green with envy, or nausea?

it's funny, but as i sit here and sweat like some sort of farm animal and like it - come on now, it's nice and hot two, maybe three months of the year around here and cold and shitty all the rest of the time - i sort of can't believe the hold that basketball has taken over the local sports discussion... shouldn't people be talking more about the sox and how good they seem to be? or the pats and how with training camp less than a month away, they look like the odds on faves for another ring? or how sad it is for arsenal fans everywhere that the magnificent henry has been sold to barcelona (ok, that was a blatant shout out/plea for readership to two specific buddies and my english second cousin who has season tickets to all gunners games)?

nope... it's nba draft or bust this week, much to the chagrin of my handful (if that) of readers who can barely stand it when i talk baseball... moreover, it's what the celtics are going to do - a topic that on the surface appears to have as much relevance as paris hilton's disdain for her orange jail jumpsuit... but the celts, a team whose annual futility is threatening to soon make them as much of a laughingstock as the bruins, are buzzworthy right now... truth be told, a lot of the buzz surrounds what they can possibly do to completely screw up this time around, as they've becoming so adept at screwing up over the last 10-15 years or so... but at least people are talking about them and that - for a moment anyway - makes me feel ok about my very first favorite team...

all right, that moment was fleeting... in all honesty, it seems hard to muster the faith that danny ainge will make the right move by the celtics... if he does, i'm also skeptical that doc rivers will be able to make it work... the bottom line here is that with a little less that 48 hours left until the draft and with the celtics in full-on panic mode for over a month now thanks to openly tanking the second half of last season in an effort to get one of the first two picks in this draft, then not getting a chance at either, one of two things is going to happen... either a) the celtics will trade their first round pick (no. 5 overall) and the best of their wealth of young players for kevin garnett, easily a first ballot hall-of-famer who is perilously close to the top of the hill and is not signed beyond next season, or b) they will draft the chinese kid who won't be ready to contribute anything meaningful for at least three years, then trade paul pierce (if his head hasn't exploded first) and continue to completely suck for the foreseeable future...

there are upsides and downsides to both possibilities... if they draft yi jianlian and trade pierce, rivers won't last the season... look, he's a nice guy, the press loves him and he seems to be a good pal to a lot of the players... but does that matter all that much? he hasn't won consistently, has never proven that he can and has gotten significantly worse record-wise since he got here three years ago... plus, it doesn't matter one iota if he's nice to reporters and a big brother to all the tykes on the roster... all that matters is that he wins and that the young guys get better and outside of al jefferson, who would have improved if i was the coach given his talent, who really is that much better than when doc took over? answer: nobody... no garnett trade equals another year of being lucky to win 25 games and doc being fired sometime before valentine's day...

if they make the deal for garnett (or get jermaine o'neal from indiana without trading jefferson or get andrei kirilenko from utah, both of which seem unlikely), the upside is that they will immediately be a playoff team and in the eastern conference, which is like the minor leagues, just making the playoffs could mean big, exciting things (though that is far from a given)... the downsides are that jefferson, who looks like he could be a great, important player down the road, not to mention the fact that all the other young guys except trick-or-treater gerald green have pretty much already reached their ceilings, will be gone... also, garnett will not necessarily be on the team for more than one year and if he isn't, it makes the potential deal not just bad, but unconscionable, given jefferson's enormous talent and the possibility that whomever goes to minnesota at no. 5 could wind up being pretty good...

so there you have it... i'm on record here as saying that i wouldn't do the deal, that garnett is an all-time great but will only help so much, that jefferson is too important down the road and that a lesser deal that won't cost as much is the way to go... i've heard/read several opinions in the last couple days from people in basketball whom i respect say the exact opposite - that the celtics must do whatever it takes to get the deal done... i'm not so sure... one thing that i am sure of, however, is that whatever decision ainge makes, it will a) be interesting, b) be dissected in print, on television and on the radio 200 times over, and c) likely prove at some point in the not-too-distant future to have been completely and totally wrong... and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the current state of your boston celtics... go green!

rules of the week - 6/22/07

with all due respect to bill maher, a person far more entertaining than myself whose "new rules" segment on his friday night hbo show is an absolute riot, i think i'm going to make this a regular feature of this new and improved blog thingy... we'll make it a weekly thing, i'm thinking right now, and if there are any suggestions, feel free to chime in... user-friendly shit is what you get here at RLTB, folks... so without further ado, and because it's friday night and i want to go out, here are the rules of the week...

