There’s a deadline looming in Rajon Rondo’s mind – and it’s not the one about which most NBA watchers are talking. It’s not about a contract extension for the slick Celtics’ point guard, who is beginning his fourth season in Boston. He claims that doesn’t occupy a single minute of his thinking.
“I gotta get ready for the season,’’ Rondo said. “I haven’t even given it (the extension) a thought.”
His nose did not appear to be growing as he spoke and, in fact, Doc Rivers said he has seen no evidence that a possible extension is consuming his point guard’s thinking. On the contrary, insists the Celtics coach.
“It has not been a distraction for anyone, not for him, not for us,’’ Rivers said. “And he has been sensational (in the preseason.) Look, it’s not exactly revolutionary for an NBA player to be in this position. It happens all the time. Rajon has handled it great and I think it will work out. It usually does. It’s rare when it doesn’t.”
The Celtics have until Oct. 31 to sign Rondo to an extension which would kick in starting with the 2010-11 season. If nothing is done, then Rondo would become a restricted free agent at the end of the 2009-10 season, with the Celtics still holding the right to match any offer. However, there is some risk in letting that scenario unfold because a number of teams have targeted the summer of 2010 for spending on prospective free agents LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. If they all stay put, the money might be redirected elsewhere (to, say, a restricted free agent point guard from Boston.)
Rondo certainly has made a case for a significant raise on the $2.6 million he is due to earn this season, an amount determined by the NBA rookie scale. (It is roughly half of what the Bulls’ second-year point guard, Derrick Rose, will earn this season and some $300,000 less than Jonny Flynn, the Minnesota rookie and No. 6 overall pick in 2009, will earn.) In three years with the Celtics, he has gone from being SebastianTelfair’s backup (with even a DNP-Coach’s Decision along the way) to an almost indispensable member of arguably the best starting five in the NBA, inarguably on one of the handful of NBA teams with legitimate championship aspirations. And he has done it the last two years with no real backup.
But how valued? And how valuable? Those are some of the issues that the Celtics and Rondo’s agent, the estimable Bill Duffy, are trying to hash out by Halloween. The Celtics don’t see this first deadline as all that important, given that they can always re-visit the issue next summer if things don’t work out this week.
“I honestly think that he will be a Celtic for life,” Rivers said of Rondo.
Says Rondo, “You gotta live for the present. I can’t think too much about the future because nothing is guaranteed. You never know what might happen.”
While Rondo’s improvement has been dramatic – last spring, he became the only Celtic other than Larry Bird to have three triple-doubles in the same postseason – he still is only 23 (he turns 24 in February.) If, as Rivers suggests, Rondo is going to be a Celtic lifer, then Rondo might want to think about what a 2011-12 or a 2012-13 Celtics team might look like. Ray Allen, for instance, is in the final year of his contract, although he shows little sign of wearing down. Paul Pierce has two years left on his deal, Kevin Garnett three. All will be well into their 30’s and slowing down when Rondo theoretically would be hitting his prime.
There were rumors this past summer that the Celtics were shopping Rondo, despite his brilliant play in the postseason. The thinking was that Rondo, who can be either high maintenance or simply complex depending on your view, might not handle a big contract the way the Celtics would prefer. Both Rivers and Celtics GM Danny Ainge denied that was the case.
Ainge, after all, was the one who saw something in Rondo, trading a No. 1 pick to Phoenix in 2006 so the Suns would pick the sophomore out of Kentucky at No. 21 overall. And, it was Ainge, with the blessing of ownership, who refused to include Rondo in either the deal for Allen or the deal for Garnett, even if it meant the deal would fall apart. That’s how much the Celtics thought of Rondo back then. (Neither Ainge nor Duffy would comment for this article.)
