Category: Celtics

Tampering LeBron Seems to Be Pissing Off Trade Partners, Knicks Shooting for the Moon With Porzingis Trade and Where Do the Celtics Stand?

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ESPN – New Orleans Pelicans general manager Dell Demps has yet to return a call from Lakers GM Rob Pelinka, league sources told ESPN. The sluggish response time is perhaps a message that New Orleans places some responsibility on the Lakers for Davis’ trade request…

Demps is picking up his phone and returning calls — just not from the Lakers, sources said. From Paul George to Leonard to Davis, the Lakers’ front office is growing accustomed to icy receptions from teams enduring All-Star trade demands with a full year left on their contracts.

What is usually a case of Magic Johnson and the Lakers just tampering with anyone and everyone and then pleading ignorance or brushing it off as players talking seems to finally be catching up to them. We saw it before the season even started as LeBron basically committed insider trading on his way to Los Angeles, as we discussed on The 300s Podcast last July.

Now we’re starting to see NBA executives getting fed up with teams just flaunting the rules, especially small market teams like New Orleans that depend on those rules. Now obviously if you think players aren’t talking and pitching each other during vacations and at All-Star games you’re glib, but when players are openly campaigning to play with other players under contract with different teams, that is beyond frustrating.

Especially when LeBron owns the company that employs the agent (Rich Paul) that your star player (Anthony Davis) now shares with LeBron himself. Robert Mueller couldn’t untangle that web of deception.

You can start to see the puppet strings from Rich Paul in recent reports that have come out. Such as the one suggesting that Kyrie wanted to reunite with LeBron and was likely to leave Boston after the season. Essentially just putting reports out there to try and destabilize the perception of Boston as a destination to help expedite a trade of Davis to LA.

The stance of Davis and his camp toward Boston is linked to their view of Kyrie Irving’s future, sources said. Davis and his camp no longer believe that Irving is a sure bet to re-sign with the Celtics this summer, and that’s the primary reason they insist on clumping Boston with a similar message to the 28 other teams: Buyer beware on a trade for Davis.

This is pure agent speak for I want my client in LA so I will float rumors that Boston’s best player is leaving after this season.

Simply put if we get past the next week and Anthony Davis is not traded, there is no way I can see that he doesn’t wind up with the Celtics. If the Pelicans truly are bullshit about the tampering consulting of Davis’ (and LeBron’s) agent to get him to LA, then they for sure won’t trade him before the deadline this year. That would bring us to the offseason when no team can really beat the Celtics’ potential package.

Whether Danny Ainge would ultimately give up Jayson Tatum in any package remains to be seen, but the Lakers don’t have too much that would entice me if I’m Dell Demps. Especially if they’re still pissed because theres no more powerful motivator in this world than spite.

So the big market Los Angeles Lakers are just going to punt on 2019-20 to hopefully sign Anthony Davis the FOLLOWING summer when LeBron will be in his age 35-36 season? Uhhh…

To sign Davis outright in 2020, the Lakers would have to maintain enough cap space for him — which could mean forfeiting the chance to add a star player this summer. The Lakers could sign that star free agent, and then sign-and-trade their young guys for Davis in the summer of 2020. Whatever the case, it’s a complicated path to Davis.

Not to mention if the Lakers want to gut their team to trade for Davis now it would put them in the same exact situation the Knicks were in when they acquired Carmelo Anthony back in 2011. Sure they got their guy, but the team around him after that was garbage.

What’s more, to deal all of their young assets for Davis now would complicate the Lakers’ path to a third star. With only Davis, LeBron and Luol Deng’s stretched salary on their books for 2019-20, the Lakers would have only about $30.5 million in cap space — not enough for a max free agent. They would either have to hope a star takes less than the max, or roll their space over to the summer of 2020 — when the cap will go up again.

So if your the Pelicans, whats the rush?

The Pelicans believe the Lakers will offer the same deal in June and July as they can offer now, which is one more reason to wait on the Celtics.

But it wouldn’t be ESPN if they didn’t end the article without shitting in the cereal bowl of Boston fans with this doomsday scenario:

Still, there are scenarios that concern Boston. For instance, the Celtics could disappoint in the postseason. The Knicks could win the draft lottery and enter the offseason with the one trade asset that tops Tatum: the NBA draft’s No. 1 pick, and the chance to select Duke’s Zion Williamson.

