this year. But I think he was a steal in the second round. I think he is immediately the best option the Cs have at center.

I was hoping for the Cs to draft Josh McRoberts. I even had a nice little seed for a paragraph where I could compare McRoberts to Joe Klein, minus (of course) the athletic ability and the mean streak. Too bad I'm one of about 12 people in the area who remember Klein. But trust me when I tell you, it's an insult. Plus, since the Davis pick seems to work, it doesn't help my School for Scoundrels reference from yesterday, because even though Ainge's self sucks, he did help himself tonight.

So without Noah and without McRoberts coming to Boston, I can only be so happy with the terrible trade that will haunt the Celtics. Although it might be possible that Allen could be insulted and awakened by the fact that he was traded for Jeff Green, Delonte West and the aforementioned Wally, I'm not losing any sleep over that possibility. I suppose I wouldn't be a very good Catholic if I didn't believe in miracles, but I don't expect to see them where the Celtics are concerned.

I was, however, so bummed that the Cs could have had a worse draft that I had to include this mugshot of Larry King.

He is one intense, creepy dude today. But back in the 70s, he was worse. I always assumed that you got more creepy as you aged, but this seems to contradict that notion. Hell, I bet if I'd said that was the Green River Killer, you'd have bought it. Yikes.

The other day I was reading one of the articles Shira Springer wrote on the upcoming NBA Draft. This quote from Cory Brewer struck me as kind of funny:

It reminded me of the film School for Scoundrels. In it, Billy Bob Thornton's character asks his students if they own any self-help books. He then proceeds to inform them that they cannot help themselves because their selves suck. So good luck improving your offense, Cory Brewer, but you might have been better served to find a good offensive player to help you. Self reliance only works if your self doesn't suck.

I think that scene from School for Scoundrels also applies to the Boston Celtics. To be fair, the Celtics have their work cut out for them before they can accurately be said to suck, that's how bad they were last season. But now the Cs have the fifth overall pick in what some people think is a loaded draft. They have young players and expiring contracts. They should be able to help themselves, right?

First, I still don't believe that this draft is loaded. I agree with most people that there isn't a big drop-off in terms of talent between the guys projected to go at three and those projected to go at 17 in the various mock drafts. That doesn't mean the draft is loaded, that means that there are a lot of half-decent players who probably will earn superstar money and never manage to become superstars. Maybe that's what Boston fans want now, an overachieving hustler who will shine for a few years before flaming out, like Kevin Youkilis. But only a moron would give a guy like that the guaranteed money due to be paid the fifth overall pick in this year's NBA draft.

And one can never get around the fact that this ownership group and management team have proven themselves manifestly incapable of producing a winning basketball team. Lest we forget that the Celtics were coming off back-to-back trips to the playoffs when they came on the scene and now apparently tanked games down the stretch. Just say that to yourself: "The Boston Celtics lost games deliberately to improve their draft stock." It hurts, doesn't it?

Danny Ainge, who ought to know better (and would, if he had an IQ approaching room temperature) having played for the Celtics is clearly not the right man for the job. Under his watch, the Celtics have become such a mess that Kevin Garnett threatened to sit rather than be traded to Boston. And when the proposed four team trade that would have sent Garnett to the Lakers was announced, it would have ended with the Celtics giving up the 5th pick and Al Jefferson to get Jermaine O'Neal.

Can you imagine that? Giving up a guy who was good for nearly 17 points and 10 rebounds a night and a top 5 pick for an older player who will might get you 22 and 10? Don't get me wrong, I still think that Al Jefferson's trade value will never be higher. He'll never be as big a part of an NBA offense as he was for the Celtics this season. He's just not good enough. But that doesn't mean they should give him away to help other teams get better.

Of course, for what it's worth, Ainge has come out and said that the team intends to hold on to that fifth pick. That's a frightening thought. Ainge has done some serious damage to this team for years to come, maybe a generation. Boston is on the high road to becoming the new Dallas Mavericks, in the bad 1990s version rather than the bad we have a great regular season team with no guts and an owner who makes the Joaquin Phoenix version of Commodus look like a model of restraint and decorum of contemporary vintage.

The funny thing is that every one I talked to about that trade before the report came across the wire that it was rejected believed it. No one was particularly surprised that a team got the shaft in a multi-team deal and it was the Celtics. 25 years ago and beyond that would have been a scandal, now it's a go figure situation. Ainge can't help the Celtics. Nor can the Celtics help themselves. The culture of mediocrity runs too deep.

I think this isn't a bigger story in Boston because Boston fans are morons. It's not because the Pats and Sox have forced the Celtics out of the limelight. It's because in the years between 1957 and 1991, the Celtics provided their fans with an embarrassment of riches. The teams were so good, so deep and so competitive that the fans never needed to bother understanding why a basketball team wins and loses. It was enough that they were the Celtics and they very nearly always won.

Now the NBA stinks. And the Celtics are worse. But it doesn't bother the fans because the average fan doesn't understand basketball. They just want to see dunks and buzzer-beaters. It matters very little that other plays have to be made to set up the dunk and the buzzer-beater. It also doesn't matter that every fan who booed Antoine Walker when he played for the Celtics and thought the team would be better if they ran every play through Paul Pierce could not have been more wrong. Boston fans just want to be diverted for a few minutes and given a venue where 18,000 can (and 14,000 do) gather to chant "Yankees Suck" and feel strong for 3 hours.

I am not often given to quoting Scripture in this space, but tonight it seems appropriate. In Proverbs Chapter 11 Verse 29, there is an eloquent bit of advice from King Solomon, it reads: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind and the fool shall be the servant of the wise at heart." Unfortunately, Danny Ainge probably didn't read that particular passage before he dealt Antoine Walker to the Mavericks in 2003.