Rule No. 1 - anyone who is feeling pangs of stress concerning the red sox should probably stop, take a deep knee bend and breathe... it's slightly alarming that a different guy seemingly comes up with a new injury by the day (lowell, drew, schilling, etc.), but if any team is equipped to handle some temporary losses in personnel, it's boston... there's a whole lot of depth on this team, both on the bench and in the minor leagues, plus it helps that there is that double-digit lead in the standings over the suddenly flailing again yankees... it's late june now and the dog days of july and august are approaching... if ever there is a time when a team can be careful with its guys (especially 40-year-old pitchers, gray-haired third basemen and injury-prone rightfielders) it's now... there's no need to rush anyone at the moment and worrying is not only bad idea jeans, it's the opposite reaction that the average fan should have... on the contrary - you should be psyched that this extra rest for some of these guys, particularly the older ones, can only help how sharp they are come playoff time... don't hate, be happy...

Rule No. 2 - thank god kevin garnett said he didn't want to play for the celtics and ixnayed the idea of being traded here from the equally woeful minnesota timberwolves... for starters, this would have been dumb for boston because for at least the fifth time since 2003 when danny ainge took the GM job, it would have been a change of course in the team's longterm strategy... when a team changes course once in five years, it's understandable, twice, it's explainable, five times, it's irretrievable evidence that the folks making the decisions are morons... and secondly, garnett, who used to be my favorite player in the league and is still somewhat of a binky, is past his prime, has never won anything, would have cost two potentially all-star caliber players as well as a high lottery pick and an expiring contract that would be more useful if moved later, makes $25 million a year, and was no guarantee to stay longer than through next season... other than that, it was a great idea... furthermore, who's to say the celts would have been all that much better with him? yes, they'd have two all-stars in garnett and paul pierce, and yes, they'd likely make the playoffs in the putrid eastern conference, but so what? making the playoffs is nice, but what's the goal here? to build a winning, sustainable nucleus that can grow up together and compete for titles for years, or to lose in the first or second round for a couple years before garnett leaves, pierce is over the hill and it's time to start rebuilding all over again? i'll take option A... stay the course for once, danny - don't keep changing your mind...

Rule No. 3 - hockey sucks, at least in boston... the bruins, who have been at best irrelevant and at worst an embarrassment for several years now, just hired their third coach in barely a year, and naturally, all signs point to him being a stiff... the guy has been fired by two other teams in the last four years, including last season by new jersey with just three games left in the regular season despite the fact that the devils were already in the playoffs and would have home-ice in the first round... seems a little fishy, doesn't it? anyway, i'm not going to rehash the litany of idiotic things the bruins have done over the last, oh 15 or so years, mainly because i don't care and neither should you... i'm just here to point out yet again that this once proud, winning and extremely popular team continues to operate in the dark ages, continually screwing up, failing to be competitive yet raising ticket, beer and hot dog prices like it's their job (oh wait - it is)... it's a shame because hockey can be really awesome, especially live and in person... but i wouldn't go to the fleetcenter to watch the bruins if you paid for it and got me drunk, and that's saying something... boycott the bruins - it's for your own good...

Rule No. 4 - the best movie i've seen so far this summer is "knocked up" and it's kind of not even close... the same guy - judd apatow - who created the tv shows "freaks and geeks" and "undeclared," produced "anchorman" and made "the 40-year-old virgin" made it and it's a logical extension of the former... like "the 40-year-old virgin," there is some treacly, sentimental stuff down the stretch but the rest of it is so funny that the lame stuff is almost entirely forgiven... if you watched either of those tv shows, you'll recognize some of the casts of both, you get to gaze upon both katherine heigl and leslie mann in all of their gloriousness for two hours and, you get another perfect role for the wildcard - mr. paul rudd... hey, how could you doubt him after lines like, "you look man-tastic," "i've jacked it three times since i've been here," and "you know how i know you're gay? you macrameed yourself a pair of jean shorts," in "the 40-year-old virgin?" there's more where that all came from in "knocked up"... do yourself a favor and see it...