If that isn’t enough, the Knicks could add Kevin Knox to their offer and hope that acquiring Davis would entice a second star free agent to join him. Irving would be on their short list of such players, and the Knicks, armed with Davis and enough cap room for Irving, stand as one the only Irving threats that would unnerve Boston.

The tinfoil hat donning Celtics fans are already starting to freak out about this exact scenario after the Porzingis Woj bomb that dropped out of the sky this afternoon.

The Knicks are essentially hoarding assets and clearing out more cap space for a potential Anthony Davis trade to then turn around and team him up with….a freshly signed max contract Kyrie Irving. It takes some mental gymnastics to get there, but it is a scary thought.

I have more faith in the Browns making the Super Bowl than I do in the Knicks suddenly getting their circus together enough to facilitate one of the great coups in NBA history.

There Are Reports That Kyrie is “Genuinely Interested in Reuniting With LeBron.” Not Good!

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LeBron, you tampering son of a bitch. It all started with Kyrie Irving publicly and pretty blatantly complaining about the young guys surrounding him on the Celtics.

THEN by his own admission Kyrie called LeBron James for advice  and to apologize for their falling out.

LeBron, the guy that Kyrie hated so bad that he forced his way out of Cleveland, is who Kyrie is turning to for advice. Odd flex, but OK.

Credit where its due, but Felger pointed out on 98.5 today that LeBron, who loves to opine about his role as a veteran mentor, was radio silent on the matter. Seriously, there was not a single quote from LeBron about the exchange he had with Kyrie, which as Felger said is just suspicious. It may even point to a guy in LeBron who is being cautious of potential tampering charges should Kyrie sign with LA this summer.

THEN we get the Instagram Story from LeBorn legitimately singing about lost love and publicly tagging Kyrie. At that point I was officially concerned.

THEN there was also a story that flew under the radar a bit this week about how Kyrie is planning to produce and star in a movie about a haunted hotel in Oklahoma City.

I mean they film most movies in LA, but plenty of bangers have been shot in Boston. The Departed, The Town, Fever Pitch, I could go on and on, but the point has been made.

THEN as we get to the most deeply of buried leads, comes the report from Ric Bucher:

NOW, before I get my blood pressure up I want to acknowledge that this is a report from a “source close to the team.” While thats never ideal, it’s still just a whisper of a rumor. With that being said, this would be one of the softest moves in the history of a league filled with soft dough boys. You  just cannot do this as a man if you have even a *shred* of pride. Fed up with being treated as the little brother and overshadowed by LeBron, Kyrie forced a bitter split from a team that was coming off an NBA Finals appearance into a trade with their biggest rival. Now, he’s moved onto Boston and after trying to carry his own team for a grand total of TWO seasons he’s going to give up and go running back to big bro? I’m sorry, but I would crush him worse than I crushed Kevin Durant and thats a promise.

So lets just hope this is all a bunch of malarkey or this is a behind the scenes leverage play by Kyrie perhaps. Maybe he is just trying to ensure that Celtics ownership doesn’t take his presence for granted and Danny really goes after Anthony Davis hard this offseason. That way we can go back to being good friends and I can watch my guy Kyrie hit daggers in OT against the Raptors.

THEN we had the long expected trade request from Anthony Davis coming out of New Orleans, which due to the timing gives the Los Angeles Lakers the immediate leg up on acquiring him. All this just a few months after AD signed on with one Rich Paul…the same agent as LeBron James.

LeBron…you tampering son of a bitch.

BREAKING: Anthony Davis Wants Out of New Orleans

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After years of dreaming, wishing, and hoping that NBA superstar Anthony Davis would eventually make his way up to Boston, we got a major WOJ BOMB regarding the Pelicans’ All-World forward early Monday morning:

*HEAVY BREATHING*

But, in the words of the great Phil Collins:

“Hold on my heart.
Just hold on to that feeling.
We both know we’ve been here before.
We both know what can happen.”

Everyone knows that anything Wojnarowski says is pretty much Bible. BUT, before you go throw on your Green jammies, I’m going to crush your dreams (and mine) and inform you right away that the Celtics are not allowed to trade for The Brow right now, no matter what they’d be willing to offer.