Tonight has just provided the culmination of the Boston Celtics inheriting the wind from that bad trade. I predicted (one of the very few instances where I have been correct) that the Celtics would lose out on the Oden-Durant sweepstakes. I didn't dare hope, however, that they would fall all the way to 5th in this year's draft. This team earned this karmic suplex by making bad choice after bad choice and then compounding the affront to good taste that was this season by tanking games down the stretch.

Why did Danny Ainge deserve a chance to derail the career of Greg Oden or Kevin Durant? Because he's honestly submitted his best effort at producing a winning team in his four seasons at the helm? Because he conducted himself as a model of professional decorum? Because the two best things about his reign are the creation of a cheerleading squad and unloading Raef LaFrentz? It never ceases to amaze me that this man is still employed. I could work 2 hours a week and do a better job than he's done. Hell, the monkeys at the zoo could do a better job and still have plenty of time to fling feces at one another.

Take a look at the Celtics trades under Ainge. This list of transactions made by the team since he took over basketball operations is an appalling roster of ill-conceived decisions. Since when has it been advisable to shuffle players in and out of an organization? And yet it's the Ainge MO. So the question lingers for Celtics fans: do you want Ainge to use the pick or trade it?

They traded the rights to Randy Foye to Portland for Sebastian Telfair and the carcase of Theo Ratliff (who earned $1 million for every four minutes of basketball he played this season), Foye went on to earn a place on the NBA All Rookie Team. Portland turned around and traded Foye for the rights to Brandon Roy who won the Rookie of the Year award. Telfair is going to be cut from the team because his play was sub-par and his off-court behavior unacceptable. So that's what Ainge can do with a draft pick when it comes time to trade.

Among the veterans he has managed to acquire include Ratliff, Chris Mills and Raef LaFrentz. Ainge has managed to come out on the winning end of a trade once, when Gary Payton refused to report to Atlanta after the Cs traded him for Antoine Walker. When the Hawks cut Payton, he returned to the Celtics. So does that inspire confidence that the Celtics could somehow trade a pick that will not become Oden or Durant in a package with Pierce or one of their young players for Garnett or Gasol or Jermaine O'Neal or some mystery player who might not suck as a Celtic?

I have found myself wondering lately whether Ainge's determination to get into one-sided trades which have benefited the Trail Blazers at the expense of the Celtics have some connection to the shameful manner in which he stabbed the Blazers in the back in 1992. In case you have forgotten the story, Ainge (an Oregon native, by the way) was on the Blazers as the 1991-92 season ended and was due to be a free agent.

He promised the team and the fans he wanted to stay and would contact the team to make the necessary arrangements. And then, all of a sudden, on the very first day of the signing period, Ainge came to terms with the Phoenix Suns. I am all for clearing one's conscience and atoning for past transgressions, but I must say I hate to see the Boston Celtics serve as a vehicle to help their GM help a team he shafted 15 years ago.

Then there is the fact that some player from the Roy Hibbert, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Brandan Wright, Corey Brewer or Yi Jianlian mix will be available in the fifth spot. I have heard as many times as you have that this is a ridiculously deep draft. Maybe I'm stubborn (I'm not alone, my man in Maine emailed me tonight to complain that this draft isn't what it's been billed to be), but I'm not convinced.

Roy Hibbert is a project. He may be great, and for the sake of the league he'd better be great. Greg Oden needs a rival like I need to marry a beautiful heiress. But Hibbert's not going to come in right away and dominate. Frankly, I'm barely willing to believe that he can come in and contribute. Think Emeka Okafor with a steeper learning curve, and I think you'll have a good picture of what Hibbert's future is going to be for two, maybe three years.

I have expressed my distaste for Joakim Noah's ability to play in the NBA a number of times in this space. He's not big enough to play NBA big men. He's not quick enough to hang with a Nowitzki or a Bargniani. He's nowhere near polished enough to score from the perimeter, and he handles the rock like a wildebeast calf on ice. Joakim Noah will be the death (certainly from a career stand point, and maybe literally also) of an NBA GM. I don't want it to be Ainge, though, as the Cs would be stuck with Noah, or Acie Earl with less marketability and talent.

Horford is probably the best of this sorry lot, provided you want a player to come in and help a team win games in the near term (of course one wonders whether NBA teams really want to win based on their personnel choices). The problem here is that he seems to be a more athletic version of Al Jefferson. Al has impressed a lot of Cs fans and the reporters who cover the team, but I still believe he's at his ceiling right now. Adding another power forward named Al won't help him. Plus, as much as I like his game, I don't think he's worth half of what the number five pick in this draft will earn.

Brandan Wright is a great unknown. He has all the potential any basketball fan could dream of, but he isn't seasoned enough to be the face of a franchise. To my way of thinking that's what the Cs need more than anything right now. They have too many young players with potential trying to develop into solid pros as it is, one more guy like this isn't going to help the team, especially when they're in salary cap hell and there aren't enough minutes and shots to go around.

I don't know enough about Yi Jianlian to offer any kind of assessment of his game. Beyond hearing that he's a Chinese Dirk Nowitzki on Outside the Lines the other day, I know nothing about him. I can spell his name only because I have today's Globe sitting on the desk in front of me. I do know that Yao Ming is monstrously overrated. He's an adequate big man benefiting from the total lack of centers in today's NBA. He ought to be able to score 30 points a night when he's 7 inches taller than 95% of the guys trying to cover him. So I would be inclined to stay away from another Chinese player, considering how much money goes to a #5 pick.

Corey Brewer captured the attention of fans across the country with his defensive play in this year's NCAA tournament (and last year too, but I try not to face the fact that Florida won two consecutive championships). This instantly makes him the most NBA ready guard of his generation. It's a little knows fact, but if you can handle Aaron Afflalo and Mike Conley Jr., then you can shut down any player on any team at any time. I bet you Iverson is soiling his drawers at the prospect of facing Brewer as we speak. Give me a break, he's not ready for prime time. At least not for $50 million.

