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The Boston Celtics Are Back in Business for a Long Time to Come

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What a time to be a Celtics fan. Not only is Gordon Hayward coming to Boston, but it feels like the landscape of the NBA is starting to change. And it’s changing for the better for Celtics fans.

With the Golden State Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder, the Western Conference is still loaded. Plus, I’m always afraid the Los Angeles Lakers could become serious contenders again overnight. But the Eastern Conference hasn’t been this wide open for a decade.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are starting to look a lot like the Lakers at the end of the Shaq/Kobe years. Still a lot of talent there, but it doesn’t feel like everyone is buying in. It feels like there are some serious cracks in the foundation. I wouldn’t write off LeBron, but he might already be plotting out the next chapter of his career [like Shaq in Miami].

The Celtics were already the Cavaliers’ top challenge in the east going forward. Signing Hayward now makes the Celtics a legitimate threat to stop the Cavaliers from getting back to the Finals. And even if the Cavaliers can hold off the Celtics again next year, which team would you rather be for the next four years?

The Celtics will now be the prime landing spot for anyone who wants to come east and get to the Finals to challenge Golden State. It’s a good situation with a good coach and a young, talented roster. The Cavaliers still might be better on paper, for now, with Lebron, but the clock is a lot closer to midnight for the Cavs than it is for the C’s.

After the Lakers signed Shaq, they were relevant for almost 20 years. This could be a similar moment for the Celtics. This moment is bigger than the acquisitions of Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett ten years ago. Those moves instantly made the Celtics relevant, but every one knew their window was going to be short.

Even though he won’t be here for twenty years, this signing could be what sets off the chain of events that keep the Celtics relevant for the next two decades. Sign me up.

 

Speaking of Don Draper, Apparently He Designed the 1975 Astros Jerseys Too

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draper astrosESPN Uni Watch – If you’ve ever looked at the rainbow uni and wondered who dreamed it up, the answer is the advertising firm McCann Erickson, which was hired by the Astros to redesign the team’s look for the 1975 season.

It would be fascinating to see the company’s original files and to know the identities of the people who worked on the project, right? The good news in that regard is that McCann Erickson still exists (it’s now known simply as McCann). The bad news is that a company spokesman said the firm no longer has any original sketches or other archival paperwork. The Astros haven’t saved any original documents, either. Sigh.

I can imagine the Don Draper pitch to the Houston Astros…

In your first 13 seasons you’ve never reached the playoffs, never won more than 84 games in a season, and never finished higher than third place. Now, you’re not even the only game in town. You’ve got to deal with the Texas Rangers in Arlington siphoning fans away from you. It’s time to change the conversation.

The Astros play in the state-of-the-art Astrodome. The Eighth Wonder of the World. Isn’t it time for the Astros to wear uniforms as ground breaking as their stadium? I give you the uniform of the future.

Baseball has never seen anything like this, and neither have your fans. People will flock to the Astrodome just to get a glimpse of these uniforms. They will get people talking. They will get people to forget whether or not you’re in the pennant race. And most importantly, these uniforms will get people to forget about your rivals in North Texas.

They said the Yankees never used to lose because the other teams were too busy staring at the pinstripes. Imagine playing the Astros, and staring at these.

BUY BUY BUY!

This uniform is audacious even by today’s standards. I’d love to have seen the reaction of the Old Time Baseball Guys when they got this pitch from McCann Erickson in 1975. But  it has aged quite well and is almost universally revered to this day. It has to be the most popular throwback out there. Some looks are dated and stale, but this look is still fresh.

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The Astros took a step in the right direction the last time they updated their uniforms in 2013. Hopefully the next time they make a change it’s a little bit further in this direction.

Friday Morning Randomness

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Don Draper – The man who invented Throwback Thursday.

He also put the Kodak Carousel in every school in America. Without it, teachers never would have been able to share photos from their 1979 trip to Mexico City with their students for the next two decades.

