Karma Catches The Celtics
Authored by Randolph Charlotin - 24th May, 2007 - 3:15 pm
The video was shown over and over. A Celtics fan at a local bar. His face, frozen in horror. His hands on his head as if they are holding his green Celtics hat onto his head to keep his brain from blowing his top like a shaken champagne bottle. And his jaw locked in position, dropped as if an anchor hung from his chin.
ESPN's analysts put words to his reaction, but in the background, over the silenced crowd, faintly rang the lyrics of Justin Timberlake: What goes around always comes back around.
As the NBA revealed the winner of the 2007 draft lottery, the worst case scenario played out for the Green Team as they not only missed out on the top pick overall but fell from their second worst team perch down to fifth overall. While this year's draft is regarded as a deep draft, everyone agrees that the projected top two picks, likely center Greg Oden and forward Kevin Durant, are franchise players. Anyone else is not in that class.
People want to believe in superstition and claim the Celtics curse continues, dating back to Len Bias' death two days after being drafted by Boston in 1986. And as time moved on, other depressing milestones continued to beat down the NBA's most storied franchise (out of sympathy, I won't log them).
Sorry. I ain't buyin' that. People talk as if the Angel of Draft passes over the Celtics offices every lottery evening and kills all hope.
There's also the conspiracy theory. For all the years the Celtics out-smarted other organizations, this is payback. Since the lottery is fixed, Boston will not win a lottery until some unknown debt is paid. I won't believe that until the Cigarette Smoking Man is at the podium, opening the envelopes with Fox Mulder and Dana Scully intensely watching.
What's in the past is in the past. What I do know is our actions can influence events later on, though you may not realize it. To sum it up, karma did the Celtics in.
The Celtics tried to take advantage of the system in place. The rash of injuries gave them an alibi. Theo Ratliff was shut down. Wally Sczerbiack got injured again. But the biggest blow was a stress reaction to their best player, Paul Pierce.
At first, the remaining youngsters tried in earnest to win games without their leader. During this time Al Jefferson roared to life and became an offensive presence. But even his emergence wasn't enough as the Celts plummeted from an almost .500 record into a 18-game losing streak and one of the worst teams in the Eastern Conference.
And that's when the light turned on in the heads of the Celtics front office. With all the talk of either Oden or Durant declaring for the draft after their freshman seasons, how about getting in position to draft either player? That was when the seed to tank the season was planted. Little did they know at the time that the seed would grow into a weed.
They revealed their intentions at home against the Charlotte Bobcats as the Celtics built a 18-point second half lead but let the win slip through their hands as head coach Doc Rivers held his starters out of the fourth quarter. At the post game press conference, Rivers said, "I was not throwing the game, or anything like that." Doc said he was teaching a lesson to the bench players who complain about minutes.
Looking back at those statements makes Rivers hard to believe now that the season is over. There were numerous games the Celtics could had won, but Rivers did what was asked of him and he sabotaged the team by trying not to win. More than once he didn't make proper substitutions to give his team the best chance to win.
Rivers accomplished his job by "earning" the second worst record in the league. And with that, the Celtics put their future in luck. This logic is as sound as buying a lottery ticket to pay off an outstanding dept.
Do they understand that karma dictates you get out what you put in? Did they really think they would get rewarded for putting in a dishonest effort? Maybe if the Celtics didn't tank, they would have finished with the sixth worst record and would be celebrating the leap to the top of the board. Only eight wins separated Boston and Portland. That's not a insurmountable gap to close.
Like I said before, I don't believe in the conspiracy theory. But if it is true, then commissioner David Stern, who frowns on the practice of tanking, would punish the teams trying to lose. That would explain why Boston wasn't alone in the free-fall as Memphis, the worst team in the league, fell three spots to fourth overall.
To say tanking is a necessary evil would be lying. There are more benefits to trying to win than going all out to lose. With a young team like the Celtics, they don't learn how to win which will go a long way towards future success. Nor will they know how to deal with adversity. They won't develop the mental toughness to will their way to victory.
Now that Boston’s fate is sealed, what do they do next? Do they keep the pick or do they trade it for a package that includes a veteran? Does it matter? This isn’t a team that is a player away from becoming relevant in the league. Maybe they become a playoff team in the weak Eastern Conference, but how good will they be? A first round exit or maybe bounced in the second round. And if they keep the pick, it extends the rebuilding timetable for maybe another two to three years, if not longer.
How would that make Pierce feel? The team leader and the only player left from the team Ainge inherited when he became the Celtics chief of basketball operations. P-squared walked the company line as he was told they would build the team around him into a championship-contending team. If progress is set back again, does Pierce continue waiting or does he ask for a trade to a contender?
A few years ago Alica Keys said in her song titled Karma that, "what goes up must come down." For the Celtics, they first must try to climb up to fall down. Otherwise the Celts stay down and go nowhere.