And that is why I am so happy tonight. The lottery was Danny Ainge's last shot at keeping his job beyond this season. He can't keep getting chances to ruin what little future this franchise has. Maybe Jefferson, West, Rondo, Perkins, Powe, Gomes and the rest are better than I think. Maybe they're a lot better. But with the group of them competing for minutes, touches and shots there is no way that this group of players can form a team. They need leadership, and the team has no pieces to trade to get value in return.

This situation is so very perfect for Ainge. He traded Walker and then gradually had to punt away the magic beans he got in return. And even better, he acquired Telfair in his scramble to get out from under that Walker trade and that blew up in his face. He traded for Ricky Davis only to give up on him a little over a year later. In short, he created a hell of a lot of trouble in his own house and he just inherited the wind losing this lottery.

And if you aren't miserable enough, Celtics fans, just think... Portland got Brandon Roy thanks to the Cs terrible draft day trade last year. Now they have the inside track on Oden even though they had a 5.3% chance to win the lottery. At least the Cs threw one hell of a lottery party at Clery's on Dartmouth Street. I couldn't quite make it, I still remember a time when the Celtics didn't throw parties for anything short of a title.

Bill Simmons is an amusing man. He has now taken it upon himself to lead the charge against the Celtics' team management. It is true that he has been sharply critical of Doc Rivers for some time now, but the Sports Guy has now moved on to criticize Danny Ainge and the buffoons who write the checks. Suddenly, now that a writer with an exponentially larger profile than mine has joined me, I am not enjoying the anti-Banner 17 movement as much as I should.

Simmons is convinced that the young players have not developed to the extent that many casual observers have been led to believe under River's slightly less than inspired leadership. That is clearly true, unless you consider Gerald Green winning the slam dunk competition as some tangible form of progression in genuine basketball skill and not raw athletic ability. The lone bright spot has been the continued development of Al Jefferson.

I must say once again I am not convinced that Al Jefferson is going to continue progressing. Last night, at the tail end of TNT's Inside the NBA Kenny Smith refused to consider Al Jefferson for his personal Most Improved Player Award. His rationale (loosely paraphrased) was that a reasonably skilled guy on a bad team has a lot of chances to take shots because no one else can score and better teams pushing for the playoffs are likely resting their best players when the games are in hand. Kenny Smith played on some preternaturally bad Sacramento teams in the late 1980s, so he knows a bit about the statistical benefits of being the big fish in a small, polluted pond.

At the moment, Al Jefferson's stats really aren't all that impressive to me, even on a Celtics team desperately yearning for mediocrity. He's averaging 15.8 points, 10.6 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game. Jefferson is shooting nearly 51% from the field, but he turns the ball over 1.98 times per game while averaging only 1.2 assists. If that is the bright spot for the Celtics, it's going to be a long, long night.

As a point of comparison, at the same point in his career, Antoine Walker averaged 18.7 points, 8.5 boards, 3.1 assists versus 2.83 turnovers. He did not block as many shots as Al Jefferson does, but he had more steals per game. That was also the 98-99 season shortened by the labor dispute where Walker came back out of shape and submitted his worst season as a Celtic.

I realize that Antoine played two years of college basketball before joining the Celtics. But I bring him up not to be unfair to Al Jefferson but to show how the Celtics have fallen in the eyes of the basketball world. People booed Antoine mercilessly for putting up gaudy numbers on terrible teams. Now Al Jefferson is averaging just under 16 points a game and people are excited. I also bring up Antoine to link to this video of Toine talking about Red, since he was probably the last person to play for the Celtics who really understood what an honor that once was.

I just don't think it makes sense to take for granted that Al Jefferson will continue to develop at this pace, or at all for that matter. If the Celtics should somehow wind up with Greg Oden should he declare, or Kevin Durant, one or the other may not take minutes of playing time away from Al Jefferson but Jefferson won't be taking as many shots. It is possible that getting better looks for those fewer shots will still help his game.

Tony Allen will probably be coming back from his injury at the midway point next year. There will likely be a period of adjustment as he tries to rebuild the confidence in that knee. But he was on track to be the star of this team and its future. His comeback will also take shots away from Al Jefferson. And let's not forget that Paul Pierce will probably play more than 47 games next year, too.

That brings us to another of the real villains in the demise of Celtic pride - Paul Pierce. So many people, like Simmons in the piece linked above, believe that Paul Pierce is a great competitor who desperately wants to win. I don't believe it. I believe he hates to lose, but hating to lose and wanting to win are not necessarily the same thing. When push comes to shove, I think Paul Pierce would be happier putting up great numbers on a perennial doormat than he would be in taking fewer shots and contenting himself with less statistical production on a winning team.

For those of you who would disagree with me, I offer you the example of Game Six of the first round series between Indiana and the Celtics back in 2005. The Celtics ended up winning that game in overtime, but they very nearly lost it in regulation when Paul Pierce threw his infamous tantrum which resulted in his ejection. The Celtics went on to be routed out of the playoffs in Game 7, at home of all places, with Pierce scoring 19 (Antoine had 20). Since that time, the closest a Celtic has been to a playoff game is when Pierce went to games as Toine's guest in last season's championship run for the Miami Heat.

I don't know if Pierce likes the role of the tragic victim of a poorly managed organization or if he simply can't bear to share the limelight, but he simply can't carry a team to victory on his own in this NBA environment. Kobe isn't good enough to do it, and he brings a similar skill set to the table. Kobe is more athletic and a better defender and an even bigger tool when it comes to sharing the spotlight.

I wonder how long Ainge will be able to hang his hat on Jefferson, West and (maybe, even though I am not impressed) Rondo. I am not happy living in a world where a man turned the number 7 pick in the draft last season into Sebastian Telfair, even if it did banish Raef LaFrentz to Portland. Not when that pick is probably going to be Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy even though he missed 20 games.