The sticky part now, potentially, is putting a monetary value on Rondo. The top-flight young point guards in the league (Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Tony Parker) all make more than $11 million a year. Does Rondo deserve to join that elite trio? In all likelihood, this is where Duffy would like to see Rondo land. Or is the next level down (Jameer Nelson, Jose Calderon, Andre Miller, Mo Williams) more indicative of his worth? All of those gents make between $6 million and $9 million per. This probably is where the Celtics would prefer to slot Rondo.
The two gray eminences at the position, Steve Nash and Jason Kidd, both will pocket around $8 million each this year in the first year of new deals signed over the summer.
“The second contract you get is for what you have done in the league, and what you can do, even further down the road,’’ Rondo said.
Rivers has spoken warily in the past of the perils of young players looking for big deals and focused on things other than winning. He does not see Rondo in that category.
“The (second) contract that a player gets will be a good guideline as to where his career is and where it is going,’’ Rivers said. “If you are like Rondo, who will get a big deal, it’s because he has put the work into his game and he’s proven it. It’s good for him.”
Regardless of whether a deal is reached by Saturday, the Celtics’ plan for Rondo to be there, hopefully, in June when they raise another championship banner. And if they do, you can bet that No. 9 on the Celtics will have had a big hand in it.
As we enter Michael-Fest this weekend at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, hagiography is blurring history a little.
Michael Jordan is the “The Best Ever.” ESPN The Magazine says so in a special Hall of Fame issue. The Chicago Bulls website says so. (You’d expect someone else?) Many, many followers of the NBA think that is the case as well.
It’s become unfashionable, bad form and even blasphemous these days to suggest otherwise. Not to diminish or devalue what Jordan did; he is, unquestionably, the greatest player of his time. But of all time?
I recently came across this quote from Bulls executive John Paxson, a former teammate of Jordan’s: “I know I’m biased because I played with him, but in my mind, he’s easily the greatest player to ever play. I don’t know how you can match what he did on the floor or his winning.”
It’s the second sentence, not the first, which calls for a response. Specifically, the last three words: “or his winning.”
Michael Jordan won a lot. He won six NBA titles. He won two Olympic Gold medals. He won an NCAA title. You’d want him on your starting five if the fate of western civilization was on the line. But, Mr. Paxson his “winning” doesn’t come close to matching that of one William Felton Russell. No one’s does.
So, if you define greatness as success, or as achieving your goal constantly above all else and all others, there is no one in the history of American team sports, not just the NBA, who won more than Bill Russell.
This isn’t a case of a Boston bias. In 1980, the Professional Basketball Writers Association named Russell as the greatest player in NBA history. He had retired 11 years earlier after a remarkable record that, in all likelihood, will go unmatched. He played 13 seasons in the NBA and his teams won 11 NBA championships, including eight in a row. It lost in the Finals one year when he was hurt. Nobody, not even Jordan, put up numbers like that.
Russell completely revolutionized the game. Until he came around, the notion that a defensive-oriented center could dominate and control a game was unthinkable. But he did. He did it with a combination of amazing athleticism (he also was a high jumper at the University of San Francisco), timing, jumping ability and, above all else, intelligence. There probably weren’t many games when Russell played that he wasn’t the smartest player on the floor.
There was no model for Bill Russell when he entered the NBA in the 1956-57 season. He wasn’t the logical “Next Player XX.’ He set the mold. The Celtics had a good team when he joined them – as opposed to Jordan, who joined a terrible Chicago team – but it had never so much as advanced to the NBA Finals, even with Hall of Famers like Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman on the roster. Russell changed all that – and in his very first season.
Jordan, too, revolutionized the game in one aspect: no guard had ever led a team to the success the Bulls had in the 1990s. While he seemed to be the logical descendant of Elgin Baylor and Julius Erving, they never matched his success. Jordan won three titles with Luc Longley for goodness sakes.
But back to the winning. Here is a remarkable statistic that cuts right to the chase. Over his basketball career, including college, Olympics and the NBA, Bill Russell participated in 21 games which, for lack of a better term, can be called “winner take all” games. His record in those games: 21-0. In the NBA alone, Russell competed in 11 such games, 10 Game 7’s and one Game 5 in a best-of-fiver. The Celtics won all of them.
