I told you back when we first met that I live and die with this team. It's true. I wouldn't be doing this if I weren't extremely passionate about sports. And, for the most part, I think that passion will help me provide you with better content. I consider myself extremely knowledgeable about matters of the NBA, and I obsessively try to keep my life centered around my responsibilities as a dedicated sports fan.
However, there are times when being so emotionally invested in one team will be a detriment to me as a blogger. I'm a huge homer. Sometimes I can't help seeing the world through kelly green goggles. When this happens, I may let my personal feelings get in the way of providing you with the most reliable and balanced analysis I can. I get caught up in the moment often, and I believe these highs and lows are part of the joy of being a sports fan. Knowing this about myself, it's important that I make every effort to double check the assertions that I make on this site in the heat of passion.
So, in an attempt to hold myself accountable, I've enlisted the help of an ombudsman. His name is Ben. He's currently an academic at Stanford University, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. Although not a Celtics fan, Ben is a huge NBA fan. Just as in his professional life, Ben's personal life as a basketball fan involves a great deal of researching questions to find the truth underneath the heavy blankets of fan and media biases. He is a watchdog for biased NBA writing, and he often times cannot stomach team blogs written by overzealous team fans.
Basically, he's the perfect man to hold me accountable. He'll also be featured in the offseason in a segment called "Ask an Academic", in which he'll help us examine some larger historical questions about this league that we love.
Ben took issue with an article that I posted this morning about the media's take on the upcoming Celtics/Heat series. I hadn't written anything (other than the morning sketches) in a few days, as the Cs are out of action all week. The basic tone of the article is that I felt like the media was being too harsh on the Celtics heading into round 2, and going too easy on the Heat.
Here is the take of our ombudsman, Ben, on a claim I make about the media in my article:
"To say that the national media are off the Celtics bandwagon is inaccurate, because they were never on it. Many of them were predicting a first round Knicks upset."
Both parts of this are highly questionable. I don't know exactly what you mean by "never" in the first sentence, because over the last four years the Celtics have had plenty of fawning praise from the national media. And the immediate reaction to the Decision by almost everyone media outlet I tuned in to was to point out that the Celtics were still the team to beat. After the Celtics stomped the Heat twice early in the season, the national media were still certainly on their bandwagon. I do agree that late in the season many of them jumped ship (for stupid reasons), but it is absurd to claim that somehow the media has been out to get the Celtics. Every team's fan base feels this way and overreacts to any perceived slights and when you are a fan of any of the other 29 teams, it is just FUCKING IRRITATING! The Celtics get plenty of love. And the second sentence is even more dubious. We can easily address that claim by looking up expert predictions on major news sites. I'll go straight to ESPN and Yahoo as I would guess that they are the top 2 national media outlets for sports coverage (ESPN is definitely #1). Here are the picks:
Abbot - Celtics in 5
Adande - Celtics in 6
Anthony - Celtics in 6
Arnovitz - Celtics in 5
Ball Don't Lie - Celtics in 6
Broussad - Celtics in 7
Ford - Celtics in 7
Forsberg - Celtics in 6
Hollinger - Celtics in 5
Legler - Celtics in 7
Ludden - Celtics in 6
Sheridan - Celtics in 7
Spears - Celtics in 6
Stein - Celtics in 7
Thorpe - Celtics in 6
Wilbon - Celtics in 6
Wojnarowski - Celtics in 6
I'll even toss in the Truehoop Stat Geek Smackdown picks, because we might expect some unorthodox picks there:
Berri - Celtics in 7
Ilardi - Celtics in 4
Morris - Celtics in 5
Paine - Celtics in 5
Stahlhut - Celtics in 5
Voulgaris - Celtics in 6
Henry Abbott's Mom - Celtics in 6
Notice a theme? There isn't a single pick for a Knicks upset there among 24 different people. And I looked online to find an example of someone picking a Knicks upset from any kind of prominent national outlet. In fact, I'll bet you a bottle of pink wine that you can't find even one example of someone (from a prominent national outlet) picking that upset! Even if you could find one, though, it still wouldn't be many! I will admit that many of these pundits thought the series would go 7, which looks silly now, but there's a big difference between thinking the Knicks would beat them and thinking they would make it a tough series.
I don't want to give you too hard of a time, but those comments are the kind of partisan drivel that irritate me when I read other team bloggers. And that is exactly the kind of stuff that makes me stop reading those writers. I know you are better than that, so I'm going to call you out on it! That and I am a condescending know-it-all when it comes to basketball (at least according to Denise!). And my point wasn't that you were down-playing the Heat. The part I agree with in your writeup is that the pundits seem like they are being mysteriously gentle on the Heat right now, when their series win over Philadelphia wasn't that impressive for a team with serious championship aspirations. I only thought you were overplaying the whole "everyone hates my team" idea, which is tedious and incorrect. I also can't stand it when people make blatantly falsifiable statements that are clearly not true (e.g., many were picking the Knicks). Step it up, man!
I'm not going to put up with BS like this in your articles. You can keep writing them, but I'm going to call you out on it.
Harsh words. Thank you Ben. I needed to hear that. I think I'm better than that too. Otherwise there's no way I'd post that e-mail on here.
So, my response is that I was clearly oversensitive to what I was hearing and reading in the media, and I overreacted. The idea that the Knicks might be able to upset the Celtics was raised through various media outlets multiple times leading up the tipoff of the postseason. This upset me, as I felt the Celtics were a much better team than the Knicks, partially evidenced by the fact that they had swept them in the regular season. But, now that I'm removed from the emotion I was feeling at the time I wrote this piece, it makes sense. This was a first round matchup that featured two huge rival markets and lots of stars. That, combined with the Celtics late season struggles, made it an easy one to hype. To me, it felt like the character of the Celtic player was being called into question, and I took it personally.
