End of a Decade - time to reflect

[CeltsfanSinceBirth]

Okay, with a new decade before us, let's look back at our favorite and not so favorite moments from 2000-2009.

Not so favorite moments
1. Losing the 2007 NBA lottery - although things still went okay, the feeling I had when they announced we had the 5th pick was just devastating, especially after that horrible season.

2. Losing game 7s on our home court - there was no way we should have lost to Indiana in 2005. And although Orlando was a better team, the performance we put up against them was disgusting.

3. Trading Kenny Anderson for Vin Baker - ok, we make it to the conference finals, and then we go out and trade our starting PG for an alcoholic, just so we can save a few bucks. Thanks a lot Gaston.

Favorite moments
1. Game 4, 2008 NBA Finals - pure bliss.

2. Game 6, 2008 - no explanation needed here.

3. Gaston selling the team to Wyc and Co. - now, I had no clue what kind of owners Grousbeck, Pagliuca, and co. would be. However, just getting "Thanks Dad" Gaston out of there was a true blessing. When they said they were die hard Celts fans, that brought some optimism. When they hired Danny Ainge, I was even more elated.

[EJay33]

Good post. I would like to add many more bad memories, in no particular order:

* Extending Walter McCarty
* Extending Mark Blount for an absolutely moronic sum of money after 1 month and a half of solid effort in a contract year
* Burning a lotto pick on Marcus Banks, a guy projected to go in the 20s
* Trading an expiring Antoine Walker for Raef LaFrentz in year 2 of a 7-year $70 million contract
* The infamous 2005-2006 offseason, where Danny's big moves were drafting Gerald Green, signing Brian Scalaburine to a long-term contract, and trading for both Dan Dickau and Michael Olowokandi (never again will there be an offseason that putrid). I actually tried to boycott even watching the team but love hoops too much to stay away.
* The terrible offseason after the championship where it looked like Wyc was content with one ring and gutted our bench, with the team ultimately falling short last year.
* Stephen Marbury

I agree with many of your best moments. The comeback against LA in the finals was spectacular. The championship and KG's interview were amazing. Gatson finally selling a team that he couldn't care less about was an incredible moment, even though like you I had no idea how committed the new group would be. I think they didn't do much early on, but when push came to shove they spent money to build a winner and did it again this off-season so I'm quite happy with the new group. You obviously forgot #1B to actually winning the championship - the day KG, a top 5 NBA player, got traded to Boston and we arrived as NBA contenders.

I'd even add trading for Rodney Rogers to the list of good memories from the past decade. Most of us realized the Celtics were only pseudo-contenders - good enough to get to the Eastern Conference Playoffs but no match for Sacto, LA, Portland, or Dallas out West, but it was fun just to see the team actually trying to win games instead of "accumulating assets" or whatever they said they were doing for 15 years since Bird retired.

Watching Jefferson, Rondo, and Perkins develop into respectable NBA players was nice, too.

Trading for Ray was great, and then the ensuing two weeks where KG had changed his stance and was now willing to go to Boston was pretty exciting. We were all just wondering if Danny would man up and get it done and then when it happened.. Madness!! Plus the fact that they then went out and rounded out the bench with Eddie, Posey, and later PJ was great. Refreshing after years of banking on youth and watching it not pan out.

I'd say I agree with your #1 worst moment of the decade as well. After Danny built a team around his "youth movement" and he realized that very few of his guys could actually play, the team shamefully tanked games - playing the backcourt duo of Allan Ray and Sebastian Telfair for entire fourth quarters. It was sad watching a once proud franchise pull shady substitutions and sit Pierce with injuries like "Cut in mouth" in an attempt to fall behind Memphis for most lottery balls. I remember being just stunned and disappointed after we drew #5 and loaded up my favorite Celtics site and just lurked, waiting for someone to say something. A poster eventually said "Totally, irrevocably f'd. Fire all of them." - which pretty much summed up every rational fan's thoughts.