I knew that the Telfair/LaFrentz trade was a bad idea all the way back on July 3rd when I took time out of my efforts to recreate the journey Ray Miland took in Lost Weekend over the holiday to complain about it. I've been ripping Ainge to my nation of two readers (to paraphrase the Kurt Vonnegut line from Mother Night) for a long time now. All that while disappointing my loyal reader the Kobra Kommander by mentioning a certain Japanese pitcher in a scandalous 10.4% of my posts.

PS - It's a shame that Kurt Vonnegut passed away. Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle are two of my favorite books. One of the underappreciated funny satiric sequences in the movie Back To School comes when the Rodney Dangerfield character hires Vonnegut to write a term paper on Vonnegut for him and ends up getting a D. It's just too bad, but with the way Americans continually conspire to produce generations of morons, America will probably never produce another writer of his caliber.

What a difference a day makes. Yeah, I went out on a limb and said I wanted Ohio State to take down the tyrant last night, and it kind of, sort of didn't happen. OK, Ohio State was soundly beaten and Florida became the first repeat champion since Duke in 92. But things could be worse.

As painful as it is to backtrack from that pronouncement, it must have hurt Bill Simmons just a bit more to eat his words from Monday's Basketball Blog. The Sports Guy actually said that he could live with Joakim Noah on the Celtics, should they miss the Oden-Durant sweepstakes and wind up with the number 3 pick in this year's draft. After all, I don't claim to be a basketball junkie, a devotee of good basketball and I don't get paid for this.

I may not watch 300 basketball games a year, but I could see what Simmons apparently missed. Noah is going to an NBA team, who will waste high pick and a considerable sum to learn a painful lesson. I almost feel guilty for writing what I am about to write in the wake of that tender scene where he ran into the crowd and climbed row after row to see his mother (which is just a bit creepy). But Noah's game has to progress quite a bit to be considered fatally flawed.

First off, he can't create his own shot, which is only so much of a problem since he's not a very good shooter. Have you seen him dribble the ball? He moves like a newborn caribou on ice. I don't think he's quick enough on the defensive end to make it at the next level. He's just not athletic enough to make it, and he's not big enough to offset his limitations.

He was a very good college big man, but the thing about that is the road to organizational hell at the next level is paved with the remains of guys who were tall but not tall enough, quick but not quick enough, big but not big enough, tough but not tough enough. That's Joakim Noah.

I guess if I had to compare him to any current or former NBA players (and it's hard, what with the fact that he's biracial and ethnic sensitivity is the order of the day), I'd go with Udonis Haslem or maybe Danny Ferry. There is an outside chance that he might turn out to be a serviceable power forward, if he goes to a team that has a solid center. But that doesn't seem very likely.

His performance in yesterday's game was more indicative of his NBA potential than any of his other tournament games. Oden was the only NBA ready big man he's faced, and it wasn't even close. Noah's not ready for prime time.

I really don't want to hear about how well he played against other teams in the tournament. None of the guys Noah faced in the first few rounds has much of a chance at the next level. So what if he ruled the court like a man against boys in the Butler game? That's what he was. No one on Butler was over 6-7, and when the starters got into foul trouble, Noah had 6 inches on his man. It's not particularly impressive to dominate under those circumstances.

For a little while, part of me wanted to see the Celtics draft Noah. Getting him will hasten the end of the Ainge era, or at least it ought to, since the team would not improve significantly. Of course that presumes that Banner 17 wants to field a winning team and isn't in the basketball business for a tax dodge, which might not be the case. Plus Ainge must have compromising photos in his possession. How else can you explain his bulletproof status?

But then I got to thinking, and I realized that there is only a small chance I can become a Celtics fan again, even if Ainge goes. I don't care for Banner 17 as an ownership group. My brother had season tickets through his business up until the Walker trade. When they hadn't renewed after the trade, Wyc placed a call to the company. Wyc gave the party line about how the team could improve and how the ceiling with Toine had been reached.

Now, the Celtics may have reached their ceiling in 01-02. But the team has not shown any signs of mounting a playoff run without Antoine. There is a considerable body of evidence to show that they're a lot worse without him than they were with him. Not only is this team a poorly constructed loser, it's also in salary cap jail. Yes, they're not as far over the cap as the Knicks. But there was a time when more was expected of the Celtics franchise.

I might find a way to overlook Banner 17 if this team were remotely likable. Paul Pierce is a whining, overrated bust. His defining moment as a Celtic will most likely end up being that playoff meltdown at the end of game six against Indiana in 2004-2005. That cost the Celtics the series (they were up 3-2, and the team, with the exception of Walker, failed to show in game 7). He wonders why he doesn't have more endorsements? Maybe if he had more charisma or delivered when it really mattered with any consistency (let's not forget that he fell to the Celtics after a memorable 0-11 from the field in his final NCAA game), he'd get more money.

I just don't see much future for the young players. I think Al Jefferson and Delonte West are as good now as they'll ever be. Don't forget, a high profile pick will take time and shots away from the "pieces" already in place. Ryan Gomes is a tweener. Rondo can't shoot. Telfair is a bust who will never live down that terrible trade which sent a much better player to Portland. So what if Gerald Green won the Dunk Contest? At the end of his career, he may have a resume full of dunk contest victories but very little in terms of more tangible accomplishments.

Throw Noah into that mix, and in the short run it should cost Ainge and Rivers their jobs. Unfortunately, the Celtics will be stuck with him for a few more years after that. But if the team ends up with pick three and they take Noah, and the plan is to keep Ainge and Rivers long term, there's only one way to go. Noah should have his choice on a night in and night out basis of any of the retired jerseys for his number.

