Saturday, January 2, 2010

2010 is here

So I guess it is time for my Celtics decade recap.

This past decade was certainly eventful. 10 years ago I would have been writing about Pitino's curse, oh wait, I littered the internet expounding on the shortcomings of Rick Pitino.

Fortunately, Rick Pitino resigned in Miami on Jan. 3, 2001 right smack dab in the middle of my divorce. Speculation is that he went on to have a good time with Tiger Wood's hiram.

The team had horrible talent surrounding Pierce and Walker and had a cheapskate (I mean very Shreeeewwwwwwdddd Businessman) owner. Still Jim O'Brien got the best out of his team and earned a playoff run to the 2002 ECF and got within 6 games of winning the NBA title.

The team was thankfully sold to Wyc Grousebeck and Steve Paglicia who hired Danny Ainge to turn this franchise back into a winner. I have already chronicaled the turnaround and now the Celtics are back in the running for championships (as it should be).

The team has a nice mixture of veterans and a very good young PG and C to build a future team around. I am optimistic that Glen Davis can be the future PF succeeding Garnett and Wallace.

We will have to keep restocking our roster through the draft, free agent signings, and trades. Danny has a proven track record in all three rostering tools.

Doc Rivers is a proven NBA coach. You need talent to win in this league. The rest of the NBA is getting a lot better with very few weak sisters (New Jersey and Minnesota come to mind immediately with Philadelphia, Detriot, Golden State, and Washington on the decline). There may be no teams that can win 60 games this year due to moving closer to parity. Even the "mighty" Los Angeles Lakers is finding tough sledding on the road.

Look at tonights results: Orlando lost in Chicago
Memphis walloped Phoenix in Phoenix
Charlotte beat Miami in Miami
Oklahoma had their win streak snapped in Milwaukee (just like the Celtics on Saturday night trips into Milwaukee)

There is an awful lot of basketball to be played and I think the Celtics will regroup, get healthy, and get on a roll. Minutes from the veterans are getting reduced and we are getting useful stints out of Glen Davis, Tony Allen, Rasheed Wallace, Eddie House, Lester Hudson, and even JR Giddens. I still think that a trade is coming in February for the Celtics. But if parity continues to hold, there may not be that many sellers for Danny to take advantage of.

So I will be doing a lot of statistical data collection to see which teams are competing and which teams are rebuilding. January is moving month in the NBA. The Celtics are trying to hang on until they get healthy.

Ron