Rule No. 5 - golf is good... and bearing that in mind, i sucked it up, dragged my ass up to woburn and got myself a new set of irons, the cleveland launchers... they are heaven... they are bliss... they will likely help me get my average score down to the low triple digits (hey, small victories)... i love them... so i guess that the only rule i can impart here is rather obvious and that's to hit 'em straight...

that's all for now, folks... enjoy the weekend, go sox, and be good... more to come starting next week...

the coco show - starring willie harris as coco...

it dawned on me recently about coco, maybe even before this little hitting show he just put on down in atlanta... it actually sort of hit me like a bolt of lightning in the form of a ridiculous, morning-after-too-many-beers headache... and when i realized it, i even felt a little bit sad, not because i wish any ill will on the guy, but because when you think you're sure of something for so long, you feel a slight sense of loss just for a moment, like that much of your general intelligence quotient on the topic has just been yanked right out from underneath you...

it dawned on me recently that coco isn't that bad...

sure, he's made grounding out to second seem not just routine but damn near artistic... and yes, his throwing arm isn't just worse than johnny damon's, it's worse than my grandmother's - and she passed on a couple years ago, god bless her... and furthermore, he's not remotely the dynamic, offensive sparkplug, lead-off guy the sox thought they were getting when they traded for him last offseason, then signed him to a three-year extension the day after he broke his finger, an injury that should have healed in four weeks but instead derailed his entire 2006 season (and at times has appeared to even hinder his game this year too)...

in actuality, coco is a defensive wizard - the guy makes obscenely difficult catches on at least a weekly basis - who can kind of hit sometimes while even sprinkling 5-9 homers a year... he's a late inning sub, a pinch runner, a defensive replacement anywhere in the outfield... and that's ok, goddammit, it is...

the thing is, we were sold a bill of goods on coco... nobody in the red sox organization came out and said it, but he was seen as the ideal replacement for damon when he signed with the yankees... such hype was written and discussed in the papers and on radio, and no one came out and tried to defuse any of it...

he also got a $3 million raise and the starting centerfielder/lead-off guy spot handed to him, even though in four previous years with cleveland - just two as a full-time player - he was the No. 2 guy and he played left... needless to say, when he went from .300 with 16 homers and 69 rbi in his last year with the indians to .264 with eight homers and 36 rbi in his first year with the sox, the locals started frothing at the mouth...

things had been equally hideous this year (despite the woman who always comes to the bar on saturday late afternoons when i have the game on the radio and says regularly, "oh coco is doing so well this year," even though i correct her, telling her that he actually sucks every time) until recently, as he's gone on a seven-game hitting streak with three homers and five rbi, raising his average 26 points in the process... whether this hotness will last is not the point - the point is he's not just another guy who shriveled under the pressure of playing in boston (i'd be more apt to believe that if he'd ever been more than just decent in his previous career stops before his subsequent dropoff, a la renteria), it's that he's just not very good... some guys put up nice numbers as part-timers then wilt when asked to play every day before reinventing themselves as serviceable, utility guys later on... coco would be a perfect fourth outfielder on this team - he could be to the outfield what alex cora is to the infield - which is why unless he's part of a package for a much better guy or swapped for an even better utility man, i've changed my mind regarding his trade status - it says here the sox should keep him around... sure, go out and get another outfielder by the trade deadline - preferably one who can play pretty much every day - to go along with the bullpen help they so direly need... but keep coco - give the guy a chance to do what he does best at least for the rest of the year...

and besides that, having coco get hot and stay hot makes the getting-worse-by-the-day julio lugo look even more horrifying, which in turn makes the prospect of getting rid of him so he can concentrate solely on his other job as a counter man at the porter square dunkin donuts look more realistic... plus, having a guy on your favorite team impervious to ridiculous - yet creative - sports nicknames like oscar villarreal "disease", john "the tongue" coutilangus and clinton "rigor" portis because his own name is in itself ridiculous - yet creative - is sort of fun...

anyway, bear with me folks, as i work on building this back up... it's been awhile, so i need to mess around with some things, reteach myself all the tricks on how to spruce this shit up, and get back sharp with everything else... but thanks for reading, nonetheless - this should be the first of many, so keep up the good work...

umm...

i think its time i start writing again...