Posts Tagged ‘Boston Globe’

Title Dreamers, Beware Of Boston

April 11, 2012  ·  9:56AM





HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Go ahead and mark it down now — the two cities that every team dreaming of a championship needs to avoid at all costs during the playoffs are Memphis and Boston.

Just like the Grizzlies in the Western Conference, the Celtics have given everyone ample warning that they will be in the business of crushing hopes come playoff time. Their work since the All-Star break has been well documented. They have all of the components needed to derail the title aspirations of any other team in the playoff field, just as the Grizzlies did to the Spurs last year.

From a coach in Doc Rivers (who is arguably the best in the business at taking whatever parts he has and crafting them into a cohesive unit) to a clear leader in Rajon Rondo (who has finally asserted himself as the true catalyst for this club) to the fading-but-still-furious-glory of future Hall of Famers Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen (who have all had to accept diminished or drastically different roles than they are used to at this stage of their careers), the Celtics have everything in place to squash dreams and realize their own.

Their demolition of the Miami Heat twice in the past 10 days is no fluke. The Celtics, the league’s nastiest defensive team, showed last night that when they’re knocking down shots, they are nearly impossible to deal with. The Heat scrapped their way back into the game and still couldn’t overcome the Celtics, who shot a blistering 61 percent.

With Rondo directing the traffic, the ball moves all over the floor, making it hard for any team — even one as talented as the Heat — to concentrate its defensive focus in any one place. Garnett and Pierce both turned back the clock last night.

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Rondo On The Trading Block … Again!

March 1, 2012  ·  7:38AM





HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Welcome back to the swirl and twirl of the trade rumor mill Rajon Rondo. We missed you!

What’s it been, four months?

After seeing his name mentioned prominently in trade speculation at the start of this season, the Celtics’ point guard is making a return trip with the March 15 trade deadline looming and the team needing to do something to shake things up.

Rondo, according to the Boston Globe, is in the crosshairs once more as the Celtics are reportedly, “listening” to offers for the man who has become their best player:

An ESPN.com report said the Celtics have decided to trade Rondo after his attitude and personality have become too burdensome for the organization. An NBA source told the Globe the Celtics aren’t trying to dump Rondo but his name is being mentioned in deals, similar to the way it was when the team made a play for Chris Paul in December.

Rondo collected his 16th career triple-double and third this season in last night’s 102-96 victory over the Bucks. He has endured a difficult season with the trade rumors, an eight-game absence because of a sprained right wrist, and two because of a NBA suspension for throwing the ball at official Sean Wright.

Rondo also was upset at originally being left off the All-Star team and responded with one of his worst games of the season Feb. 10 against the Raptors in Toronto. On Tuesday in Cleveland he missed all six shots from the field and dished out 11 assists but committed five turnovers.

Last night he bounced back with 15 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists. Coach Doc Rivers lauded Rondo for his orchestration of the offense and pushing the pace. While he has shown flashes of brilliance, it’s uncertain if the organization feels it can begin the post-Big Three era around Rondo.

He has three years and $36 million left on his contract after this season.

If the Celtics listen long and hard enough, they’ll find a suitor for one of the best point guards in the game. But good luck getting back a player of comparable talent.

Then again, if these reports are true, a comparable talent doesn’t matter as much as someone whose “attitude and personality” is compatible with what the organization is looking for while they rebuild for the future.

One thing is clear, though. If Rondo is moved, it’s time to blow taps on the Big 3 era!

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Posted in 2012 Trade Deadline, HT News / Comments (190) /

Somewhere In The Middle

August 11, 2011  ·  11:03PM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – For anyone that decided to parachute into the NBA lockout saga today, you made it just in time for a rather interesting edition of “He said, He said.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern told the Boston Globe that the union cancelled a scheduled meeting. Players Association officials disputed that claim to Yahoo! Sports, saying there was no meeting with Stern and the league’s negotiating team scheduled, and then countered with this twist:

“The NBA refused to have a staff meeting [Thursday],” a union official said. “Billy Hunter has been with the [National Labor Relations Board] the entire week, including Thursday, and the NBPA was told that Stern would be completely unavailable to meet for the next two weeks.”

