You are here: Home / Morning Links / No Moves For Celtics, Bruins Blasted Again

No Moves For Celtics, Bruins Blasted Again

March 16, 2012 By

Danny Ainge stood pat at the trading deadline yesterday, and the Bruins were blasted 6-2 by the Florida Panthers.

The Celtics not making a move was a mild surprise, if only for Ainge’s past history at this period. Michael Felger and Chris Gasper were mocking Ainge yesterday for not making a move, even dumping their big three for draft picks. Once again, especially Felger,  shows an embarrassing lack of knowledge about the NBA and the Celtics.

Felger brought up Ainge’s quotes about how he would’ve made moves that Red Auerbach supposedly turned down, and would never let the team get to that point. He mocked Ainge, saying he was afraid to make a move. That he talked a big game, but in the end couldn’t get it done.

The problem is, no one was offering Sam Perkins and Detlef Schrempf for Kevin Garnett. No one was offering Chuck Person, Herb Williams and Steve Stipanovich for Ray Allen or Paul Pierce.

As I’ve said before, Ainge has already “blown it up.” Without getting a major rebuilding piece for the future, there was no point in trading away one of the big three. Felger said how there are no worthy free agents this summer, but that’s only part of the point. Being under the cap by a large margin allows the team to take on salaries in trades, it allows great flexibility in a number of ways. Felger and Gasper were complaining that with Rondo and Pierce next year, the Celtics will likely just be a middle of the pack team, which is the worst place to be. That is true, in some ways, but they weren’t going to be any better apparently with any of the moves offered yesterday. It’s better to be under the cap and have that flexibility than to be locked up with no opportunity for movement.

I don’t know what Danny Ainge can do this summer, I just know I’d prefer that he have plenty of flexibility and room to make moves than be locked into a mediocre roster.

What Felger said yesterday was embarrassing. I don’t know why media people think it’s OK to embarrass themselves just to be edgy and controversial. It’s not entertaining.

Keep up with the Celtics at CelticsLinks.com. Track the Patriots visits and signings at PatriotsLinks.com.

Studio role doesn’t cool Vitale’s ardor – Chad Finn has a look at the indefatigable Dick Vitale.

Media Roundup: The Curse Of The Spoiled Fan – My SB Nation Boston media column looks at the fans who are seemingly never satisfied.

Fred Toucher and NESN have been in a bit of a feud over promotion of the “Cuts for a Cause” event.

[blackbirdpie id="180406822761545728"]

[blackbirdpie id="180404734425968640"]

[blackbirdpie id="180405633365983233"]

NESN responded with this statement:

NESN has supported the annual Cuts for a Cause event since its inception 5 years ago, ranging from financial support, promotion within NESN’s Bruins telecasts, interviews with participants and event coverage. Fred Toucher’s tweets have accused NESN of not supporting this event and that’s simply inaccurate. NESN had already started to promote this year’s event with a story on NESN.com and promotion within our Bruins coverage. NESN will continue to support the Cuts for a Cause event in the coming days.

This wasn’t what Toucher was looking for.

[blackbirdpie id="180593194235473920"]

Filed Under: Morning Links
  • alex

    Fred t has a point. Nesn’s decision probably has something to do with the fact that they broadcast d&c every morning and they don’t want to give airtime to their competition. If true that is pretty weak.

    • Scott B.

      I don’t know who this Fred Toucher is but I don’t think he has anything resembling a point. The charity is and has been promoted, so what’s his beef? It seems what Fred is upset about is the fact that he won’t be given an opportunity to promote himself.

  • latetodinner

    Bruce…I read your piece on the spoiled fan. Whereas I agree with a lot of what you said I would have liked you to link the reason for the spoiled behavior. That clearly comes from the 24/7 sports over indulgence present in the Boston market coupled with the sense of entitlement marketed by several of the leading media voices in town. So it is hard to fault a fan for demanding the Pats blow up their salary cap and mortgage the future today for Mario Williams when a leading radio voice has ignorantly taught that fan that the salary Cap is Crap so you can and should expect your team to sign the most expensive baubles available on the FA market each year….real world salary cap consequences be damned.

    Then there is the Basketball fan (it still boggles my mind people follow basketball closely) who is angry that Danny Ainge didn’t do…something, anything, no matter what would have made this team better. Why couldn’t Danny have traded any of the Big three for lottery picks or dumped Rondo for CP3 straight up. Why can’t we still snooker other teams gm’s….and I use the royal we there on purpose because these fans consider themselves an extension of the team. So when a media personality mocks Ainge for being a ‘hypocrite” the fans don’t know any better so they agree and then they go to the extreme to make the point that they are “superfans”. The mediot is just as culpable because he long ago decided to trade thoughtful insight for bomb throwing and contrarianism.

    Years ago on the old Patriots USENET board there was an infuriating poster who was a Jets fan…his name was Bob Jensen. He never called a person a name, he always mocked the Pats (which was easy in the Pete Carroll era), he passionately defended the Jets no matter how wrong he was, and he never ever could look critically at the Jets. He used civility and what he thought were facts to defend arguments. By today’s standards of fandom…he would have to have been considered a rocket scientist. The fact that Boston fans have gotten so spoiled that they could make a guy like Jensen look both sane and thoughtful shows how far off kilter certain fans have come.

    • Tony

      I was thinking the same thing you were: some fans allow themselves to be manipulated by some media types. Felger and his pet poodle’s constant berating of how the Pats do business has to, at some point, seep into the subconcious of some of the fans who listen to their show. And Felger’s other employer–the cable TV network–STILL runs an ad for the Felger & Mazz radio program which shows the pet poodle angrily screeching, “How about getting some players and winning some football games!!!!!” He said this just last offseason, right before the Pats embarked on a 13-win regular season–their 11th consecutive winning season and one that ended up with the team one successful play away from winning the Super Bowl.

