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.”
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.
In his first five years on the job as the man in charge of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics, Danny Ainge made so many trips to Europe he could have arranged for dual citizenship in any number of countries.
This year, he didn’t go at all.
It’s not that the Celtics didn’t scout international players; Ainge is a big fan of the Knicks’ draftee, Danilo Gallinari, having seen him in the flesh many times as well as on tape. But in Ainge’s opinion, the just-concluded NBA draft wasn’t exactly overflowing with jaw-dropping international talent.
“I think it’s deep not with star-type players, but with a lot of role players,’’ he said. “And I think a lot of them will make the league.”
And a lot of them will probably stay exactly where they are.
It may be simplistic to suggest that the bloom is off the international rose, but a number of happenings, including the just-concluded NBA Finals, have managed to at least put a hold on the NBA’s fascination with all things international. Or, we should add, with the NBA teams’ fascination. David Stern can still tell you how many daily hits nba.com gets from the most remote stretches of Slovenia.
But with few exceptions (Manu Ginobili, Pau Gasol pre-2008 Finals) those teams did not possess NBA “star-type” players (to quote Ainge) and won mainly because of their teamwork. They were the epitome of the tired but true cliché: the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. They knew each other and played like it. Lithuania did have an unquestioned European star in Sarunas Jasikevicius, but he bombed big-time when tried to make the jump across the pond.
Greece didn’t even have an NBA player on its team, unless you count Vassilis Spanoulis, who sat on the Houston bench for a year, was traded to San Antonio, and then went back to Europe. He may be one of the few players in NBA history to buy his way out of his contract. Usually, it’s the team that does that.
Gallinari was the sixth pick in the draft and the only international player in the top 19. (Somewhere, Dick Vitale and Lou Dobbs are smiling.) Among the other first-rounders taken, virtually all of them had a biographical attachment saying “expected to remain in Europe for more seasoning.”
If Gallinari becomes one of those “star-type” players, he will be the first international All-Star out of the NBA draft in six years. That was the year that Yao Ming went No. 1 overall and he has proven to be well worth the time, money and energy the Rockets expended to get him to the United States.
By that time, players like Dirk Nowitzki (9th overall in 1998) and Gasol (3rd overall in 2001) had proven to be “star-type” players; Gasol was the Rookie of the Year in 2002 and Nowitzki won the league’s MVP in 2007. Ginobili would prove to be a key part of the 2003 NBA champion Spurs a year later.
But a more revealing pick in 2002 came just four spots after Yao. With players like Caron Butler and AmareStoudemire on the board, the Denver Nuggets selected Nikoloz Tskitishvili. He was reputed to be the next Gasol. Oh well.
Then came the classic goof made by the otherwise astute Joe Dumars, who took Darko Milicic in 2003 over the likes of Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony and Dwayne Wade. Yes, the Pistons won the NBA title that year without much from young Darko, but you get the feeling they might have won another (or two) had Dumars taken any of the other three fellows that fateful June night?
You also get the feeling the Orlando Magic might be further along had they not completely blown the 2005 draft by using a lottery pick on Fran Vazquez, who has yet to play a single NBA minute and quite possibly never will?
Out of all the Europeans drafted since 2003 – and almost 30 of them were first rounders from 2003-2007 – there have been only a few who have had any discernable impact in the league. And that includes the No. 1 overall pick in 2006, Italian Andrea Bargnani. The best thing the Raptors can say about him now is that with the addition of Jermaine O’Neal, Bargnani can go back to the bench. He may eventually become worthy of his draft selection, but, to date, he hasn’t. And the Bucks had one year to look at Yi Jianlian, the No. 6 pick in 2007, and traded him. Eventually, he, too, might become a star.
What do we make of all this? First, the NBA may have exhausted the immediate talent overseas and needs to wait for another cycle. Second, it’s no longer a stigma for some of these players to not play in the NBA. Jasikevicius is happy where he is. Vazquez, presumably, is as well, along with Spanoulis, who was so homesick in Houston even with his mother living with him. Tiago Splitter is likely to remain in Spain where he can be paid more than what the Spurs can offer him. And in Euros.
But here’s another possibility, which we saw first-hand in the NBA Finals. Most of these international players don’t play defense. (Andrei Kirilenko being the notable exception). That doesn’t necessarily constitute news, or a dirty little secret, but it was painfully obvious to anyone who paid more than casual attention to the NBA Finals.
One of the enduring snapshots from that series was when Ray Allen, who had played the entire game, blew by a bewildered Sasha Vujacicfor an uncontested layup in the final minute to seal the remarkable come-from-behind win for the Celtics. Vujacic could be seen holding his hands up as if to say, ‘what happened?’ Similarly, Vladimir Radmanovic was a total cipher and couldn’t stay near Paul Pierce while Gasol appeared overwhelmed most of the series, a performance that undoubtedly drew a lot of chuckles in Memphis.
In the balloting for the 2008 Defensive Player of the Year award, Kirilenko was the only international player to get a vote. He got one. When the coaches picked their 2008 All-Defensive team, 36 players got votes. Three – Kirilenko, Ginobili and Andres Nocioni – got votes and none was close to making either of the two teams.
Defense was behind the success of the Spurs over the years. (And no, Tony Parker can’t guard his shadow, but he has been drilled relentlessly by Gregg Popovich into how to play a team concept.) This year’s Celtics’ team, which had no international players, won with its defense. But how many Kevin Garnetts are out there, even in the United States?
NBA executives will still spend and scout extensively overseas for, as we’ve seen in ever NBA draft, it’s a good futures pool. They’re not going to suddenly turn into hoop xenophobes and, as noted, the jury is still out on players like Bargnani and Yi.
But how many more teams need to win a title, like this year’s Celtics, before teams start talking about defense the way they do about offense? No one is talking about Gallinari’s defense - and his new coach in New York isn’t exactly known for it either. And to top it off, the poor kid got booed when he was announced to the New York fans attending the 2008 NBA draft at Madison Square Garden.
What else could he expect from the team that drafted Frederic Weis?
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.