Jordan first played in a winner-take-all game in the NBA in 1988, his fourth year in the league, when the Bulls won Game 5 against the Cavs. They won another Game 5 the following year (“The Shot” against the Cavaliers) and then lost in 1990 to the Pistons in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. The only other Game 7’s on Jordan’s resume were in 1992 (second round against the Knicks) and 1998 (Eastern Conference Finals against Indiana.) The Bulls won those as well.
That was Jordan’s time and while the Bulls didn’t dominate the way Russell’s Celtics dominated, they were pretty much unbeatable over an eight-year stretch. (They might well have won in 1994, without Jordan, save for a brutal officiating call against the Knicks in the second round of the playoffs.)
You couldn’t escape Jordan or the Bulls during that span. Cable television, ESPN, sports talk radio – all of that started to emerge or was emerging as the Bulls began their run. By then, of course, the NBA playoffs were televised and the Finals were in prime time.
But who saw Russell all those years, other than the fans at the games? There was scant television coverage. There basically was Johnny Most’s not-to-be-missed accounts from “high above courtside” and the newspaper morgues. That was it.
But they did play the games in the 1950s and 1960s.
Yes, you could argue that Russell benefited from a shorter season, not as much travel, a lighter playoff schedule. All of that is true. But Russell averaged an astonishing 42.3 minutes a game (second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s 45.8.) He battled Wilt, Oscar, Bob Pettit, Elgin and Jerry West on an annual basis. After Russell’s very first playoff game, Dolph Schayes, himself a future Hall of Famer, wondered how much Russell made and whether his team could put together enough cash to pay Russell to stop playing for five years.
I didn’t come to bury Jordan. I came to praise Russell. Michael deserves the accolades and the acclaim, but if the gold standard in sports is winning, and it should be, then no one was greater than Bill Russell. Twenty-nine years ago he was deemed the best in NBA history. Seems like a keeper to me.
Can we make this one a best-of-nine? Can the Celtics and Bulls keep playing until Kevin Garnett and LuolDeng are healthy again, then do a best-of-seven?
Glen Davis begs to differ.
“We want to end this series. We want to be done with this series,’’ Boston’s self-proclaimed Ticket Stub said after the Celtics exhausting Game 5 victory on Tuesday night.
Sorry, Baby. We want more.
Entertaining doesn’t begin to describe what’s going on between Boston and Chicago in their first-round playoff series. A seemingly mundane matchup between a depleted defending champion and a team going nowhere most of the regular season has turned into a must-see series full of game-winning shots, game-tying shots, physical play, coaching gaffes and everything else you’d want to see in this ‘Where Amazing Happens’ time of year.
Where this one ranks among the all-timers is still anyone’s guess. But we know this much: It’s the greatest Celtics-Bulls playoff series ever (OK, given that the three previous ones were 4-0 Boston, 3-0 Boston and 3-0 Boston, that isn’t saying much) and it already has done what no playoff series in 63 years has ever produced – three overtime games. And there still could be two more to play! (Please, basketball Gods. Two more.)
The Celtics hold the upper hand, 3-2, courtesy of their come-from-behind, 106-104 OT thriller Tuesday night, which could well have gone to a second OT (and who knows what else) had Brad Miller, an 80 percent free-throw shooter, not missed at the line with two ticks left. Or had Miller not missed the rim with his second, an intentional brick, denying the Bulls a chance at a put-back.
The series resumes in Chicago on Thursday night and, well, how about a triple OT game to add spice to the occasion? It’s about the only thing the teams haven’t done in the first five games. You have to think the United Center is going to be at Defcon 5 for this one.