Why? I’mma let Boston.com’s Nicole Yang explain the reason why:

Both Davis and Irving signed their contract extensions under the “Rose Rule,” named after point guard Derrick Rose because he was the first player to sign such an extension. The “Rose Rule” allows certain players coming off their rookie-scale contracts to earn 30 percent of the salary cap as opposed to 25 percent. To be eligible, a player must have achieved one of three accolades during the first four seasons of his career: MVP award, Defensive Player of the Year award, or two All-NBA selections. (When Davis and Irving inked their extensions in 2015 and 2014, respectively, two All-Star starter nods was in place of DPOY.)

NBA teams cannot trade for more than one player who has signed an extension under the “Rose Rule” — a limitation that is only applicable when the players are still on their “Rose Rule” extensions. The Celtics acquired Irving via trade in August 2017, so they cannot deal for Davis — or any other player that has signed such an extension — until Irving leaves or agrees to a new deal. Irving will become an unrestricted free agent at the conclusion of this season and has expressed his intention to re-sign with the Celtics. The earliest he can do so is July 1, 2019.

Seriously, that SUCKS, but such is the reality right now. Sorry to ruin your week already.

Again, it doesn’t change the fact that the Celtics are the team with likely the best combination of current players AND future assets to offer New Orleans. And, with the way the team has been playing this year, I’m pretty much ready to deal anything and everything we’d need to in order to get it done.

But, alas, we can’t do a damn thing.

Everyone now assumes that the Lakers will make a Godfather offer in order to bring Davis to L.A., which would pair him up with the King. The Lakers may not have the same abundance of draft capital the Celtics have right now, but they do have plenty of young talent that could tempt the Pelicans into moving the 25-year-old. But truthfully, who knows where he could end up? When a player this good hits the trade block, pretty much any team would jump at the chance to get him.

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Seriously, this man is a true franchise-changer.

Davis is also signed through next season, with a player option for 2020-21. This makes him even more enticing, as whoever obtained him in a trade wouldn’t just be getting a rental. However, this also means the Celtics can’t just wait until next summer and try to sign him because: 1) he won’t be a free agent and 2) something could happen well before then anyway.

All the team can do is hope that he stays with New Orleans through the rest of this season. Then, after July 1, hopefully we’ll have already locked Kyrie up for the long term and we’re able to put together a package to acquire Davis before next season. And it’s really not all that crazy of a scenario, as the Pelicans don’t “need” to trade him any time soon, and they know they’re unlikely to get as good of a deal from anyone else as the one they’d get from the C’s.

So, sorry to break it to you, Celts Nation. But hey:

Stay tuned…

Missed Chances Kill Celtics in Heartbreaking Loss to Golden State

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Never in my life have I seen a team blow so many chances and do everything they could not to win a game as I saw in the Celtics’ 115-111 loss to the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night.

Yes, the Warriors are really good. And, sure, some people may look at the fact the team only lost by four as a “good” thing. Some may also say the team was coming off a five-game winning streak, which started with a sound victory against No. 1 seed Toronto 11 days ago. But let’s also not forget that three of those wins came against some of the very worst teams in the league (Memphis, Atlanta, and Cleveland).

Back to Saturday night. The Celtics were able to keep it pretty close the whole contest, save for a nice little run by Golden State in the second quarter, helping the Warriors build a nine-point lead at one point. The Celtics battled back, however, and cut the deficit to only two at the half.

From there on out, it was a battle. The Warriors did get the lead back up to six by the end of the third, after Jayson Tatum almost single-handedly kept the C’s alive throughout the quarter with 14 points in those 12 minutes. Then it was a fight to the finish in a neck-and-neck fourth quarter, with Al Horford and Kyrie Irving leading the way. (And I also can’t forget to mention the clutch three-pointer that Marcus Smart nailed in Draymond Green’s eyeball to tie the game at 111. Seriously, that was a sick shot.)

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Tatum stepped up big when it counted last night.

Yet when you really look at how that fourth quarter went down, the Celtics simply gave the game away. Plain and simple. It actually physically hurt to watch.