I think the Celtics are getting close to forfeiting the right to celebrate their legacy. Instead of fielding this travesty of a team, they might as well let Noah wear number 6 for a game or two, then 33 or 15 or 18. Hell, I don't think Cowens is very busy these days, he could be forced to convey Noah around the city (or at least around the TD Banknorth Facility) in a rickshaw. Maybe Havlicheck could wash his car every day.

For what they've done to this organization since they purchased the team, Banner 17 would have been only slightly more disrespectful to everything Red stood for had they gone the Jeremy Bentham route and preserved his remains for permanent display in the vestibule of the stadium.

In the May 22, 1974 issue of Rolling Stone, Jon Landau famously wrote: "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen." We haven't seen the future of the NBA yet, but we will this weekend. It really doesn't matter, either, who ends up winning this year's NCAA championship. What does matter, for the future of the NBA, is that we'll see if Roy Hibbert can be the rival Greg Oden needs to save the NBA on Saturday.

Make no mistake about it. The NBA needs salvation desperately. Ratings peaked in 1998, and they show no signs of getting back to that level any time soon. There is even a great deal of consternation in some circles that Major League Baseball has scheduled a game between the Red Sox and the Yankees up against an opening round playoff basketball game. Can you imagine the NFL fearing to schedule a playoff game against another sport's regular season game?

Anybody who tells you that the NBA's ratings are falling because of the hip hop culture or mainstream white Americans turning away from it are full of sanctimony and not correct. At the end of the day, people want one thing, and one thing only from sports. It isn't cultural commentary or the world of yesteryear. People could care less about how long the player's shorts are, what kind of music they listen to or what they wear. They want to see good basketball and nothing more.

The ratings are falling because basketball is not being played the way it was intended by Dr. Naismith. Basketball is not being played the way the Russell era Celtics played it. Basketball is not being played the way the Showtime Lakers of the 1980s played it. And it's not really being played the way Jordan played it.

In a sense, it's Jordan's fault that the ratings are falling. And not because he retired and came back and retired again. The NBA Finals which enjoyed the highest rating of all time was the 1998 series which featured the Jordan Bulls against the Utah Jazz. Jordan won the series with the famous, iconic isolation play (where he may or may not have fouled Byron Russell). And since that play, that has become the core of most team's offense in crunch time.

Look at the end of the Laker game against the Warriors. Kobe Bryant dribbled and dribbled through the defense until he had an opening to take the winning shot. Yes, he made it and the Lakers won their fifth straight game. But that's not basketball. Maybe his teammates aren't very good. But a professional basketball player ought to be given a chance to make the last shot.

Who really wants to see four grown men who are extremely well paid stand around and watch one guy dribble through a crowd? That's not worth the price of admission. That's junior high basketball. Or worse, the one bigger kid playing on the playground with his little brother and his friends.

Oden can save the NBA because he'll give a team a dimension no team has had in a long time, not even Miami - a true center. Shaq doesn't really count any more, as age and his bulk have limited his minutes and his effectiveness over the last few years of his career. He can only play with full on intensity for a few minutes at a time. And Duncan, Garnett and the rest of the big men in the NBA these days seem more comfortable away from the basket than in the post, or they might just as well be sold for spare parts (Dampier, Djiop, Kendrick Perkins, et al.) as paid to play basketball.

Oden has a combination of size and athletic ability that is inordinately rare, even in professional basketball where inordinate size and athletic ability are the rule rather than the exception. He can control the glass on both ends of the court. He can run with the break, which is almost funny, since no NBA team can really run a break anymore.

But what he really needs is a rival. That's the one thing that kept Shaq from being the best center of all time. He never had to work day in and day out to hone his skills to beat that one opponent worth beating. Am I the only one who stops to wonder what Bill Russell would have been like without Wilt Chamberlain? Or Chamberlain without Russell? Even Kareem had Cowens and Walton and Willis Reed and Wes Unseld among others hanging around when he was young. The only guy on the horizon that can be that rival for Oden is Hibbert, as I see it. His offense needs a bit of work, but he is a very good defender.

A player like Oden will give a team a low post option that opponents must respect, he'll draw double teams which will open space on the floor for shooters. Not that that's necessarily a good thing, what with the fact that even "good" shooters seem to have difficulty hitting the floor upon falling out of bed two days out of three these days. At least, with any luck, that might bring an end to the 1 one 5 superstar suicide charge that is the NBA equivalent of the four minute offense from NFL endgames.

For his sake, and for selfish reasons, I hope Oden doesn't come to the Celtics. Since this ownership group has steadfastly refused to terminate Ainge's employment, Oden could prolong his tenure in Boston indefinitely. For obvious reasons I don't want that to happen. But it won't be good for Oden, either.

Let him go to a team that isn't crippled by salary cap woes. Let him play for a team that doesn't have Brian "The Great Brain" Scalabrine as it's fifth highest paid player. After all, won't drafting Oden cast aspersions on the $4.48 million due to be paid to Kendrick Perkins. And above all, let him go to a team that isn't crippled with a superstar who is a selfish, petulant boy emperor who can't play a team sport with a team.

In the immortal words of Detective John McLane: "If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Quit being part of the problem." Paul Pierce isn't part of the solution. He can't share the spotlight. He couldn't with Ricky Davis, he couldn't with Antoine Walker. How in the world could Paul Pierce, the face of the Celtics, share the spotlight with a projected savior of the franchise. Pierce may or may not be one of the brightest minds in professional basketball, I wouldn't know, but he has to see that if the franchise has to be saved, in a sense, it has to be him from whom the team must be saved.

But it's all academic if the game within the game between Oden and Hibbert doesn't deliver. Any one of a million things could go wrong, one or both could get into foul trouble. Oden could eat Hibbert alive (metaphorically speaking, I hope), or vice-versa, which is infinitely less likely than the former. Or God forbid, one or the other could get hurt.