Most NBA observers figured this to be a competitive series, given the Celtics’ absence of the game-changing Garnett and the fact that the Bulls are sort of the anti-Celtics: young, frisky, free-wheeling and callow. But what we’ve witnessed so far has been extraordinary.
ESPN waited one day to re-air Game 4 as an ‘Instant Classic.’ Four of the five games have been decided by a total of 10 points. There have been more than 80 lead changes and more than 45 ties.
There was the Bulls’ surprising OT victory in Game 1, with Rookie of the Year Derrick Rose scoring 36 points in his playoff debut. Only one other player in NBA history had ever scored that many in a playoff debut: LewAlcindor, aka Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Game 2 brought us the vintage shootout between UConn alums Ray Allen and Ben Gordon, with the Celtics (barely) prevailing.
After a Game 3 stinkbomb by the Bulls, we had a double-OT gem in which both teams seemingly had the game in hand, only to watch as the opponent made big play after big play. Allen hit a big three (when the Bulls should have fouled) sending the game to overtime. Gordon hit a ridiculous three (when the Celtics should have fouled) sending the game to double overtime.
Coming off that one, the bar was pretty high for Game 5. But these teams just keep raising it. Another overtime. A controversial conclusion. And a vow by the loser to return to Boston one more time.
“We will be back,’’ said the Bulls’ Joakim Noah, who, like a lot of players in this series, is opening more than a few eyes. “We have another chance so it’s a learning experience for all of us. Learning experience is not an excuse because I still feel like we can win this series.”
And you know what? They can. This isn’t Atlanta from a year ago, where the Hawks were never once competitive in four blowout first-round losses in Boston and looked shell-shocked on the road. This isn’t even Cleveland from a year ago, where LeBron was MIA in the first two games.
The Bulls have won once in Boston already and they’ve been in position to win all three in Boston. They’re not playing like a group going through their first playoff series under a rookie head coach.
Speaking of the rookie head coach, did Vinny Del Negro once think it might be a good idea to double PaulPierce in OT in Game 5? Ray Allen had fouled out. KG was wearing suit that cost more than a Camry. Del Negro already has taken heat for his use of timeouts in Games and 1 and 2, but why not run someone at Pierce when it’s clear to everyone in the building he’s going to shoot it? (They did it once in the final minute of regulation and Pierce dished it off to Stephon Marbury, who immediately turned to stone.) The Bulls never did when it mattered, however, and Pierce made them pay.
“We talked about coming with different players but they’ve picked us apart a little bit with that on the glass (offensive rebounds) and he hits some tough fadeaway shots with hands in his face,’’ Del Negro said of Pierce. “That’s what great players do, they make big plays. That’s something we’ll talk about again, but we’ve come with double teams, we’ve come with single teams, we’ve come off bigs, we’ve come off littles, and he’s seen it all.”
Pierce put on his 2008 Finals MVP face for the end of Game 5, a face we haven’t seen much in the series. The Celtics have gotten sensational play from Rajon Rondo, who is leading them in scoring, assists and steals in the party of all Coming Out Parties. (Until Kendrick Perkins inhaled 19 rebounds on Tuesday, the 6-foot Rondo, who had 8 in the game, also was leading the team in rebounds.)
He also was the one who clocked Miller at the end of the game, preventing a layup, while the Bulls cried for a flagrant foul call. He played 55 minutes in the double-overtime game and then came back and played 49 more in Game 5, though it seems he’s never not on the floor.
Allen has hit big shots throughout after stumbling through the first six quarters of the series. Pierce has been hesitant, tentative and, it seems at time, maybe a little cooked or even hurt, even as he has been putting up decent numbers. But the Take Charge Pierce had been missing. But there he was at the end in Game 5, hitting the last two Boston hoops in regulation and the last three in OT. As Davis put it, “I think since I’ve been here I’ve seen him do it a million times, so nothing surprises me.”