First, there’s the fact that they committed SIX turnovers in the quarter, and finished the game with a grand total of 14  – with nine (!) coming from Kyrie and Big Al alone. To be fair, Golden State committed 14 turnovers on Saturday night as well, and the total was not at all far off from the Celtics’ turnover-per-game mark of 13.4, which is actually the fourth-best in the whole league. But, as they say, timing is everything in life, and six giveaways in the final eight minutes are not going to do you any favors. Period.

It’s even worse when you consider that Golden State made just five shots from the floor in the fourth quarter, for a total of 11 points. However, they were able to sink 14 points at the line – aided by some horrendously soft calls from the officials, yes – and the Celtics even out-rebounded the Warriors 15-13 over the game’s final frame.

But the final half-minute of action tells the whole story. Just look at this cluster-eff of events that happened in the game’s final moments: with Golden State up just two points and 32 seconds left, Durant tries to throw the game away (literally) with a horrible pass that sailed out of bounds; the Celtics get the ball and Kyrie misses a two-pointer; Draymond Green then tries to grab the rebound and muffs it out of bounds; Celtics get the ball back AGAIN and Marcus Morris misses a three; Green gets the rebound again, is immediately fouled by Horford, and MISSES BOTH FREE THROWS; but, of course, the ball is rebounded by Steph Curry, he’s fouled by Kyrie, hits both shots at the line, and the game was pretty much over.

WOOF! Just brutal.

While the team did prove that they still have the firepower to hang with the league’s best, it was an awful way to end the game. And the team still sits fifth in the Eastern Conference, barely making up any ground on the four teams ahead of them, even with their five other victories over the past week. Besides two respective matchups against Charlotte and Oklahoma City, the Celtics have a beatable slate of opponents coming up over the next two weeks. Hopefully they can bounce back quickly from this one.

A few more quick notes on the Green:

  • After being arguably the Celtics’ best player besides Kyrie over the first half of the season, Marcus Morris is starting to come back to down to Earth a little bit, averaging just 9.5 points over the team’s last seven contests. After failing to score in double-figures just once from Thanksgiving through the first week in January, Morris has surpassed 10 points in just four-of-the-last-nine games.
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Still love ya, man, but what happened?

  • Terry Rozier is also really struggling to find his place on this squad. It’s been up and down all year long for the 24-year-old, with much of that likely having to do with the inconsistent minutes he’s been given, seeing well over 30 minutes of play some nights and just barely over 15-18 in others. Also, it has been U-G-L-Y for him over the past two weeks, as he is shooting an abysmal 18 percent from the floor (YUCK!) over the past nine games. He is a guy who needs a ton of volume to be successful, and he just ain’t gonna get it here. Danny, I think it’s time to move the young guard and at least get something for him before he becomes a restricted free agent this summer. (Remember, in the NBA, if a team fails to match an offer sheet, the other team is NOT required to provide any compensation.)
  • The same goes for Gordon Hayward. One of the team’s all-time biggest free-agent acquisitions is simply not living up to the hype. He was absolutely invisible against Golden State, going 0-for-5 from the floor in 22 minutes of action. And besides two 18-point games this month, he’s failed to crack double-digits in six-of-his-last-eight games. Maybe he’s still healing. Or maybe he’s just not used to playing on such a loaded squad. Regardless, he’s been a major bummer.
  • On a good note, Marcus Smart may finally be developing a three-point shot! I already mentioned the huge one he hit on Saturday night, and the defensive intensity and grit-and-balls attitude he brings to the table every night has long been well-known. Most people probably aren’t aware that he is shooting 41 percent from deep since Thanksgiving, even though he is at just 36.3 percent for the season overall. If he keeps trending in this direction, Smart could become the true X-factor on this team.
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Yeah, I see you, Marcus!

  • Things have taken a bit of a turn for our boy Robert Williams – aka the “Time Lord.” After playing in only six games since Christmas, he was officially sent back down to the G-League just three days ago. But we know it’s only temporary, young fella! You’ll be back up in no time, and we’ll be waiting with baited breath.

So there’s your quick little Celtics round-up after Saturday night’s heartbreaker. Be sure to keep checking in with The 300s for all your news on the Green all season long.

What the Hell Does LeBron Think He’s Doing Sending My Man Videos?