If this game doesn't live up to the hype, I think the NBA is in trouble. Then the future of the league is in the hands of Kevin Durant and OJ Mayo. And will those players make a team better. And I don't just mean wins and losses. Because what will the difference of 10 or 12 wins to the Celtics mean for next season? Will it make them a playoff team? More importantly, will it make them a worthy playoff team?

Whatever flaws it had (and it had a few), that 2001-2002 Eastern Conference Finalist had an energy and a chemistry that made it fun to watch. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a sporting event more than I enjoyed that monster comeback against New Jersey. Now put Oden or Durant on this Celtics team and tell me they'd be capable of something like that. I don't see it. It might make them a lower seed in the first round, and maybe they could be dangerous. But since the NBA went to a seven game format in round one, miracles have been outlawed.

Let Oden or Durant go to a team that can build around them from jump street. Let the Celtics take Joakim Noah and sink with the spare parts. Get rid of Ainge. Sell the team to an ownership group that won't preside over a poorly managed but expensive tax dodge, but actually try to build a champion. FYI, no one trying to build a champion would sign Brian Scalabrine to any kind of deal.

PS - Durant ought to come out for economic reasons, but he's less NBA ready than Oden. He's way to skinny to survive the NBA right now. He'll be knocked around until he can bulk up to withstand the punishment. Staying in school would help, since college teams aren't allowed to turn basketball into rugby as often as NBA teams do it. I think he's two years away at least from really contributing, maybe three if he has the misfortune to get hurt.

Ever since the incompetent tools who named themselves Banner 17 took over the Boston Celtics and entrusted the most storied franchise in professional basketball to a man who dabbles in brain typing, I never thought I'd look forward to a Celtic win streak. But now that the team has followed its epic losing epidemic with a nice four game win streak, I am surprised that I am happy. It makes things so much more interesting for me.

With Greg Oden and Kevin Durant all but locks to go 1 and 2 in the draft this year, it seemed like even the immortal Danny Ainge could not find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this time out. But if the mishmash of spare parts that is this edition of the Boston Celtics wins enough games, the Celtics could lose for winning. Imagine what Ainge could do with the third pick after the two mortal locks are gone. I can't believe it, but since I am almost certain the ownership group won't pull their heads from their rear ends and terminate the contract of Mr. Ainge, I'm rooting for the Celtics to win enough to lose the lottery.

One more bad draft will cost Ainge his job. It has to. Or at least it would be a mortal lock, but then I'd have to assume the cretins who run the Celtics are not as incompetent than I think they are. Against all odds, Ainge has seemed positively bulletproof in his capacity as Celtics GM. Of course, I've been attacking him for the nearly 11 months that I've been writing this blog but since somewhere on the order of 20 people read this space on a very good day, I attract only so much attention.

But the tide has turned, it seems. First, about two weeks ago, Jackie MacMullan had an excellent piece in the Globe detailing the appalling state of the franchise's business plan. I might not know very much about running a business, but I know that when your business is winning basketball games and your team is losing much more than it wins, you're not running a good business. When you run a team in a salary cap system and you're $11 million over the cap, you're not doing the right thing. Unfortunately, when both things are true of your franchise, basketball isn't the business for you.

I have been attacking Ainge for the Walker-LaFrentz deal strictly from a basketball standpoint. He took away one of the core pieces of a team that had reached the conference finals for the first time in over 10 years and received an inconsistent center more comfortable on the perimeter than the block and a terrible defender to boot. Much worse than that, Antoine was due to make just over $28 million over the two years left on his contract at the time while Raef was signed for six years and due to earn almost $63 million.

It seems like a strange decision to make as a general manager of a basketball team. I don't understand why you'd trade a better player due to earn less money over a shorter time for a worse player due to earn more money over a longer time (yeah, other players were involved, but these two were the centerpieces). Maybe if Jiri Welsch panned out, it would have been different. But then, to paraphrase an old saying, if grasshoppers were armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, birds wouldn't make such a habit of eating them. Of course, we all know how the Jiri Welsch era in Celtics history worked. He wore number 44 (as Danny Ainge did in his time in Boston), and that's about it.

One would have to admire the tenacity with which the Celtics ownership group has stuck by Ainge if one did not want to see a winning team play in the TD Banknorth facility (I still won't call it a garden). I imagine I should clarify that last statement by adding the caveat that said winner should happen to be the home team. After all, a number of winning teams have helped the Celtics to the worst home record in the NBA.

I thoroughly enjoyed this quote from Steve Pagliuca from the MacMullan piece:

You can't make a judgement on Danny right now. It's only been four years. If Delonte becomes Bibby and Al Jefferson becomes Karl Malone, I'd say Danny Ainge has done pretty well.

Where should I begin with this gem? First, the Founding Fathers believed that four years was ample time to evaluate the President's job performance. General manager of a basketball team is a serious responsibility, much more difficult than running a nation. Second, it might have escaped Pagliuca's notice, but I did some serious research on Karl Malone and Mike Bibby. You might not know this, but neither one of them has won a championship in the NBA. Bibby has never even made it to an NBA Finals.

The problem with that statement is that taking a wait and see approach in the fourth year of an ongoing rebuilding process that seems to be stuck in reverse is about as effective as the ostrich who sticks its head into the sand to escape a predator (as far as I know, that is a myth, but still an enduring and appropriate image here. Also, there is no indication that Al Jefferson will become dominant. Finally, with the way Bibby fell off the face of the Earth these last two seasons, I wouldn't wish that on Delonte West. Actually, I would since I want the Cs to lose, but one of the owners shouldn't, unless he's using a losing franchise as a tax write off like the lady from Slap Shot.