The Butthurt Is Strong With Manager John

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I don’t like it any more when Bill Belichick spars with reporters and the media. Tom Brady always finds a way to say nothing without coming off like a prick. It annoys me to no end to see Belichick talk to reporters like they’re children. But at least Belichick has earned it.

Bill Belichick is unquestionably the best head coach in the NFL today. He’s arguably the best head coach of all time. Manager John has managed 1049 games and is 23 games over .500 (536-513, .511). And for whatever reason that includes the 49 games Torey Lovullo managed while John Farrell was out at the end of 2015. Take out those 49 games Louvullo managed (28-21), and Farrell’s managerial record is 508-492 (.508). Suffice to say, Sparky Anderson Manager John is not.

Regardless, I don’t understand what he got so hot and bothered about. In between Dale Arnold softballs, Rich Keefe asked why they (seem to) run into so many outs and why his use of Craig Kimbrel has apparently changed. Easy answers:

“We like to be aggressive, and we think we more than make up for the outs we run into by scoring more runs.”

“It’s a long season. Kimbrel’s been great, but we can’t use him for four outs every time we’re ahead in the eighth.”

BOOM. I should be the Red Sox PR director. Crisis averted.

Instead, Manager John came across as a petty asshole. And if this is how to reacts to Rich Keefe grilling him, imagine how he’d react to Dan Shaughnessy grilling him if John Henry didn’t own the Globe.

And if the Red Sox were really scuffling, I could maybe better understand this episode and his meltdown Saturday night. But this team is in/near first place with all sorts of injuries. This team is not circling the drain. Manager John needs to project an image of success and lead. Instead, he chose to act like David Price and pick a fight with a guy making $32,000 a year. Not a great look.

Phil Jackson Shown the Door Before Being Able to Burn the Place Down

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BASKET-US-KNICKSNew York Times – A little more than three years after being brought in as the savior of the Knicks, Phil Jackson is out as team president. Jackson was informed of the team’s decision on Tuesday.

Jackson, 71, who won 11 N.B.A. championships as coach of the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, never came close to even approaching that type of success with the Knicks. In fact, in their three full seasons under Jackson, the Knicks had a combined record of 80-166, which was among the worst in the league for that period.

Jackson had two years and $24 million remaining on his contract.

Let me get this straight. A 71-year-old man who already has Eleven Rings™, and who attempted to trade the Knicks’ best player purely out of spite, doesn’t have the patience for a complete and total rebuild?

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If the Knicks were a bar on Bar Rescue, Jon Taffer would have walked out by now. The boss is living in the past, has no real strategy going forward and only comes in to work to annoy and harass his employees. Not a winning formula.

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There’s a lot of talk in baseball about free agents getting paid for past performance. That’s why Albert Pujols will be making $30 million in 2021 and why Pablo Sandoval might get paid more than $40 million from the Red Sox just to GTFO. Past performance is exactly why Phil Jackson got a five-year, $60 million deal from the Knicks in 2014.

While some coaches make bad teams good (see Brown, Larry), Jackson was never one of them. Jackson made good teams great. You can’t argue with Eleven Rings™, but don’t tell me he wasn’t in the right places at the right times, with three of the twenty best players of all time as center pieces of his championship teams. The Knicks team Jackson took over might not have had three of the top twenty players in the league at that time, never mind all time. Everyone should have seen this train wreck coming from miles away.

So take your money, Phil, and go home and play with your triangles. Maybe LeBron will give you a call the next time he fires a coach.

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I Wish I Loved Anything in This World as Much as Danny Ainge Loves Making Trades

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Boston Herald – The Celtics agreed to terms with Philadelphia [Saturday] night on a trade that will send the No. 1 overall pick in Thursday’s NBA draft to the Sixers in exchange for this year’s third overall pick and a protected 2018 Lakers first-round pick.

Hate it. Danny Ainge has been riding the NBA merry-go-round for four years since the window on on the New Big 3 officially closed in 2013. It closed with a bang when Ainge swapped two aging superstars for a boatload of picks from a deeply misguided Brooklyn Nets franchise. Now, with that trade set to pay off like no trade since the the Herschel Walker deal, it’s time for Danny to get off the merry-go-round, push his chips to the middle of the table, and play the cards he’s been holding for four years.