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LeBron was on his IG stories singing some Fetty Wap song about lost love and tagging my man Kyrie Irving. Just look at these lyrics:

I know you’re with him now but soon you will be mine
If I could bring it back, I’ll probably press rewind

What the fuck man? This would have been odd a few weeks ago, but after Kyrie went out of his way to tell the word he called LeBron to 1.) apologize for past behavior and 2.) publicly bitch about the young guys on his own team, I am not liking this one bit.

Best case scenario? Kyrie has buried the hatchet with every Celtics fan’s blood rival so they can play grab ass on social media. Worst case scenario? These two are boys now that Kyrie understands the burden of leadership and LeBron is using that as a recruiting ploy for this summer.

Color me concerned.

Ranking Boston’s 11 Championships This Century

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It’s only lunchtime, but I’m going to call it early and say that this is the best tweet of the day. It’s the final plays from all 11 Boston championships this century, in a tidy 2:18 minute clip. Getting back to the original question, though, which one was the sweetest? Let’s discuss.

11. 2007 Red Sox Winning never gets old, but there wasn’t much drama in this Fall Classic.

10. 2004 Patriots A very businesslike championship for the most dominant professional football team of my lifetime.

9. 2018 Red Sox A complete steamroller of a team, they rolled through the playoffs without much opposition. A very satisfying, even if not dramatic, championship.

8. 2014 Patriots Brady got back on the board after a ten-year drought, but one play in particular is more memorable than the game as a whole.

7. 2008 Celtics Made the Celtics relevant for the first time in almost 20 years. The real drama may have been the summer before, though, with Danny wheeling and dealing.

6. 2011 Bruins The B’s came back from an 0-2 deficit to hoist the Cup for the first time in nearly 40 years. I recognize that many Bruins fans would rank this one higher.

5. 2013 Red Sox The only competitive World Series the Red Sox have played in this century, it capped off an improbable run to a championship in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings.

4. 2016 Patriots THE FALCONS BLEW A 28-3 LEAD!

3. 2003 Patriots The Patriots never make it easy for their fans. [What I would give for a 30-point blowout next week!] The Patriots and Panthers scored a combined 37 points in the fourth quarter, and the Patriots won it (again) on an Adam Vinatieri field goal with time winding down.

2. 2001 Patriots The Patriots’ first Super Bowl championship, Boston’s first championship in 16 years, and the first championship of my lifetime. That would be tough to top, except…

1. 2004 Red Sox Curse reversed. Enough said.

What’s your number 1? Let us know on Twitter @The300sBoston and @The300sBigZ

REAL TALK: OK, So Maybe the Celtics Aren’t Fine

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No, but really: What the hell is going on with this Celtics team?

For team that was supposed to dominate the East this season, it’s really disappointing to see them sitting fifth in the conference at 26-18, a measly eight games above .500 and behind teams like Indiana and Philly.

I know just 10 days ago I said this team was doing just fine and that soon they’d hit their stride. And they did indeed beat the best team in the conference just two nights ago. But that win was coming off a 2-3 stretch – during which they lost to Miami, Brooklyn, and freakin’ Orlando – and after multiple instances of bitch-assness from a few players throughout the roster.

First, there was Marcus Morris shoving a completely unengaged Jaylen Brown against Miami on January 10:

Then, Kyrie Irving threw a hissy fit on the court after Jayson Tatum’s missed last-second shot attempt just two days later in Orlando, which ultimately led him to call everyone out after the game. To be honest, I’m not even mad about the postgame comments; a leader should step up and call out the young guys when they’re slacking, and I applaud him for doing so. I also think Jaylen Brown acted like a whiny child when he said Kyrie shouldn’t have been “pointing fingers” because it will make some on the team “go into their shells.” (Kyrie actually ended up apologizing for what he said, but Brown’s response was soft.)

BUT NOW, we get the news – compliments of Kyrie himself – that after those postgame comments he made down in Orlando, he called “old friend” LeBron James (catching the sarcasm there?) to apologize to him for being so difficult and not recognizing what a leader he was during their time together in Cleveland. Kyrie said he, too, used to do the very same things that he’s currently accusing the Celtics’ younger guys of doing, and that LeBron was simply trying to teach everyone how to win, much like he’s trying to do in Boston right now.

Wow, Kyrie.