Meanwhile over here on RealGM we had everyone's favorite mod at the time Darth Celtic deleting threads and issuing bans and suspensions at the drop of a dime to anyone who dared criticize the direction of the team. The whole front page basically got taken down within 45 minutes of the lottery because people were mad and Darth wanted to believe that Gerald Green, Al Jefferson, Telfair, and Brandon Wright or Yi would lead us to the promised land. There was just an outrageous sentiment here that the Celtics could do no wrong even though they executed a disgraceful plan and it failed miserably. It was rock bottom for the Celtics franchise and it was about the same time that most fans woke up and realized that the team was garbage as it was constructed. Thank God for the sale of the Sonics and for Celtics Hall of Famer Kevin McHale. The stars truly did align.

[JSABleedsGreen]

Just adding some bad memories. The entire 2008 season was a good memory, enough said on the goodies.

The Joe Johnson and a future 1st for Delk and Rodney Rodgers. No one knew that JJ would blow up but it's not like he didn't have talent. The worst part of the trade was that phoenix actually wanted Kedrick Brown back in the trade, instead management offered Joe Johnson....WOW.

Trading for Antione Walker. Which in the end, resulted in losing game 7 to the darn pacers. In the end, Walker started to influence the young players on the Celtics team. Didn't Antione Walker get more burn in the playoffs than Al Jefferson? LAME!

Losing Jim O'brien. I honestly thought he was doing great with the cast he had. He tried different lineups and wasn't afraid to use the young guys, then again he had no choice.

All other bad moments had been mentioned previously. Watching the Celtics get smashed night in and night out in 07 was horrendous.

Actually I do have 2 additional good moments.

The Celtics 4th Quarter 21 point comeback against the Nets was ridiculous. The whole I was thinking, there's no way they make up 21 points.....and yet to see it and see the people at the Garden having a grand old time, reminded me of the good old days.

Pierce 46 point effort aginst those darn Nets in New Jersey in 2001. The man was unstoppable and he simply took over.........that was really impressive.

[cfan79]

Frickin Lakers had us again this past decade. 4 to 1.

In fact with the Spankees winning 2009 was the worst year ever.

[Fred Williamson]

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

[cfan79]

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

That's embarrassing, that's how bad things got. The real Boston fans stuck by their team though. If LA went through the bad times like we did the Staple Center would have been a ghost town. They are the fakest bandwagoners I've ever seen.

[greenmachine_2849]

The Joe Johnson and a future 1st for Delk and Rodney Rodgers. No one knew that JJ would blow up but it's not like he didn't have talent. The worst part of the trade was that phoenix actually wanted Kedrick Brown back in the trade, instead management offered Joe Johnson....WOW.

My memory is that Phoenix was willing to take either Brown or Johnson back in the trade. Johnson had fallen into the dog house with O'Brien by that time and was racking up DNP-CDs and/or pure garbage time minutes. Brown wasn't doing much better, but he had started a couple of games for the Celtics and been fairly productive. Brown was considered a better defender at the time and was better equipped for O'Brien's system, so Brown was kept and Johnson was shipped out.

Anyway, I defended the trade at the time and still do. O'Brien simply was not the coach to get the most out of Joe Johnson, and he likely would not have blossomed until he got out of Boston one way or the other. And as good as Joe Johnson is, he isn't going to go down as one of the all-time great swingmen like a Kobe Bryant or Paul Pierce, imo, and it isn't too difficult to find a productive swingman in this league, relatively speaking. I'll put it this way: how much better would the Celtics have been in 2007-2008 with Joe Johnson at SG instead of Ray Allen? Probably not much, if any. How about in 2005-2006 with Johnson instead of Ricky Davis? Better? Sure, but probably not good enough enough to make the playoffs either way.