In case you care, Theo Ratliff is the third highest paid Celtic, and the who earned a little bit over $1 million for every four minutes of basketball he played this season. His final total came to a whopping 44 minutes before he called it quits for the season. Four and five on the list of highest paid Celtics are Kendrick Perkins and Brian Scalabrine respectively. Between the three of them, they earn just over $19 million. For those of you who don't do much math, that's just south of 40% of the salary cap. For those of you who might be a bit slow on the uptake 40% of the Celtics salary cap is devoured by a carcase who can only charitably called a has-been, a damn good third center in Perkins (too bad they don't have a number 1 or 2 center) paid damn good starter money and Brain (not a typo, deliberate error) Scalabrine.

Bill Simmons was disappointed by the lack of trades at this season's trading deadline. I was unpleasantly surprised. As I'm sure you must have noticed because the media covered it thoroughly, there was no way a big deal was going to be made unless a third team stepped up to get hosed. Ainge did that to facilitate the Rasheed Wallace trade to Detroit in 2004. Maybe he learned his lesson.

I thought this passage from his the trade deadline piece was interesting:

BOSTON: F
I'm relieved they didn't do anything -- especially a Pau Gasol-Al Jefferson deal, which would have been an enormous mistake when you consider the age difference (five years), the salaries (Gasol makes six times as much), the stats (Jefferson's a better rebounder, and they're equally mediocre defenders, so they would have been picking up an extra 4-5 points a game and that's it) and the fact that Gasol could have inadvertently knocked them out of the Greg Oden/Kevin Durant Sweepstakes.

Still, I'm giving them a retroactive "F" for the hideous Sebastian Telfair trade, in which they passed on Brandon Roy or Randy Foye to acquire a shoot-first point guard who can't shoot. I know they saved $20-25 million in the deal (a big consolation for my dad, who's paying something like $360 a game for his seats) and acquired Theo Ratliff's eight-figure contract as a potential trade chip ... but Danny Ainge hasn't swung a deal in four-plus years that could be considered a home run, much less a triple or double (I'll give him a single on the first Ricky Davis trade), but he managed to hit into two triple plays (the Telfair deal and the Raef LaFrentz/Antoine Walker deal). Will Danny be able to parlay Ratliff's contract into something substantial? I'm dubious.

I give you the passage because it reminded me of something I wrote just after the draft. The date on my post was July 3, 2006. I questioned the wisdom of choosing Telfair over Roy/Foye. I don't mean to allege or imply that Simmons reads this space, I'm just saying that I knew this back in July. Why didn't he?

I do attack him a bit in the blog, so I guess I also must give credit where it is due. His retrospective on Dennis Johnson was excellent.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's been a while since I posted an update on my blog. Rest assured, I have my reasons. My computer is in the weeds with what I assume is a virus problem. I have a theory or two to account for this problem. If you visit Mark Cuban's blog (Bear in mind, you do so at the risk of your own intellectual well being) with its continual critique of journalism such as it is, perhaps you might see where I'm coming from. If you can find the point in the latest entry, I think you win a prize.

Is it a coincidence that my computer is wracked with a virus while Mark Cuban treats a topic (Ozzie Guillen's recent verbal verbal misstep) covered in agonizing detail by a site in which Mark Cuban himself has been the subject of a vicious attack? Most likely, it is a coincidence. We here at Cincinnati Kid Industries do endorse most forms of paranoia. Particularly the delusional variety.

There is also the possibility that the Red Sox themselves are tired of me, the lone voice of truth in a sycophantic region devoted to glossing over their foibles. As was the case in the Seinfeld episode where Kramer tried to scam the Post Office into replacing Jerry's stereo, the Red Sox just might be endeavoring to drag the Cincinnati Kid from his cushy lair and force me to rely on internet cafes to expose me to the harsh, clear light of day as the monster I am. A monster so vile...

Whatever the case may be, I ought not rule out coincidence, especially as I am a great believer in Ockham's Razor. The likelihood of Mark Cuban or the Red Sox knowing who I am and what I write is pretty slim. My fame has yet to measure with my capabilities as a writer. I realize that, but I can live with it. But I am still paranoid. And yet, I am not quite prepared to rule out the possibility that I am right and you all are out to get me. For my part, I believe that paranoid and arrogant is a winning combination, although it might explain why I'm still single. I've also been told that I'm immature and afraid of commitment. It just might take that weird cult leader from eHarmony.com to get me off the market. Then again, I think I'd rather be single than go through a process like Warren Beatty went through in the Parallax View. I wouldn't want to live in a world where I might come out the other side of the looking glass a Red Sox fan, or worse.

The real subject of my post should have been up a week ago, when it was relevant. Alas, it has little to do with Scott Kazmir markedly outpitching Josh Beckett. I'm going to hold off on commenting on Curt Schilling's brilliant effort for a little while, too. Nor is the pathetic weakness of the NL East my concern on this fine evening. I must confess, that there was very little to say toward the stated purpose of this site with the recent wining streak ruining my days. And I have nothing patriotic to say to celebrate America's 230th birthday. Tonight my subject is Danny Ainge, and the inexplicable lack of criticism for his stewardship of the Celtics.

From what I saw of the NBA Draft (and I watched until Dee Brown was off the board because I thought he was vastly underrated), it seemed to me that Danny Ainge set out to make himself the worst GM in NBA history. Alas, Isaiah Thomas stole his thunder. No one will criticize Ainge when they can wonder why Isaiah picked Renaldo Balkman at 20. For those of you scoring at home, Balkman would almost assuredly have been available in free agency. After this, it mattered little whom Mr. Thomas selected with the 29th pick. For all the good this draft will do the Knicks, Isaiah might as well have drafted me.

The real issue is how poorly Ainge manipulated the draft process. In hindsight, the Cs could have ended up with Randy Foye or Brandon Roy, based on what Portland and Minnesota did with the 6th and 7th picks. For my part, I think that if Sebastian Telfair is all hype. Without that documentary film on ESPN, how many people would know him if they fell over him? And then there's Theo Ratliff. Who knew he was still alive, let alone still in the league? Read the last portion of this passage to get a realistic assessment of this trade.