The truth (the whole truth and nothing but the truth) is clearly somewhere in the middle of this seemingly harmless mix up. Stern and Hunter are big boys, so whatever tweaking that goes on between the two sides is tolerable so long as the end result is one that leaves everyone smiling.

Plus, with the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies on tap Friday night and Hunter with the National Labor Relations Board all week, it’s obvious there were not going to be any big time face-to-face negotiations this week. If a smaller session was proposed, by either side, and then scrapped for whatever reasons, we can live with that … provided there are more substantive talks planned for the near future.

Besides, after weeks of grim news, Stern did offer some encouraging news to the Globe when he said that he expects there will eventually be a deal struck that would keep us from hoops Armageddon for the 2011-12 season:

“I expect that we’ll make a deal because the alternative is very destructive,” he said. “It’s destructive of $2 billion worth of player salaries and it’s destructive most important to our fans of the game. And if it spirals badly everyone gets hurt. But in some ways I worry because the players have more to lose, especially those in the later stages of their career. So we’re going to do everything we can when the rhetoric slows down to get this thing back on track.”

That’s a much different tone than what we heard in the hours after the first full negotiating session between the two sides just a couple of weeks ago, when the league filed that unfair labor practice charge against the union with the NLRB to prevent a potential decertification.

That’s a much rosier outlook than what Hunter provided last week, when he suggested to a conference at the National Bar Association in Baltimore that the 2011-12 season could be in jeopardy if things don’t change drastically in the coming weeks.

Obviously, things might get a little messier before they get better.

But at least they’re talking … well, sort of.

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Posted in HT News, Labor / Comments (58) /

Labor Pains … Here We Go!

July 1, 2011  ·  3:07AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – At least we can all agree on one thing where this lockout is concerned, no one — and we mean NO ONE — is happy about it!

The news out of New York Thursday afternoon prepared us all for what was to come, the NBA’s first lockout in 13 years commenced at 12:01 this morning. It didn’t take long for the feedback to start rolling in from the assembled punditry.

Here is a brief morning sampling of opinions from around the country …

Ian Thomsen of SI.com: How long will this go on? Union chief Billy Hunter anticipated that another meeting will be called in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, he and union president Derek Fisher must consider the unlikely option of decertifying and putting their case into the court system, if they believe they can’t get a fair hearing from the owners.

The alternative is to continue to talk over the summer with the small goal of finding some minimal terms on which both sides can agree. As the next season approaches and both sides are confronted by real pain — a loss of income for the players, and a loss of fan support for the franchises should games be canceled — maybe then there will be a willingness to meet in the middle, with an understanding that their shared business must continue on, even if neither side is particularly happy with the terms.

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Posted in Labor / Comments (133) /

Pacers Boss Bird At The Crossroads

June 28, 2011  ·  11:26AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – Eight years are a mere blip in time, but it seems like an eternity in the NBA.

It’s certainly rare for executives and coaches to last that long.

So when you read that Larry Bird is eight years deep into his tenure as the boss of the Indiana Pacers, it seems a bit strange. I was there for the start, standing in the crowd at Bird’s introductory news conference and wondering, like most in that surprised sea of faces staring at him, how long the man known as “Larry Legend” would last as an executive.

Now, eight trying years later for Bird and the Pacers, Bird appears to be at the crossroads. The Pacers finally recovered fully from the infamous brawl at the Palace, making their first playoff appearance since 2006 earlier this year and pushing the top-seeded Chicago Bulls in all five games of their first round series.

In a thorough and wide-ranging piece on Bird, Julian Benbow of the Boston Globe touched on not only Bird’s lingering connections to the Celtics but also his tumultuous journey running the Pacers and how much longer he plans on doing so:

He’s been the Pacers’ top executive for eight seasons, but said that after next season he’s considering stepping away. He took the Pacers to the Finals as coach in 2000. But he’s spent the last six seasons trying to rebuild a franchise stained by the brawl with the Pistons at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

With Indiana coming off its first playoff appearance since 2006, the franchise is at a turning point. Bird and Pacers owner Herb Simon agreed that Bird would continue to guide the franchise on a year-to-year basis.