Meanwhile, acquiring Rodney Rogers allowed the Celtics to take advantage of a huge mismatch against Mutombo with the 76ers in the first round. Without that trade, I doubt we get out of the first round. With that trade, we actually get to the conference finals for the first time in 14 years (first time since I became a Celtic fan), and, with a couple of breaks, could have gotten to the NBA finals.

Trading for Antione Walker. Which in the end, resulted in losing game 7 to the darn pacers. In the end, Walker started to influence the young players on the Celtics team. Didn't Antione Walker get more burn in the playoffs than Al Jefferson? LAME!

Ainge basically made the trade to save his own bacon. After the lackluster regular season and dismal playoffs from the prior year, Ainge needed to have a solid playoff team the following year to give the fans some confidence in his abilities. At the time of the trade, the Celtics were either just below or right at .500, I believe, and weren't even guaranteed to make the playoffs at all. Right after that trade, the Celtics run off 9 straight wins in a row, they subsequently make the third seed, and, despite losing in 7 to the Pacers, they at least gave the fans something to be excited about in April besides talking about their odds of winning the lottery. Had Ainge not made the trade and the Celtics subsequently had failed to make the playoffs in 2004-2005, then failed to make the playoffs again the following year (2005-2006), he probably would have been toast, imo.

Losing Jim O'brien. I honestly thought he was doing great with the cast he had. He tried different lineups and wasn't afraid to use the young guys, then again he had no choice.

Outside of starting and giving Joe Johnson some serious run in November and December of 2001, I don't see much evidence of him playing the young guys very much. This was the guy that insisted on playing Walter McCarty 40 mpg, including some minutes at center, because he refused to give Chris Mihm any run in 2003-2004. And this was during a rebuilding year, for crying out loud. For those of you that complain about Doc Rivers not playing the young guys any, O'Brien was about three or four levels above him in that department.

The Celtics 4th Quarter 21 point comeback against the Nets was ridiculous. The whole I was thinking, there's no way they make up 21 points.....and yet to see it and see the people at the Garden having a grand old time, reminded me of the good old days.

I agree with this 100%, which is why I defend the Rodney Rogers/Tony Delk trade. Without that trade, I don't see this game ever happening.

[exculpatory]

I agree with most of the bad memories. Let's reflect on the good memories, and let's reflect on Paul Motherfrigging Pierce. So far, the name Paul Pierce has been mentioned once or twice in this thread. Are you frigging kidding me? That is so frigging typical of how much he is taken for granted and underappreciated EVEN BY CELTIC FANS - not praised enough when he is outstanding (which is most of the time) and dumped on immediately when he has a slump. Jesus H. Christ, man!!!!!

The Truth has been the heart and soul, and cornerstone, and captain, of this franchise for the last decade through thick and thin, through the bad times when he had no help but still led bad teams to low seeds and quick elimination in the playoffs (except of course for the magical spring of 2002 when he took us to the EC finals), and through the good times when he led us to Number 17 and was the MVP of the championship series (after the Celtics finally blessed him by adding KG and Ray before his tenth goddam season - it only took 9 goddam years for the organization to give him proper support!).

Want some positive memories of Paul during the last decade?

How about amassing a HOF-worthy career through thick and thin?
How about being within 900 points of 20K points, and within range of passing Bird next year and therefore being second only to Hondo?
How about leading us to the greatest comeback in NBA playoff history vs. the Nets in 2002?
How about scoring 48 points in the second half of another game against the Nets?
How about when Shaq nicknamed him the Truth when he singlehandedly blew the Lakers away some time ago?
How about the god knows how many (?50 ?100) SUPER CLUTCH shots or passes that won games for us in the last minute or final seconds? I saw 2-3 in person, including the shot a couple years ago in DC at the buzzer with Arenas, Jamison and Butler all rushing at him, and the shot in Jersey at the buzzer over Jason Kidd. That list is endless.
How about outplaying LeBron and then Kobe mano a mano during the spring 2008 playoffs, and leading us to Number 17?
How about his maturation as a leader from the days he occasionally acted out foolishly, to the Captain we have today?
The list of positive memories I could write about the Truth could go on for pages (but I have no time for it). What I have written above reflects a tiny fraction of my positive memories of the Truth.