If you read the article in the last link in the preceding paragraph, you'll find that Bob Ryan gave this draft an F-, and the two guys at the bottom of the piece have problems with Ainge's moves. But Peter May is willing to give Ainge the benefit of the doubt, and Shira Springer is guardedly optimistic. I hate to say this, but I agree with Bob Ryan. That is becoming a disturbing trend in this blog.

As for Rajon Rondo, according to Shira Springer, Ainge had him ranked 7th overall. Of course, Shira also pointed out that Danny Ainge has as much use for media mock drafts as he did for Antoine Walker. While the pro-Antoine anti-management bias of this site is overt, that doesn't mean that we are opposed to showing some consideration to those harboring opposing views. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to ask where Ms. Springer has been for the last several weeks.

In case she didn't notice, Antoine Walker earned a championship ring. As far as I know, not being familiar with the owners of the Pistons or the Heat, I cannot say the same for Danny Ainge as an executive. If I owned the Pistons, I would have been sure to give Danny a ring for the Rasheed Wallace trade where the Cs took spare parts (I will admit that Lindsay Hunter has been a solid player for a number of years, but how can he count when he never played for the Cs?) and Detroit took the O'Brien Trophy. As for the Heat's owner, I think he might make a nice gesture as Bob Kraft did on his visit to Russian head of state Vladimir Putin. After all, two of the players who helped win him the title had spent last season helping the Celtics to achieve their lone playoff appearance in the Danny Ainge Era.

Antoine Walker is vastly underappreciated as a basketball player. He can be arrogant. He misses a lot of shots. In many ways, he reminds me of me. People in Boston that think they know the Celtics, or think they know basketball still use his name as a punchline. To them, he's a poster boy for what's wrong with the NBA. And yet, he was a contributing member of a championship team. It is true that Danny Ainge was also a contributing member of the Celtics' dynasty of the 1980s, but what has he accomplished since then?

In the Miami Herald piece I linked above (see underappreciated), there are two paragraphs that need to be quoted:

In explaining the trade of a seven-year veteran and Celtics co-captain, Ainge reportedly told the media that Walker's leadership "stifled'' other players' leadership and had a ''grasp'' on the Celtics franchise that wasn't ``a positive thing.''

Walker pointed out, ``Look at Boston, look at me right now. Last time I checked, I don't think Boston's had that great a record since I've been gone.''

That speaks for itself. Perhaps Antoine Walker wasn't stifling the leadership of his former teammates. Perhaps there was no leadership there to be stifled. The Celtics cannot ignore the fact that Danny Ainge is a terrible GM. His hat hangs on his draft record. But the team is young, and as yet unproven. They have a great deal of potential, but the trouble with potential is that more often than not it is never reached.

And yet, there is no serious criticism of Danny Ainge the GM. Bill Simmons almost seemed like he wanted to go there in his Draft Diary. Instead, he chose a far easier target in Isaiah Thomas. To be fair, Isaiah's decisions are so bad that they demand immediate response and often overshadow the folly of those around him. I even considered inducting the Sports Guy into the Max Mercy Hall of Fame for leaving Ainge out of the bad GM summit he wrote a few months back (there is no link to this piece, Cincinnati Kid Industries cannot afford the archive subscription fee at ESPN.com). I had to rule against it, since I laugh out loud when I read his stuff. So for the immediate future, Bill is immune to the Max Mercy HOF, especially since the next inductee deserves a special ceremony.

As I said before, Shira Springer blithely said that mock drafts rank up there in Ainge World with Employee Number Eight. So I will wrap up this post with some cheerful thoughts for the last remaining Celtics fans. Danny Ainge elected to pay the money the Suns owed Brian Grant to sit home and watch TV (as he retired on June 28). For the record, that is $1.8 million to a guy who won't even play a game of basketball, let alone play for Boston and a first round pick next year (granted, it comes from Cleveland so that it won't be all that great unless King James vanishes from the material sphere) for Rajon Rondo, a point guard who prompted this reaction from Bill Simmons in his running diary:

9:40 -- Just when this draft couldn't get any crazier, my beloved Celtics just bought the 21st pick from Phoenix to take Rajon Rondo, the Kentucky guard who Chad Ford touted all summer because he mistakenly thought Rondo was foreign. Unfortunately, Rondo can't shoot. This is an understatement. As Bilas says, "Teams in the SEC didn't even guard him." Put it this way: The list of NBA teams that won an NBA title with a point guard who couldn't shoot looks like this:
1. (empty)2. (empty)3. (empty)
On the other hand, my Celtics moles told me that Rondo absolutely DESTROYED Foye and Williams in their workout a few weeks ago. So who knows?
God, I'm a sap ...
9:43 -- My dad's reaction: "So we have two new point guards, but one of them's 5-foot-11 and the other one can't shoot? And I'm supposed to be happy about this?" Tough to argue with that one. I'm not even going to bother telling him about Rondo's freakishly long fingers. Maybe tomorrow.

At least the Celtics will have a dance team for the first time in franchise history in the coming season. It's almost ironic that two teams broke tradition in a big way in the last few months. Boston, with it's arena rafters filled with championship banners and the retired numbers of past heroes now has cheerleaders. Miami, the former expansion team whose first ever field goal came from the immortal Rory Sparrow, made its first finals appearance and won its first title. But I'm wrong about Antoine Walker, and Danny Ainge is right.

And Sebastian Telfair and Rajon Rondo will be a championship back court one of these days.

In the immortal words of country music legend George Strait: "I've got some ocean front property in Arizona. From my front porch you can see the sea. I've got some ocean front property in Arizona. An' if you'll buy that I'll throw the Golden Gate in free."