The all-purpose feel down and depressed topic

[greece66]

hearing people constantly ****ing that Danny

Danny is good. If we are to talk seriously, I love Danny. He is one of the very very few basketball players with the right brain for a GM (cf Jordan who is very smart in every other respect, but as an owner/manager...).
But, let's keep with the topic of our conversation. There must be something deep down your heart that keeps you feeling uncomfortable about this team. Let me underline this once again: we are talking about a team with 27 victories in RS, which rests its hopes of improvement on the likes of Tyler Zeller and the man who single-handedly destroyed the chances of Indiana to finally get a Championship (and arguably caused the Paul George injury through bad karma accumulation). This is not a team- this is an elephant tight-roping over Grand Canyon.

[Beat LA]

I would have much rather added the Greek Freak to our team instead of tearing it up

This one really got me...
Giannis... There are so many reasons I f~~~ing love this kid. I used to live in the part of Athens he grew up, ppl there love basketball and it's really cool to watch young kids play in the open air courts. In America this might be nothing special, but in Europe watching young Greeks, Pakistanis, Africans, Arabs and Philippinos playing all together is really something, and means a lot to us who live in this city (now under the threat of the Golden Dawn neo-Nazis). Giannis is such a great symbol, he made it to the top coming from a really poor family, being African in Athens is far from easy, especially the last four-five years. Plus, Athens is full with Boston fans, we are by far the most popular NBA team- it would have been huge. And as a bonus the kid is so humble, polite and unpretentious. How can you possibly not love him?
And then he got talent. It's not like adding Giannis would have been a sacrifice from the Celtics in the name of multiculturalism. I' ve watched highlights from Filathlitikos, talked with a guy who played with him, watched his highlights from every single game he played in the last season and his games with our national selection this September. If he stays healthy he will become a Hall of Famer. Amazing body, especially his huge hands, great ball handling, he is only 19 y.o.,and  he already shoots and defends pretty well. Give him 3-4 years and he will be a first rate player able to play, well, all five positions.
To make things worse, Ainge traveled to ... Volos (I live in Gr and have never been to this otherwise picturesque sh~thole) of all places to watch him play live (btw the fans got aware he was there and they sang a couple of sarcastic slogans) so my hopes were really high he would draft him.
Don't get me wrong, KO was a solid, good draft choice, and at the time way safer than Giannis. But, it would have been so cool to have a guy from Ilissia playing for the best basketball team in the world. 

If I had watched his highlights around the time of that draft, I likely would have been all for him, but I was being lazy lol so I didn't view the clips.  I do remember Bill Simmons saying that he looked like Paul George on YouTube and I was all haha.  I love his passing ability, but the highlight that really got me was at the 1:48 mark of this clip -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_BOkyq_H3E

Holy Crap!!!   Can you imagine adding that to our team?  Oh, the possibilities.  I like how Durant is trying to shut him down and he just spins off KD, dunks on him, blocks his shots, I mean, wow, just, wow   I know that people say that, statistically, there's nothing to be excited about, because his numbers mirror KO's, but it's not all about numbers.  It's about his play, and I love watching the guy.  I don't know how good he can be, but the sky's the limit for him, imo.  He's like Paul George with his passing in Durant's body lol, although he's not nearly the shooter that those two guys are.  Yet.  He's awesome. 

[Beat LA]

hearing people constantly ****ing that Danny

Danny is good. If we are to talk seriously, I love Danny. He is one of the very very few basketball players with the right brain for a GM (cf Jordan who is very smart in every other respect, but as an owner/manager...).
But, let's keep with the topic of our conversation. There must be something deep down your heart that keeps you feeling uncomfortable about this team. Let me underline this once again: we are talking about a team with 27 victories in RS, which rests its hopes of improvement on the likes of Tyler Zeller and the man who single-handedly destroyed the chances of Indiana to finally get a Championship (and arguably caused the Paul George injury through bad karma accumulation). This is not a team- this is an elephant tight-roping over Grand Canyon.