Happy New Decade. And if KG gets well enough to support him again, and RR continues to become an All Star right in front of our eyes, PAUL WILL LEAD US TO NUMBER 18 to start off the new decade properly.

[hourockman]

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

That's embarrassing, that's how bad things got. The real Boston fans stuck by their team though. If LA went through the bad times like we did the Staple Center would have been a ghost town. They are the fakest bandwagoners I've ever seen.

I hate to tell you, but it did get bad at Staples for 3 yrs and fans kept coming because of Kobe. They only dropped off about 200 fans from capacity in a lottery season. Meanwhile, Boston dropped off by about 2000 fans per year and were missing so many in 2007 that Kobe got cheered at Boston.

[Prophet_C]

It's been a tough decade but thankfully winning the title made this decade a lot more tolerable for the C's.

Here's to a new decade. Go Celtics!

[cfan79]

I hate to tell you, but it did get bad at Staples for 3 yrs and fans kept coming because of Kobe. They only dropped off about 200 fans from capacity in a lottery season. Meanwhile, Boston dropped off by about 2000 fans per year and were missing so many in 2007 that Kobe got cheered at Boston.

No offense, but that is ridiculous. You can't compare the two. The Celtics became a lottery staple in the 90's and 00's. The Lakers make the playoffs almost every year and you applaud them for the 1 year they had to suffer.

[cfan79]

No city beats Boston when in comes to dominance this past decade though.

3 nfl titles, 2 mlb titles, 1 nba title

also an Undefeated season and 4 super bowls

(The Pats also still have a chance at winning another one as well, since it still counts as 2009)

[Red2]

when did we trade chauncey for kenny? was that in the 90's? If so I guess it doesn't qualify but to me that was the worst trade the celtics ever made. Kenny anderson was a tool whose claim to fame was that during the lockout season he was famously quoted in the NY times as saying he didn't have enough money to take care of his fleet of luxury cars. Like Telfair and marbury he was an NYC point guard who thought he was something special. Billups went on to become finals mvp and multiple all star. Selecting Kedrick Brown over richard jefferson and joe forte over tony parker also rank up there as bad moments as does taking marcus banks.

[exculpatory]

I thought this would turn out to be a popular thread. Whether one properly appreciates and REFLECTS on the excellence of the Truth or not (please see what I wrote above), I would have thought that lots of people would join in and talk about 10 years of the "Green".

HNY

Ex

[loscy]

Watching Havlicek bring out the championship trophy to a teary eyed Paul Pierce. Made me appreciate him all the more.

[cfan79]

We have the best sports city in the world. Hopefully with a few good signings and trades our dominance can continue.

The C's winning the title in 2008 was the highlight of my life. I get misty eyed every time I think about it. I remember crying like a baby after seeing the Ray Allen commercial right after winning, where they showed highlights of Bill Russell etc. The many awful years before it only made it more enjoyable.

[ParticleMan]

Definiltely a crappy decade overall but ends on a high note.

The Pitino era was just shameful. The "not walking thru that door" speech was embarrassing. The only good thing about it was that it ended.

I never really enjoyed the JOB era. Sure we won some but I always thought it was a mirage. We never had any genuine shot at anything. We got hot for 1 playoff and made the EC finals in what had to be the worst EC ever. You could bank money on us losing the back ends back-to-backs, esp on the road. Our leading scorers shot like 41%. Such things do not winning teams make.

I know a lot of people thought Ainge was an idiot for 3+ years, but I always had a lot of confidence in what he was doing. He at least seemed to be thinking championship instead of just over .500. It was painful watching our young kids get their lunch money stolen every night, but in the big picture it was fine. We weren't going to win with those kids in the end. It was all about assets.