But surely more surprises await for Game 6. For instance, after moaning about the officiating, Perkins, a human wrecking ball if there ever was one, managed to play 48-plus minutes and never got called for a foul. That’s like watching Hubie Brown on TV and never hearing the phase “off the dribble.” Doc Rivers already has been fined $25,000 for commenting on the officiating.
Both coaches have shrunk their rotations. Mikki Moore never got off the Boston bench in Game 5 and played sparingly in Game 4. And this is one a team desperately in need of big men. Perkins and Davis are going to play till they drop. Ditto for Rondo. Marbury might as well start researching jobs overseas they way he has played so far. For Chicago, Gordon has to stay on the floor, lest his sore hamstring tighten up. Rose and Noah are logging long minutes as well, but they’re young.
The Bulls want to bring this one back to Boston for one final shootout. The Celtics want to end it and go on. But if these teams keep playing the way they’ve been playing, two more games won’t be enough. We know it has to end. We just don’t want it to.
To listen to the wise guys out there, and some of them are actually pretty wise, the Celtics will eventually be undone by their bench. They haven’t found an adequate replacement for James Posey, a playoff assassin and locker room treasure. They haven’t found an adequate replacement for PJ Brown, another locker room guy and clutch playoff contributor. The Lakers and Cavaliers are deeper.
Maybe those assertions will prove to be correct, although DannyAinge, the team’s basketball operations czar, is mindful of all this and is said to be looking for help (maybe, perhaps, in the form of Stephon Marbury.) Meanwhile, Doc Rivers, the team’s head coach, says if he has to finish the season with what he has now, he is cool with that, in part because he has a new/old guy coming off the bench who is making a solid case for a regular spot in the rotation, at least when he can keep his chin out of the way of DirkNowitzki’s elbow.
We speak, of course, of the heretofore forgotten Brian Scalabrine.
Last year, Scalabrine was almost an afterthought for the Celtics’ juggernaut. He played in only 48 games and his minutes haul (512) was the fewest since his rookie year of 2001-02. Already this year, he has logged 444 minutes in 36 games.
“I felt just as important last year as I do this year,’’ Scalabrine said in an interview. “I was ready for the call last year when Kevin (Garnett) got hurt and I started all nine games. We won seven. Sure, on the whole, it feels better to contribute. But as long as we’re winning, that’s what matters the most.”
Unless, of course, you want to include his surprise visit to the media room after the Celtics had won the championship by crushing the Lakers, where he chided all the reporters who had picked Los Angeles to prevail.
“How, when you guys consider yourselves NBA experts, can you pick the Lakers to beat us? We’re on TV all the time, so it’s not like you don’t get to watch us play. I just didn’t see it. You guys were so convincing that — you were so convincing that I maybe thought in my heart that, wow, this is going to be a series. How could that be?”
He was right, of course. But Scalabrine wasn’t exactly involved in that or any other series. He didn’t appear in a single game and was inactive for all but three of the team’s 26 playoff games. He simply was not a factor.
“Sure, it was difficult not to play,’’ Scalabrine said as his teammates left for Detroit for a Friday game with the Pistons, leaving him behind while he recovers from a concussion. “But everyone has a role and I just didn’t fit in at that particular time. Very rarely do you get a chance to do something special or be a part of something special and this was it. Accepting your role is very important in all of that. Sometimes, it takes a while for people to recognize that and understand that. To recognize that it’s bigger than you. You need time to grow up.”
This time, it’s different for Scalabrine, but the same for the team, which has the NBA’s best defense and, not coincidentally, the NBA’s best record. Only time will tell if he can give the Celtics anything close to what they got from Posey and Brown when it really, really matters. But in the here and now, Scalabrine has answered the call to replace Garnett in the starting lineup when KG was suspended for one game and then to start five straight games at center (over Leon Powe, who seemingly had taken over the role, but has dropped back, in part because he tries too hard to initiate contact) when Kendrick Perkins was out with a shoulder injury.