These feelings about the media were exacerbated when I read several writers downplay the Celtics round 1 sweep based on the injury issues the Knicks had. My feeling, essentially, is that the Heat should be getting similar treatment. I don't believe that their series win was any more convincing than what Boston did.
So, I will amend my statement:
"There seems to be a strange disparity in the way the media has reacted to the round 1 victories of the Celtics and Heat. Several prominent writers, including John Hollinger and Austin Link, seem unconvinced that the Celtics are legitimate contenders, feeling that injuries and poor Knicks defense played a larger role in Boston's sweep than anything the Celtics did. Meanwhile, many media members don't seem to be questioning Miami's legitimacy despite the fact that 4 of the 5 games they played against seventh seeded Philadelphia ended with a single digit point differential."
That's accountability, folks.
Regarding this post, there were several other points on which Ben and I agreed to disagree. The main one centered around my thoughts about something Dwyane Wade said last summer. If you're interested, feel free to read our exchange below:
Some background when he says "some jackass", he means me.
- Ben: I was just reading what some jackass wrote:
"Then, seeing this disgusting spectacle, in which Dwyane Wade calls the Heat's big three "arguably the greatest trio ever to play the game of basketball" before they'd even played a game together, made them public enemy #1."
It may be of questionable taste for one of the trio to say it, but the statement is absolutely true. They are either the greatest trio to ever play together or they are very close and we didn't need to see them play together to know this.
Me: But, we didn't know that at that point.
Ben: YES, WE DID. The whole notion that we somehow had to see them play together before we could know that they would be good is absolutely fucking retardedly absurd. We didn't know how good, but we absolutely beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt should have known that they would be very, very good and easily among the top 3 trios of all-time. This is a fucking ignorant national media meme that pisses me off to no fucking end.
Me: Are you telling me that we did or are you quoting the huge lightup sign that was behind them on the stage? Seriously, that thing was like a fucking backstreet boys concert.
We knew they probably would be. But, how can you say you're arguably one of the greatest trios ever before you've even played?? What if Wade has blown his knee out in the preseason?? What if they never win a title (unlikely)?? I can not think of any trios who have ever played zero games together who I consider arguably one of the greatest ever. They've now played 87 games together, and I'll put them in that mix.
Of course we knew they'd be good. "Arguably one of the greatest ever"...probably, but not after zero games.
Again, I wasn't disagreeing with it. And, I went on to say they'll win multiple titles and people should love watching them. My point, though, was that it turned me off and made me feel sports hatred usually reserved only for the Lakers and Philadelphia Eagles.
Ben: The only reasonable concern is the injury one and I suppose it is technically true that they could have never played a game together. I have to think the odds of that happening, though, were extremely low to the point that they were negligible. They were all signed to 6-year deals, so even if one of them missed a season they could have still come back and played together. And I also think that catastrophic injuries like that are virtually non-existent for guys in their class. Typically those kind of injuries come late in a guy's career (post-30) or they happen early before they establish themselves. Wade has a track record of injuries, but he has also shown he has able to bounce back from those injuries and play at a high level. Maybe I am missing an obvious example, but I can't think of one comparable player who suddenly had his career end while he was right in his peak years (25-30). Can you think of anyone? Seriously, I actually think this is a very interesting question for general purposes. I just kind of feel like once you reach that level of sustained excellence (let's say at least 2 or 3 years of top 20ish performance) it is unheard of to have a new injury that is career ending (or altering) before the age of 30. That seems testable!
Once you get past that point, I think it was absolutely ridiculous for people to think they wouldn't be great. Everyone wanted to talk about how we needed to see them play together, but that's silly. It is true that the interaction between players is important and there are subtle interactive effects when you combine different pieces together, but these things work at the margins of overall quality. They don't take two outstanding and one very good player and suddenly make them not good. People who believe that are living in some kind of dumb Bill Simmons-induced fantasy world. I do think the range of how good they would be was pretty wide (maybe low 50-win team at the very bottom or up to around 70 on the high end), but we could know with great certainty that they would be a very good team and this would be driven almost entirely by the big 3.
I will grant you that the Decision and their post-signing parties were awful and repellant. I thought those were in poor taste, but I don't think that statement was wrong.
Ben again: Maybe Brandon Roy is an example of a top guy who had a career altering injury during his prime years. I think it's a little too early to say he is permanently changed, though, and I also think his knee issues count as a known pre-existing injury. People were worried about his knees going back to his draft year and none of the Miami big 3 had any kind of injury history like that. I also thought of Webber, but his big career-altering injury came when he was 30. I think the best example might be Elton Brand. He had about eight seasons of excellent, injury-free play and then went down at the age of 28 only a year removed from that incredible breakout year for the Clippers. So there is one example. There have to be more, but I can't think of them right now. Oh, Grant Hill. He was 28. So I guess it does happen sometimes. I still think it is pretty rare overall, though.
Me: Michael Redd maybe? Grant Hill is a good
one.
Ben: Redd was 29 before he started missing time and I would argue he wasn't in the same class as those other guys. He was close, but I think his best years were a notch below and he had already started to decline before the injuries came. Good call, though.
So, agree to disagree. I agree with my noble ombudsman that we all knew the Heat would be a great team. However, I just don't think it's accurate to call a trio who has played zero games "arguably the greatest trio to ever play the game of basketball".
Back to the Boston Celtics Newsfeed