I didn't mind the tanking. It sucked that we got #5 but let's be real, even had we got #3 or #4 the result would have been the same-- trade. Ainge wanted Durant, which he could only get with a top-2 pick. In some ways it worked out for the best because if we got Durant, we probably continue rebuilding for another 2-3 years, and we end up trading Pierce.

The main point is that Ainge had a plan, it was obvious what it was (to those paying attention, not the media fools), and he was actually executing it very well even when we were losing night after night.

Obviously the highlight moment was the 08 finals. The whole thing was just awesome. Game 4, Game 6, everything. It was just amazing. I still get happy thinking about that whole series, especially after the way the playoffs started out so shaky. I honestly did not expect to win in 08, I thought we would win in 09 after the team had a year to gel. So I wasn't upset that we didn't win in 09. And frankly if we had KG healthy I still think we win again.

And for those who are upset about the "gutting" of our bench in 09... do you REALLY want Posey and his contract on this team right now? You don't overpay for role players, period. That's the sure way to salary cap hell. There wasn't anyone out there in 09 to get, so Ainge sat back and called it a loss, Belichick style. Like I said, if we have KG we still probably win, so it wasn't the bench that did us in. It was injuries.

I have to say I feel more confident about the C's state going into this decade than I have in the past two. Even though our stars are aging we have a good coach and FO who understands what it takes to win titles. We'll have our ups and downs but the buffoonery of the Pitino era and the gimmickry of the Obie/Thanksdad era are in the rear view mirror. That alone is reason enough to celebrate.

[chakdaddy]

when did we trade chauncey for kenny? was that in the 90's? If so I guess it doesn't qualify but to me that was the worst trade the celtics ever made.

'98.

Kenny really solidified the PG spot and ran a team pretty well, he was a big part of our success; in fact I remember the team beating Seattle and improving a lot immediately upon his arrival.

Meanwhile, Billups had to bounce to 3 or 4 different teams before he finally became a star in Detroit.

As bad as giving up on Billups seems in retrospect, he never became a good player until his rookie contract was long over and he was basically a reclamation project and a FA gamble for Detroit. If we had kept him, it's very unlikely we would have gotten anything out of him.

This wasn't like trading Joe Johnson at all, even though they were similar as far as trading talented working. We got a lot more out of Kenny Anderson than we did out of Rodney Rogers, and Chauncey never had any success for Toronto, Orlando, Denver (the first time at least), or Minnesota in the way Joe Johnson did for Phoenix.

I think the Billups turned out reasonably well for us. It workedo out better for us than it did for Toronto.

[chakdaddy]

As far as the lows, there are a few moves that were utterly and obviously idiotic at the time.

1. Multimillion dollar, long term contracts for Scalabrine and Dickau.

2a. Exercising the option on Denver's pick when 1) we already had 2 #1's in that draft, 2) Denver was going to get a lot worse, and the pick was probably going to be a lot higher if we waited a year or 2.

To be fair, Denver wouldn't have tanked as much if they knew weren't going to have their own pick.

2b. Drafting 3 guys who played the same position.

2c. Trading away the one guy of the 3 who was good.

We really hit the trifecta there in 2001.

3. Trading a lottery pick for Telfair. And don't give me the BS about Ainge being prescient and knowing he'd need Ratliff's expiring contract to trade for Garnett a year later, rather than needing Raef's contract 2 years later. And even if we buy that argument....we still traded Brandon Roy for an expiring contract, and a guy who was already considered a bust after being taken 13th.

4. File this one under all's well that ends well, but it was ludicrous to give up a future #1 for Rondo when Phoenix routinely sells their picks for cash. Like they did with the pick we traded them.

5. A recent one that bugs me...taking a SG projected for the 2nd round (Giddens) over an athletic big man projected for the lottery (DeAndre Jordan.)

[chakdaddy]

Oh, and the other big mistake? Letting Chris Wallace leave town with his life, and letting him continue to screw us by giving Gasol to LA and creating a stacked team to rival us.