No, seriously, though. A leader doesn’t to try and grandstand his entire team by calling the self-proclaimed “G.O.A.T.” to talk about what could have been and then go out of his way to tell the whole world about it. You’re acting like a manipulative girlfriend who brings up her ex whenever she’s mad at you. What you did was a complete bitch-ass move, Kyrie. It was a textbook LOSER move all around, and I wouldn’t blame the rest of the guys in the locker room for shutting you out for a bit because of it. That was just plain WEAK.

But how about what’s been happening on the court? Well, they did just beat the No. 1 seed Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night – yes, led by Kyrie’s 27 points – but that was after losing to Brooklyn on Monday night, in a game during which they were down by 30 at certain points.

So, while there’s no doubt the roster is still loaded with talent, the inconsistency is what is killing the team right now. This team has flipped flopped between piping hot and ice cold throughout the entire season. Need proof? Here’s a snapshot of how things have gone since Thanksgiving:

  • Won eight straight
  • Lost three in a row
  • 3-2 stretch
  • Won four straight
  • Lost three in a row
  • Win

And what’s even crazier is that, according to the numbers, the team should be one of the top squads in the entire league right now, let alone the Eastern Conference. They’re 11th in terms of offensive rating (112.2) and they’re fifth in defensive rating (106.1). Though they’re technically 14th in points per game (111.8), the stats say they should be able to make up for it with their play on the other side of the ball.

But again, inconsistency has been the killer. While Kyrie – as pissed as I am at him right now – has remained hot for pretty much the whole year, others haven’t been so reliable. For example, Al Horford, who came up huge with 24 points against Toronto on Wednesday, put up totals of 8, 10, 2, 6, and 12 in the five games prior. Gordon Hayward, who was heating up just two weeks ago, put up a total of just 17 points during the team’s three-game losing streak before scoring 18 on Wednesday night at the Garden. Even Jaylen Brown, who is finally starting to pick it up, has seen his totals fluctuate wildly over the past two weeks as well.

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It’s seriously tough to predict how the book on the Gordon Hayward era in Boston is going to be written when it’s all said and done.

Marcus Morris and Jayson Tatum have been pretty reliable, with each consistently contributing 15-16 points a night. But even their once vaunted group of role guys like Terry Rozier and Marcus Smart have not been able to cement their purpose in the rotation; yes, they’re all still playing, but not as cohesively as hoped.

The problem is that there are just too many cooks in the kitchen right now, and it’s hard for anyone to start to simmer. This has also caused some serious issues in the locker room – some of which we still might not even know about – and that old “Ubuntu” mentality, championed by Celtics teams of old, seems to be a thing of the past.

Again, as I said the other week, I do believe this team can still get hot. But we’re now officially over halfway through the season, and things have actually been trending downward lately, as opposed to getting any better. Maybe Danny Ainge should think about blowing things up a bit (e.g. trading Rozier), allowing for guys to actually be a bit more selfish and solidify their respective roles a bit more. Or maybe some guys can get over themselves a bit and try to be a better teammate.

Either way, something’s gotta give, for better or worse, and something needs to be done sooner rather than later.

The Time Lord Returns and Celtics Win Third Straight

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After being out the past six games with a groin injury, the Celts’ beloved rookie did not make much too much noise in his return the court against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night, finishing with just two points in a little over four minutes of play.

Those two points, though? They came on this showstopper:

Again: this kid can ball! The dunk was impressive enough, but his steal also set up the fast break that allowed it to happen in the first place. That steal was also his third in his past four games. Over that time, he’s also compiled a total of eight blocks, including his second five-block performance of the year against Phoenix just before Christmas.

Sadly, we didn’t get to see what he could do against Joel Embiid and the Sixers on Christmas Day, as both Williams and Aron Baynes had been out nursing injuries since that game (and even beforehand in Baynes’s case). Therefore, for about the past three or four weeks, the Celtics have been rolling with Daniel Theis, a still-not-fully-healed Al Horford, and an extremely underwhelming Guerschon Yabusele as the team’s only bigs.

Along with Williams’s return last night, Celtics fans also got some good news yesterday about Baynes, who has been out since December 19 with a broken finger. Both he and Coach Stevens seemed pretty positive about his healing progression when speaking to the media yesterday, and the 32-year-old Aussie could return to the C’s lineup as early as next week.

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Baynes and his man bun will soon be back on the court.