If there's anyone who killed Indiana's chances at a title last year it wasn't Turner - it was, and I hate to say this because I love him to death, Larry Bird.  Some of the moves he made looked great, but didn't work out, like Scola and Copeland, but trading Granger just destroyed their locker room, what with Paul George getting involved in, well, everything, lol.  Ugh.  I think that if the schedule had let the Pacers play the Heat when they still had Granger as opposed to only playing them after the All Star break, without him, I don't think that Bird would have traded him, and that team could have at least made the finals, but it didn't happen.  That, and the whole Bynum debacle, really ruined their chemistry as well, imo.  The Pacers didn't need a lot more to beat Miami, judging from their play against the Heat in the 2013 ecf (which they should have won, but Vogel took Hibbert out at the end of game 1.  Ugh), and Bird could have signed Elton Brand instead of trading Gerald Green, Miles Plumlee (who could have really helped off the bench) and a 1st round pick to the Suns for Luis Scola, drafted Tim Hardaway JR instead of Solomon Hill, and signed Aaron Brooks to be their point guard.  Why Pritchard gave George Hill that contract is beyond me, but that's not Bird's fault.  I don't know, man, it's got to be frustrating.  Larry was soooooooo close!  And now, everything has been turned upside down, which goes to show that when you have a shot to win a title, you have to go for it, because strange things happen, and you may never get that chance again.

[GreenFaith1819]

My greatest disappointment this season is the amount of Negative Nancies around the blog these days.....or, Negative Neds, whatever.

Wow.

[pokeKingCurtis]

OMG we're supposed to be tanking.

TWO WINS!? Danny better watch his ass.

[greece66]

My greatest disappointment this season is the amount of Negative Nancies around the blog these days.....or, Negative Neds, whatever.

At last! A feel good, optimist, nice guy!

[greece66]

If there's anyone who killed Indiana's chances at a title last year it wasn't Turner - it was, and I hate to say this because I love him to death, Larry Bird. 

I largely agree with your points, but IMHO Indiana  had systemic weaknesses (esp. with scoring and depth) that had to be addressed to give them a real shot at winning the championship. He obviously did it the wrong way, but what he tried to do was really difficult and ambitious. If Larry could not do it, I doubt anyone else could have.

[greece66]

Apparently, the kid can cover the whole court at 7 steps...
At last, we found a topic about which we can always feel down and depressed.

[greece66]

Another defeat through bad performance in the 4th [of which we have apparently become the ultimate masters since the second half of last year's season]. I am cherry-picking some comments from yesterday's threads:
-Kelly cannot play D
-Zeller sucks
-We have no interior D
-Smart is a disappointment
-Pressey is too short to defend
-And last but not least, the sky is falling upon us...
Is everyone feeling depressed enough yet?

[pokeKingCurtis]

James Young has shown a tendency to get into car crashes so far, sidelined for around half his entire professional career as a result.

If Young continues getting into car crashes, it will not bode well for his development.

[guava_wrench]

Embrace pessimism 

Fortunately, this forum has to effect on the Celtics.

[guava_wrench]

I came to terms with what this team was going to be this season. then I got a little excited after I heard we were going to be an aggressive, attacking team. then I saw all the jump shots we were taking.

and I don't like hearing "we missed a lot of 3's". If we miss shots? I don't care, it's the fact that we aren't "attacking" and playing to get jump shots.

and i'm i'll but sold on the notion that Sullinger is ruined. trade him now before his value gets any lower.

Yeah, we miss a lot of our 3s because everyone in the NBA misses the majority of their 3s.

On the other hand, taking 3s does NOT mean that you aren't attacking. To get good 3s, you need to attack and then kick the ball out when defenses react.

[Fred Roberts]

Much love for KG and PP, but people realize KG can't play anymore and PP can't take us anywhere? Other than nostalgia, they offered the little more than the tragedy of seeing players decline. Gerald Wallace is means to an end (1st round picks).

I guess we could have taken Dieng to solve our issues at Center but I'm not certain what KO will become. He may bust or become a nice stretch 4/5 (like LaFrentz never did). I have no gripes other than the past injuries and refs (game 7) during the window.

[guava_wrench]

Yes, of course I was partly kidding. There was much more involved in the trade than that. 
But still, we did get Gerald Wallace and gave KG and Pierce, who btw just signed a two year- 11 million contract (half what Gerald is getting).

The truth is, don't include Wallace and we don't get as many draft picks. We didn't trade for Wallace. We traded for draft picks and were forced to take Wallace to get the picks and to make salaries match.

[greece66]

James Young has shown a tendency to get into car crashes so far, sidelined for around half his entire professional career as a result.

If Young continues getting into car crashes, it will not bode well for his development.

That was a good one. I already felt a bit more depressed despite the victory against Brooklyn.
Actually there quite a few things that itch me:
-it looks like we are going to lose a lot of games to make sure Smart and Bradley learn to shoot 3's- just like with Sully last year.
-to say that ET lacks court-vision and is unpredictable is an understatement.
-Rondo is going to miss the most crucial part of the season, especially considering that if we are going to trade him, the sooner the better.
And of course, we have to make sure Young stays away from cars for sometime.