The Celtics record in those six games: 6-0. Scalabrine as a starter: 27 minutes, 8.3 points and 3.0 rebounds a game. OK, Dwight Howard isn’t trembling, but considering what the Celtics got from Scalabrine last year, those numbers are almost Chamberlainian by comparison.
“Scal is going to help us this year,’’ Rivers said. “He’s such a versatile player, being able to play (all the frontcourt positions) and being able to guard quicker guys. He hustles. He makes a lot of little plays. What we’re trying to do is to get Scal to just keep the game simple. When you’re open, shoot it. If not, pass it. Don’t try to force it or make things happen. He’s starting to buy into that and I think you can see it in his play.”
Add to Scalabrine’s contributions the explosive, can’t-miss Eddie House, and the Celtics’ bench doesn’t look quite so vulnerable. Or, it shouldn’t. Glen Davis has already had is signature January coming-out (16 points in the big win Jan. 22 over Orlando) and Powe still can be a menacing presence (without the menacing gestures.) Tony Allen has his moments.
House, meanwhile, has already had three games where he has scored more than his season’s best last year (20.) Those games have all come in the last week, where he has connected on 22 of 31 three-pointers. The Celtics are pushing to have House included in the three-point shot contest during All-Star Weekend.
“I look at our bench as a filler bench,’’ Scalabrine said. “Any one of those guys can be put into the starting lineup and not miss a beat. We probably couldn’t sustain what the starters do, but they’re our best players. I feel comfortable with any of the guys starting.”
This is Scalabrine’s fourth season with the Celtics. He, too, is a free agent in the sizzling summer of 2010, although he doesn’t see too many teams using their cap space to bring him aboard.
“It’s not going to be a difficult negotiation,’’ he said. “I’ll just go to Danny and say, ‘I don’t want to go anywhere else. Please re-sign me.’ If he says yes, that’d be great. If he says no, that’s when I’ll probably have to start begging.”
Hoopshype.com readers may recall a recent column I wrote on Stephon Marbury, in which I basically called out the Knicks for the way they’ve handled this rather noxious situation this season. The story also contained the following: “Many teams wouldn’t take on Marbury at any cost, which is probably going to be evident when he does extricate himself from his current situation and becomes a free agent. His track record just isn’t all that overwhelming.”
Well, I still stand by the second sentence.
There apparently may be a soft landing spot for Marbury in Boston once (or should we say ‘if?’) he does work out a buyout with the Knicks. To date, Marbury has shown little to no inclination to accept a buyout. As long as he sticks with that rather Neanderthal strategy, he will (a) remain a Knick in roster-spot only and not play a minute this season and (b) forfeit whatever chance he might have this season of getting on with his basketball life.
And until that happens, there’s no place for Marbury to go. To the vast majority of ordinary and even extraordinary wage earners out there, it has been and remains incomprehensible that Mabury would not agree to give up a portion of his $20.8 million to secure his freedom. He’s made well north of $100 million playing in the NBA. And he’s drawing a line in the sand over $1-2 million, some of which he’d immediately recoup by signing with another team and the rest he could recoup with a new deal? Unfortunately for Marbury, this position is what’s driving the ‘reputation discussion’ these days. As in, ‘how can he be so stupid? What is he thinking? Is it just about the money?’
While I am not a big Marbury fan – and I believe I am in the majority on this – I have trouble seeing a downside to him coming to the Celtics. You have to think he would be willing to accept a backup role – if he isn’t, it’s ‘end of discussion’ – and would be on his best behavior. If he decides to go into Knucklehead Mode, well, that’s what waivers are for. The Celtics wouldn’t eat more than a veteran minimum guarantee, pro-rated.
Ever since James Posey signed with New Orleans last summer and PJ Brown retired, apparently for good this time, the Celtics have known they need to bulk up their bench. While Marbury does not address one need – size – he does address a number of others.