      As for the Ainge thing, Bruce was spot on. In the late 80s and early 90s all of the “rumors” at the time said that Red could have dealt Parish, McHale, or both (assuming Bird was untouchable) in return for very significant packages. Jackie M. sort of downplayed that fact last night on TV for some reason, saying “Chuck Person and a draft pick wasn’t going to make much of a difference back then.” But IIRC the rumors at the time were a lot more than just Chuck Person and draft picks coming back to the C’s. But Red chose loyalty, which was commendable, but also antiquated thinking in the salary cap era, and the C’s paid the price for that for many years afterwards. Ainge didn’t have those kinds of “Godfather” offers for his current Big Three, so he chose to hold onto them. Can’t fault him for that, and I have no doubt that he would have done something yesterday had the offers been good enough. Also, Ainge has set up the C’s roster so that even without dealing any of the Big Three, the team had a ton of cap flexibility and leverage this coming offseason–the situation simply is not the same as it was in 1989-90.

    • Winning

      I just finally caught up on all the weeks postings as I’ve been awhile on business and have been out of touch with the local scene. Lots of good stuff to comment on, though I won’t have much space or time to hit it all.

      1) George Cain ( from now on he assumes the role of Voldemort from Harry Potter, “He who must not be named”) has traveled into Shank territory. That’s all the time he will get from me from now on.

      2) Expect the Pats to make alot of mid-level free agent signings. Someone mentioned FA is only 1 part of a three part plan. The draft will be huge this year.

      3) Felger and his Cetics comments lack intelligence and are fueled by jealousy, envy, and pure hate. Not only as a Bucks fan, hater of green-teamers and basketball altogether, his insight can be ignored. Unfortunately he has airwaves to spread this venom.

      4) As far as what they Celtics should do I’ve said this before. I am against trading the Big Three for pieces, contracts, and sub-star level players. A few reasons, trading an aging Garnet for example along with a draft pick and maybe O’Neal, for Monta Ellis is not what gets this team straightened out. The Celtics need to avoid getting saddled with long term expensive contracts for players that aren’t quite superstars (see Ellis, Joe Johnson, Scola. I feel that model for success is acquiring at least 1 superstar with two stars (All Star level players, above of below the line) and then fill out with solid role players (ie 2008 Celtics).

      With money coming off the books, it makes no sense to add it right back for the sake of getting value. I would rather have the opportunity to throw money at Dwight even if its unlikely he would come. Making a trade for the sake of making a trade does not even allow this to happen.

      • George Cain

        Winning, you’re breaking my heart. And to all the posters, let me say this, my comment “Shameful” was somewhat outrageous and reactive. But, I don’t apologize for it, given what I do, I have every right to be reactive, and always will be a fan first. My twitter account is different than my columns, its more in the moment. I’ll leave it there, to me the outside receiver for the Patriots was the most important acquistion of the offseason, looked like Lloyd was possible to end up with SF. If the did, I think offensively they would have been in the same situation as this season. Where against the top defenses, Brady would have been forced to throw inside the numbers. They needed that outside reader DESPERATELY. They got him, so FA became and instant success. Defensively, I was always ok, they didn’t break the bank on who was out there. I wrote a column hoping they added one impact player and maybe that’s Landry or maybe its Andre Carter. So get over it, if yoyu don’t like my comments or my articles that’s fine. I think you some of somehow think it ruins my day or something, its a two way street. I don’t try to emulate Dan S. but I respect him, so I’ll take it as a complement. Don’t miss my recap of Free Agency this week on Sports of Boston.

        • Winning

          “So get over it, if yoyu don’t like my comments or my articles that’s fine.”

          I have. As I said, you will no longer be named, referred to, or given attention. Like all Walt Disney movies, “The End.”

  • APimpNamedDaveR

    Day three of free agency and the Patriots have not yet committed $120M in guaranteed money to all of the top free agents?

    Shameful.

  • John

    Fred comes off really bad here in my opinion. Both he and NESN agree that they are promoting the charity, he is only upset because they aren’t having him on to promote it. It’s a charity, as long as it is getting promoted, what does Fred care that he is not the one on NESN promoting it? There are plenty of other outlets for Fred to promote it himself. Even if NESN’s reasons for not having Fred on are petty, Fred compaining about not being the one promoting it comes off as even more petty.

    • alex

      They’ve had him on in years past to promote it, but this year they didn’t invite him. Only difference this year is that nesn broadcasts the d&c show now, and they don’t want to give airtime to the competition, even if the competition is using that airtime to promote a charity. That right there is petty. Fred looks like a jerk too, but I think his main reason for getting upset is to point out what a bunch of asses the nesn execs are being.

      • bsmfan

        There was nothing but NESN/Toucher tweets on it but isn’t it completely within NESN’s discretion how much or little time they want to air on this? Even if it is a charity? It’s their money, their airtime. Why not be thankful they’re supporting it at all instead of bowing down to his demands? I normally blast NESN here but isn’t that a bit spoiled on his part?

        Unless I’m missing part of the story..

  • Classless

    So the Celtics have all this cap space now. I really, really hope they don’t sadly bring back Allen and KG AGAIN next year after realizing the likes of Leandro Barbosa and Boris Diaw await them at free agency.

    • latetodinner

      They have to spend $42 mill next year. I think they have $18 committed right now. Take a look at the FA market now that Howard is staying home…how are they going to spend another $24 mill without signing someone like KG or Ray Allen. This offseason is looking a lot like the Durant draft…lots of hope followed by a ton of bad luck, followed by some scary good luck. We will see what happens.

%d bloggers like this: