Welcome to the new and improved ChatCelts.com. Here at ChatCelts you'll be constantly inundated with new articles from the expansive Celtics blogosphere, the local Boston news sources, and the national media. On top of that you'll be receiving real time twitter updates from Celtics players and beat writers. We also feature a social networking component that will allow you to sound off whenever you'd like. Give us your links, your rants, and your insights. My role will be facilitate all of those components and make sure this site is delivering everything that it promises. On top of that, I'll be providing you with my thoughts about the team with several articles per week. We aim to be your daily sports page, as this is the only place where you'll find all forms of Celtics media under one roof.
A little bit about myself: I believe that this game, specifically the brand played in this league, is the most beautiful and complex game in the world. I live and die with this team, and I hope that passion will help me to provide you with a great product here. My greatest sports moment was attending game 6 of the 2008 NBA Finals in Boston. Being in the building to see the Celtics secure banner 17 against the Lakers and to see Paul Pierce finally vindicated as he hoisted the Finals MVP trophy is something that I'll never forget. I wrote about it here. That article is from a now defunct blog that I use to have with a guy named Ben Babcock. He's now the blogger and administrator over at ChatPats. Be sure to check out what he's doing over there. We'll be collaborating from time to time, as many of you who are Celtics fans are also Patriots fans.
So, welcome. I look forward to being with you on this journey.
To honor this new beginning, a reading from the book of Halberstam:
"Suddenly it was not just a game or two, suddenly it was what all basketball people, players and coaches alike, feared most, a losing streak. For basketball people believed that their game was far more psychological than football or baseball. Players, if they were going well, believed they could do certain things, shoot and make certain shots, stop certain players on defense. That had been part of the immense intangible value of Walton: he was so superior a player and his talents so directly encouraged other players; because he was so good on defense they were able to play better defense too, for they had less territory to cover; he passed so well that they got better shots. But as basketball players lost their confidence, their ability diminished, they no longer believed. They would hesitate and become tentative. Natural shooters began to push their shots. Fine passers overreached themselves and passed into the hands of opponents. Rebounders found themselves unable to take the position they wanted. Players began to doubt not just themselves, but their teammates as well. Contemporary professional basketball was a curious amalgam of great skill, great ego and great anxiety."
- Breaks of the Game
I reread Breaks of the game right before the 2009 playoffs. In doing so, I was struck by how much this description of the impact of Bill Walton's absence could have also applied to the absence of Kevin Garnett and its impact on the Celtics. We're coming up with new ways of measuring basketball statistically all the time, and I find those measures to be very useful. But, there are some players whose importance transcends statistics. Garnett, like Walton, is one of those guys. Having KG come to the Celtics has been like a dream. To see the way he instantly changed the culture of the locker room, to see the way he mentored the young players (notice Kendrick Perkins wearing number 5 in Oklahoma City), and to see the way he still is able to play defense as if he were ten feet tall after 15 years in the league is to know that this has been a special time to be a Celtics fan.
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