He can handle the ball. That was a concern last year as well, which led to the February signing of Sam Cassell. The Celtics re-signed Cassell, but he still has yet to play this season. The other point guard options – Eddie House, Gabe Pruitt – are either out-of-position players (House) or still raw around the edges for the playoffs (Pruitt.)
Marbury also can, as they say these days, score the ball. Having a reliable scorer in the second unit has been a problem for the Celtics all season. One night Tony Allen looks like he’ll be the guy. The next night he looks the guy who the Celtics refused to extend last summer and whose mere presence on the court last spring inspired dread and fear in Celtics fans.
Marbury also would be insurance if one of the guards got hurt. (The Celtics’ three guard-small forward starters have yet to miss a game this season.) Plus, if he did come in and play well, the Celtics could consider him down the road, as one of the issues on the horizon is that Ray Allen’s deal expires after the 2009-10 season. While Marbury and Allen were taken in the same draft (1996), and, in fact, traded for each other that day, Marbury is two years younger.
The behavior question is really moot. Think Randy Moss and the New England Patriots. The Celtics have a strong locker room and there is no way that Danny Ainge would foist Marbury on his coach or his team without running it by all of them. Ainge likes to think outside the box – remember his pursuit of Reggie Miller in 2007? – and Kevin Garnett, a former Marbury teammate, would have to agree to be in the ‘let bygones be bygones’ mood. I mean, Marbury broke up a promising Timberwolves team by demanding a trade – in March of 1999. Isn’t there a statute of limitations on that?
And while Marbury’s track record is suspect – the teams he leaves tend to get better – this is different. He would not be the focal point, but a role player. He would in all likelihood get his opportunities in the playoffs, as Brown and Cassell did, but he’s still going to be backing up Rajon Rondo. That’s a given. If Marbury wants to start and play big minutes, then Boston isn’t an option.
You have to believe this is going to be resolved. The Celtics and Cassell waited until late February last season, but part of the holdup was the usual oafish brinksmanship from the Clippers. This time, it’s the team (New York) that is initiating the dialogue and desirous of a divorce. But it’s also a team which has shown no inclination to simply waive Marbury. For New York, it would be preferable to let Marbury calcify and then bid adieu at season’s end (assuming, of course, that there is no trade.)
In the end, this one seems to be falling on Marbury. Clearly, he knows his Knicks days are over. He knows there is interest from the defending NBA champions, a team which can use him to try to repeat. What on earth is he waiting for? The Thunder?
Kendrick Perkins leads the NBA in technical fouls. He has nine, or as many in 24 games this year as he accrued all last season. Two teammates (Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce) have three apiece, putting three members of the defending champs among the top 10 involuntary contributors to David Stern’s coffers. Sam Cassell has two technicals and one ejection. The next minute he plays this season will be his first.
They’re not alone. Their coach, Doc Rivers, is tied with Charlotte’s Larry Brown among coaches who have been whistled for the most technical fouls: each has four. (The numbers are based on information from the NBA and are through Dec. 4).
But as much as the Celtics are piling up technicals at a somewhat alarming rate – particularly for the combustible Perkins – there’s also been at least two instances this season where the always voluble, demonstrative Garnett seemed to be taunting or egging on an opponent – in other words, on the verge of a technical - and came away unscathed.
The first was when he clapped at the Raptors’ Jose Calderon all the way up the court in a Nov. 10 game in Boston. Nothing happened, save for some spirited jawing, of which Garnett is the undisputed league champion. The other came Dec. 5 in a nationally televised game against Portland, in which he got down on all fours in front of Blazers’ rookie Jerryd Bayless as Bayless began to bring the ball up the floor with just under five minutes remaining in the game.
“I have never seen anything like that before in my life,’’ said the ESPN analyst for the game, former NBA player Mark Jackson.
Actually, Garnett has done it before. More than once. Rivers admitted that if Garnett had tried to do that to him when he was playing, “I would have run him over. Legally of course.”