In those four years, Danny has built this team back up from almost the bottom of the league. The Celtics have gone from 25 to 40 to 48 to 53 wins and the number one seed in the East in 2017 over the past four seasons. Danny has meticulously added pieces and can now add a center piece that could push this team over the top for a decade.

Instead, Danny wants to kick the can down the road, swap the pick, and keep riding the merry-go-round to make more deals. This guy loves to deal. He loves to keep people guessing. He loves to make people think he’s playing 4D chess while the rest of the Association is playing checkers. It feels like this team has been chasing this moment and this opportunity since the Len Bias tragedy and instead of going for it, Danny wants to punt. Again.

As I’ve written here before, I’d rather lose by ten points going for the win than lose by one point and look back and say “Goddamn, we should have gone for the win.” Trading this pick and kicking the can further down the road is not going for the win, regardless of what happens in free agency.

The only possible argument for trading this pick is that Danny has studied the current landscape of the league and has made the determination that there is no way to get past Cleveland and/or Golden State in the next few years. The Celtics will still have next year’s Nets pick, and will gain another future pick in this deal (either the Lakers’ 2018 pick or Sacramento’s 2019 pick). Maybe the plan is for the Celtics to really ramp things up before the 2019-2020 season, when LeBron James will be 35 and Steph Curry will be 31. They can’t both go to the Finals another three years in a row, can they? Or maybe the plan is just to have all of the first round picks by the 2030 draft.

Whatever the real plan is, this still feels like a major disappointment. The Celtics have been in a holding pattern for four years, and now it looks like they’ll be in a holding pattern for a few more years. Lots of teams have mortgaged their future to win in the present (Brooklyn Nets, 2013), but this almost feels like the Celtics are mortgaging their present to (maybe) win in the future. I’m sure Danny has a plan here, and I hope it’s a good one. I just don’t see it.

3-on-3 Basketball is Now an Olympic Event

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Business Insider – On Friday the IOC announced a number of new events that will be included in the upcoming 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

Most notable among these new additions for basketball fans is the inclusion of 3-on-3 basketball for both men and women.

The 3-on-3 Olympic competition will follow current FIBA rules. Games will be played in the half court with a 12-second shot clock. Scoring goes by ones and twos over the course of one, 10-minute period.

The first team to reach 21, or whoever is leading at the end of the 10-minute period, wins.

Every four years, the Summer Olympics try to become a little bit more like the X Games. Which is strange because the Summer Olympics, love them or hate them, are a quadrennial colossus. I couldn’t turn on a television last August with out seeing a swimming pool. Meanwhile, the X Games exist to provide #content and programming hours for ESPN  during the dog days. The X Games could be permanently canceled tomorrow and I wouldn’t know one person that even noticed, never mind cared about it.

But 3-on-3 basketball? If the Summer Olympics can have regular volleyball AND beach volleyball, why not 3-on-3 basketball in addition to regular basketball? If Michael Phelps can win eight gold medals in one summer, why can’t Kevin Durant go for two? And at least I already know the gist of the rules as opposed to BMX Freestyle Cycling, which was also added for 2020.  I bet BMX Freestyle Cycling scoring makes figure skating scoring look like scoring the word CAT in Scrabble.

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The other thing 3-on-3 basketball has going for it is that it is quick. Last night’s Red Sox game took more than four hours. You could play a 3-on-3 basketball best-of-15 gold medal final in that same time. With 10-minute games and 12-second shot clocks, a game of 3-on-3 basketball will be quicker than a game of Madden.

My only gripe is the lack of the obligatory “win by two” rule. Rematch city. Which is why the gold medal round has to be at least best-of-seven. That would still only take about an hour. And this has to be played outdoors in 90 degree heat, with a chain link fence two feet out of bounds. Otherwise, why not just make the three-point shooting contest an Olympic event?

Wait, let’s not give them any more ideas.