Tossing batting practice…because this is a much safer forum, devoid of rocket line drives back up the box that leave giant painful bruises and can’t simply be deleted like the ego bruises I get in the comments section…

It’s kind of like Christmas, when you can’t get what you really want, so you just kind of hope it passes by without much fanfare, but yet your parents continue to make a big deal of it, and try to make it up to you, in what amounts to a spectacular failure and really only makes things worse.
Yes it’s the NBA draft, Celtics style.
Only seven shopping days left for Danny Ainge to set the franchise back another decade, after a brief flirtation with a return to prominence.

Sounds like 2002 all over again huh? Al Jefferson, please pick up the white courtesy phone, there’s a Joe Johnson who wishes to speak with you.

So, Al Jefferson, Gerald Green, the No. 5 pick, and the corpse that is Theo Ratliff and his expiring deal for Kevin Garnett. Does Danny have to give up the rights to championship No. 16 as well?
I’d loathe to part with Jefferson, but I’d do it if I could keep the No. 5 pick, thankfully Garnett made the decision before Danny was able to blow up the entire franchise.
Then I try to flip with Atlanta, who doesn’t want to take Conley at no. 3 even though the desperately need a point guard, and I draft Al Horford.
That at least gets you to the conference semifinals, and probably a little bit deeper.
I still think it’s likely he ends up in Phoenix, though things could be resurrected later on.
If nothing else it’s once again proven that nobody wants to come to Boston, so the best way to build this team is through the draft, and maybe now the banshees on sports radio and in the newspapers will stop crying about how Ainge has to do something. He can’t, when nobody wants to come here.

Oh, and stay the hell out of a three way with Phoenix (See last week’s, Shawn Marion sucks post), unless he’s getting another championship ring from Phoenix, like he did when he made that deal with Detroit three years ago its not worth it. I realize it’s probably the closest he’ll ever get to a title as a GM, but still, have some common sense, I’m pretty sure we won’t hold a big ceremony on City Hall Plaza like you’re Ray Bourque, unless it’s a public flogging.
Getting involved in a three way, is like the real life version, the one pushing for it is obviously only in it for himself, and when you finally relent to getting involved things never work out. The third team/person in never walks away thinking, wow I’m really glad I did that, and can’t wait to do it again, they want to shower, and quickly move on like it never happened.

The sign and trade with Rashard Lewis scares me a little as well, it doesn’t really improve anything except giving them another wing player, and you can’t give up Gerald Green in this deal, because him and Lewis are friends, and that’s why he’d agree to it.
So you’re basically giving up the number five pick, for a guy who’s pretty good, but by no means an elite player. He wants max dollars, and isn’t a max kind of guy, so it just hamstrings your salary cap situation with an Al Jefferson extension looming down the road.
Jermaine O’Neal is a panic move in my eyes, maybe he just needs a change of scenery, but he’s been pretty poor of late. He should be dominating the east, and he couldn’t even get the Pacers to the playoffs this year.


Seriously, for the love of God, hold onto the pick and take Corey Brewer.
Rondo, Brewer, Pierce, Jefferson and a player to be determined, with Green coming off the bench is a pretty good nucleus moving forward. It’s probably a playoff team, and possibly Atlantic Division champions. That’s a start, from there they can continue to build and find the pieces they need.


Since there’s not much else out there, I’m going to fire up a little bit of hockey talk. I used to be a huge Bruins fan, and in fact they came before the Sox in my youth. I played hockey and I convinced my parents every year to get Nesn for March, April and May if I got good grades so I could watch the end of the season and the playoffs.
Now you can’t pay me to watch a full Bruins game, I don’t think I can name five players on the team, and quite frankly I don’t care.
But this new coach search had me intrigued for a day, when the names of Mike Milbury, and the possibility of Terry O’Reilly surfaced.
I was excited, and started frantically searching for my old “Reach for the Stars” video, while wondering if Michael J. Fox would narrate a “Reach for the Stars II., the story of the 2007-08 Bruins”
But now they’re hiring a Canadian, with ties to both Montreal, and New Jersey? Ulf Samuelsson wasn’t available? Pat Quinn wasn’t? (oh wait he was, never mind).
I hate all things Canadien, and New Jersey has essentially ruined hockey, along with Gary Bettman.
To hire a passive guy, with a thick Canadian accent, well I guess I’ll just continue ignoring this team because they simply don’t get it.
Hiring a coach because he will sell tickets isn’t a good idea, but hiring someone who might garner some interest who is the polar opposite of the coach you just fired, well that seems like a pretty good idea. I know I would read game stories and notebooks just to see what Milbury has to say, especially when they lose. That in turn would foster some interest and if the product appears to be improving might get me to buy tickets, or watch a game on television.
Well so much for that.

Out of sheer boredom, and for a little research for this post, I checked out an NHL draft preview, which was also a review of what teams need to do in the offseason. I thought it was an MLS link or something, with Columbus and Nashville having franchises, and the fact that I recognized one out of every five names rattled off as potential trade bait or free agents.
It was also the first time in at least three years, the St. Louis Blues had entered my stream of consciousness for anything other than highlights of Bobby Orr’s goal.

I hope there isn’t too much damage to Schilling’s arm, and hopefully it’s just tendonitis, but he did not sound like a guy who’s confident in being able to pitch effectively this season. Nearly every answer out of his mouth was met with trepidation. Not a good sign from your October ace.

While the Yankees are white hot of late, I’m a little less nervous now when I remember there are still 14 games with Baltimore, 19 with Tampa, and the White Sox and Rangers still on the schedule.
If the Sox get out of this lengthy three city road trip (god thing that trip to Japan wasn’t an option for this year, MLB might have stuck that as the back end of this run) with at least an eight game lead, then I’ll fell pretty good going forward.

Hey nice to see Coco Crisp remembered where second base was this week, I wonder if Luis Alicea had to tell him he was allowed to stay at first this time, after his first hit in this little hot streak.
If he can be just a .260 or .270 hitter that’s all the Sox need out of him given his defense.

Things, I wish would permanently leave sports headlines, 1. Pacman Jones, is it really news that he’s wanted for a strip club shooting, and then today he’s charged in the other one? Go away, preferably to a government facility.
2. Duke Lacrosse, I’m glad Nifong was disbarred, but I really don’t want to discuss the whole logistics of the case again on sports radio, it’s old news, move on.

Updating an item from last week, it appears as though the dream will be on hold for Texas A&M’s Joseph Jones, who returned to school, rather than fulfill his lifelong dream of leaving school early for the draft. It’s always tough when you’re lifelong dreams are shattered before ever getting out of college and into the real world.