But now that he coaches the defending Defensive Player of the Year, he sees it as well, veteran exuberance, which should be applauded, not criticized.
And certainly not penalized.
“He does it all the time,’’ Rivers said of Garnett going to the floor on all fours. “And I bet he doesn’t even know it half the time because he gets so caught up in the game. But I look at that and say, ‘isn’t that great?’
“One referee said to me, ‘you better watch Kevin.’ And I said, ‘no, you guys should watch Kevin - and tell the rest of the league to do it.’ Wouldn’t every coach want their guy to get down low on defense, pound his hands on the floor, and be so into the game? When Duke does it, everyone starts clapping. When Kevin does it, people want to give him a tech. He’s so wrapped up in the game. I don’t have a problem with it.”’
The officials didn’t either, at least not in those two instances. Rivers said he thinks it’s because the officials can hear what the fans can’t hear.
“The reason I think a lot of the officials don’t T up Kevin is that it’s not a personal thing with him,’’ Rivers said of Garnett. “Heck, half the time, he’s talking to himself. They hear what Kevin is saying and they know it doesn’t lead to anything. With others, it’s more direct and personal. He has done that his whole career.”
And Garnett is indiscriminate. He barked at teammate Glen Davis in that same Portland game, so much so that Davis retreated to the end of the bench and put a towel over his face. Garnett had not been happy that the Celtics reserves had let Portland back into the game, necessitating the return of the starters (and the down-on-all-fours move against Bayless).
Nonetheless, Garnett’s in-your-face style – and the Celtics’ new hubris – have made them unappealing to many others around the league. That’s being charitable. The Blazers’ Channing Frye told the Oregonian, “the Celtics – they irritate everybody.” But, he quickly added, the Celtics also can afford to be arrogant because they have what 29 other teams want.
And that fact, Rivers thinks, is why there is more attention on his players (and himself). He noted that Garnett hasn’t morphed into this personality since coming to Boston. It’s just that it’s more noticed because the Celtics are the defending NBA champs and on every team’s hit list this season.
“Our games are on more of an edge than most games,’’ Rivers said. “We’re the champions. Teams are really going after us, not just physically, but verbally and emotionally as well.”
Perkins, so far, has been most penalized of the defending champs. In the NBA most recently compiled NBA statistics, Perkins had three more technicals than anyone else in the league. And Rivers, who had only seven technicals last season, is more than halfway to that number with more than two-thirds of the season left to be played.
The coach defended Perkins, his big, physical, center.
“In Perk’s case, I think up to five techs have been double techs,’’ Rivers said. “That’s where I have a problem. I wish the refs would do their jobs better. They know who instigated it. They know who was talking. Give him the tech. The easy way out is to placate both coaches by handing out double techs. I’ve always thought that’s the lazy way of doing it. And I’ll bet that seven out of 10 times, they know who perpetrated it.”
Rivers is concerned that Perkins might get too close to the Rasheed Line, where a technical foul would result in an automatic one-game suspension. But he’s a bit away from that number yet (16) although there are still a lot of games to be played.
“Perk has to be careful because I’m sure he’s a targeted guy,’’ Rivers said.
The Celtics expected everyone’s ‘A’ Game when the season started. That goes with the territory of being the defending champion. In their first 24 games, they won 22 of them. So, in their view, whatever Perkins and Garnett are doing, it doesn’t seem to have had much impact in the standings.
And at the end of the day, that is what matters to them.
There’s a deadline looming in Rajon Rondo’s mind – and it’s not the one about which most NBA watchers are talking. It’s not about a contract extension for the slick Celtics’ point guard, who is beginning his fourth season in Boston. He claims that doesn’t occupy a single minute of his thinking.
As we enter Michael-Fest this weekend at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, hagiography is blurring history a little.
Can we make this one a best-of-nine? Can the Celtics and Bulls keep playing until Kevin Garnett and Luol Deng are healthy again, then do a best-of-seven?