“It’s a handshake deal,’’ said Bird, who will be honored tomorrow at TD Garden as part of the Sports Museum’s The Tradition. “I don’t want a [long-term] contract.’’
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Heat’s Fear Factor Of Celtics Is Gone

April 11, 2011  ·  11:26AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The Heat didn’t dance around the floor after finally beating back their tormentors from Boston Sunday afternoon.

Perhaps they’d seen enough of the Celtics since the trade deadline to know that a win over these Celtics isn’t worth celebrating, even if it does give you the inside track for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference playoff chase, not to mention the confidence of knowing you can whip ‘em if need be.

The one thing that was put to rest on the last Sunday of the regular season was the Heat’s fear factor where the Celtics are concerned. After being bullied in three previous meetings this season by the defending Eastern Conference champs, the Heat bowed up and showed that they, like most everyone else since Kendrick Perkins departed, are not intimidated by the Celtics’ mystique of the past three seasons.

Jermaine O’Neal did his best to fill in as the Celtics’ enforcer, delivering a shoulder shiver to LeBron James that wound up sending O’Neal flying in the opposite direction. James chucked the ball at O’Neal’s back and flagrant and technical fouls followed, for James and O’Neal as well as others. There would be no more bullying, not with the Celtics in their current state and not with the Heat energized by the challenge.

The Celtics tried to make their usual statement,essentially, “We will snatch your heart if you don’t stop us.” And this time the Heat stopped them.

“We’re not backing down from nobody,” James told reporters after the game, a verbal statement to go along with the physical one the Heat gave during their rout.

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About Last Night: Perk’s Return

January 26, 2011  ·  9:02AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – When the list of the NBA’s most valuable players is discussed, you will never hear the name Kendrick Perkins involved.

But if you watched the 2010 NBA Finals, from start to finish, you know that Perkins not being able to play in Game 7 was as big a factor in the Lakers’ defeating the Celtics as anything. Perkins went down in Game 6 with a right knee injury that required “reconstructive” surgery. Without him, the Celtics’ lacked that interior toughness to grind out Game 7 at the Staples Center.

So now you know what all the fanfare was about in Boston last night, when the Celtics’ rugged center made his return after a seven month layoff to recover from his surgery. The Celtics found out just how crucial Perkins was to their mix when they lost him. And now that they have him back, the optimism in Boston is wicked thick, and rightfully so.

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About Last Night: Leaders Of The Pack

December 6, 2010  ·  8:25AM

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – All this chatter about the new world order and the youth movement that was going to take over the league has been squelched by the NBA’s elder statesmen.

Miami and Oklahoma City are still working out the details while seasoned crews in other places seize the opportunity to set the pace for the rest of the league.

In the Eastern Conference, it’s the Boston Celtics ruling the roost so far, their mix of veteran savvy and leadership paired beautifully with the a virtuoso start to the season by Rajon Rondo.

In the Western Conference, the supposedly over-the-hill San Antonio Spurs continue to defy father time, refusing to age gracefully (or at all it seems) despite a Big 3 of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker that has seen its best days come and go.

With plenty of thirty-somethings littering both rosters, some people have a hard time seeing these two teams keeping up this pace over the course of an 82-game regular season.  Since most of us here at the hideout are “Thirty-somethings” as well, we’re rooting for the old folks to show these young whippersnappers how it’s done.

In addition to superior talent, coaching and staying on the right side of the injury bug karma, most elite teams need at least a couple of guys on the roster that understand the nuances of a winning operation. Both the Celtics and Spurs (not to mention the Dallas Mavericks, winners of nine straight games themselves) have handfuls of guys like that to call on when they need them.

It’s one of the beauties of how they’ve been constructed and managed, courtesy of Celtics GM Danny Ainge and coach Doc Rivers and Spurs GM R.C. Buford and coach Gregg Popovich, respectively.

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