But what about the rest of the team? How have they been doing since the jolly ole fat man came down the chimney a few weeks ago?

Since beating Philly on December 25, the Celtics are 4-2, with those two losses coming against San Antonio and a scorching-hot Houston Hardens squad – oops, sorry, I meant Houston “Rockets” – respectively. And since Thanksgiving, they are a very respectable 15-6. Three of those losses, however, have come with either Williams and/or Baynes out of the lineup, so this team could be ready to roll once everyone is finally healthy once again. Don’t be so worried about that fifth-place spot in the East right now, as disappointing as it may seem.

Speaking of people who are healing up, Gordon Hayward may finally be showing signs of being the All-Star he was out in Utah. Taking away an absolute clunker against the Spurs last week, Hayward has otherwise averaged 17.2 points per game since the Philly contest, including a 35-point outburst against Minnesota. He’s also shot 54 percent from the field in those five games and over 42 percent from deep.

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Look who’s finally coming alive!

Kyrie Irving and Marcus Morris have also continued to roll, and both should receive serious All-Star consideration this year. Jayson Tatum has not taken quite the leap that everyone expected and hoped for this year, but he’s certainly not playing poorly, by any stretch of the imagination. And Marcus Smart is showing signs of rounding out his game, shooting over 40 percent from deep in six-of-his-last-11 games. The team is still playing top-five defense as well.

If there’s one noteworthy issue with this team, it’s in the rebounding department, especially on the offensive end. Again, though, with both Williams and Baynes back (or soon to be back) in the rotation, hopefully we see some signs of improvement there in short order.

So, at just about the midway point of the season, I’d say I’m feeling OK about this Celtics squad. Yes, I do believe they’re underperforming a bit relative to expectations, but the East is also the best it’s been in years (collectively, at least), and this team still has time to get hot.

Don’t believe all the negative rhetoric flooding the sports talk airwaves right now. The Time Lord is back! And this team is still doing just fine.

Time Lord Robert Williams Doesn’t Know What Day It is Because Time is Just a Social Construct

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Yahoo –  Boston Celtics rookie Robert Williams, sidelined the past five games with a groin injury, offered a refreshingly honest admission about the early days of NBA life.

“This might sound funny but I literally don’t know the days of the week,” Williams said after practice on (take note, Rob!) Sunday. “I promise, I couldn’t tell you what today is. I forget the days of the week. And with the traveling, mix up the hotel room numbers from the previous [night] – it’s a lot man. It’s a lot. It’s worth it though.”

Williams isn’t revealing anything that most rookies haven’t already experienced. The grind of NBA life, particularly with the heavy travel, makes it tough to keep the calendar straight. But in admitting it, Williams probably only strengthened the chances that his “Time Lord” nickname will stick.

Robert Williams doesn’t live in the same timeline of reality as normal human beings like you and me so he doesn’t know, nor need, the days of the week. Thats just how a Time Lord operates. So to that I say, forget these social constructs like “Monday” and just go out there and block some shots into the rafters, Robert.

Now go buy a Time Lord shirt!

Or better yet, a Time Lord clock…

The 300s Top 10 Blogs of 2018

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2018 was a banner year for The 300s as we saw our readership grow exponentially, we rolled out a ton of new swag, and we brought some new writers onto the staff. We appreciate everyone who takes a few minutes out of their day to read a blog or watch a video or listen to a podcast. With that being said, it’s the last day of the year so we had to break down the Top 10 Blogs of 2018.

1.) David Price Continues Good Will Tour, Rips 69-Year-Old Red Sox Reporter Jonny Miller

2.) Apparently Jon Gruden’s Son, Deuce Gruden, is the Goddamn Hulk

3.) RIP Mac Miller, Dead at 26

4.) Nike Deserves Applause for Choosing Colin Kaepernick as New Face of “Just Do It” Campaign

5.) Boston Celtics NBA 2K19 Ratings Predictions

6.) The Marlins Are Replacing the Ugly Home Run Statue With Irony

7.) Tough Break for Malden Men Who Recovered Red Sox Banner

8.) Terrible News: Ed Hochuli is Retiring. Better News: His Son is Replacing Him

9.) I LOVE This Quote From Rick Porcello

10.) Brock Lesnar Possibly Playing Ivan Drago’s Son In “Creed 2”