Quote from Leon

In a teleconference yesterday, Leon had this to say about the Celtics organization not resigning him:

“I thought I did everything I could to prove to them that I am loyal and a hard worker. And it didn’t work out. I put that on their heads.’’

I guess Sheldon Williams is a better option.

In all honesty though, even when Leon comes back at some point this season, it's unclear what kind of player he'll be. Before he blew out his knee the first time, he was an explosive force who could fly down the court. He adjusted and morphed into a banger down low who never stopped hustling. He's still relatively young and I hope he can really stick it to Boston (especially come playoff time) but his skill level will most likely be decreased from the glory days of the NBA finals against the Lakers. I'm just glad Cleveland took a chance on him.

Would have loved to see him in a Heat jersey though...

Matchup Tonight

So naturally, on 311 Day, the Miami Heat are playing the Boston Celtics, and I won't be able to see the game. With the Celtics only dressing ten players and starting a point guard who up until two weeks ago was a punch line to numerous jokes throughout the NBA, some believe it's a foregone conclusion that the Heat will cruise to an easy victory. Yes, Dwyane Wade is the best player in the league right now (all year?) but don't count out the reigning Finals MVP and Jesus Shuttlesworth. It might not be a pretty game, but I really want to see it, if for no other reason, than to see Leon and Udonis Haslem battle it out down low.

He'll be all up in Leon's grill tonight as well.

With tip-off a little over an hour away, I'd like to take a quick look at the two players and how similar their games are, as well as their similar roles on their respective teams. Basically their two of the best "dirty work" guys in the entire league. They don't have the height of most power forwards, but have the strength to body up on guys much taller than them. (Ask Ilgauskas about how fun it is to play against Leon.) Both guys have a knack for grabbing offensive boards. Both guys are soft spoken and prefer their play on the court to so the talking. I'm not forgetting when Haslem got ejected after throwing his mouth piece at a ref once, okay. But other than that transgression, Youuuuu-donis has been well behaved. Leon does get to the line way more often, even with his limited minutes, but Haslem has the better percentage. Both shoot around 50% from the field. I think Udonis has a better outside shot, but Leon is a bit more explosive and is a better finisher, especially on fast breaks.

Now while the Heat and Celtics play each other four times a year, this is the first occasion that Leon will get serious playing time with Haslem in the lineup for Miami. He'll be starting for Doc's squad tonight. I think this will be a true test for Powe to really see him go up against a four spot instead of guys like Yao Ming. Udonis has also been forced to play out of position at certain points in his career, so this could really bring out the best in both players. Flash and The Truth will get most of the attention for sure and looking at the box score tomorrow, you might not be able to tell that Leon and Udonis played great games. But that's the kind of players they are. Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame recently wrote an article about Shane Battier and how a lot of the stuff he does during games is hard to quantify. Leon Powe and Udonis Haslem are pretty much in the same boat in that respect. (Now that I'm thinking about it, if Lewis ever wrote a book about The Show, my head might explode.) But just remember, both the Celtics and Heat won a championship with the aforementioned guys contributing in big ways. Just sayin'.

"There's no break in the rhythm."

Leon Update

We all know the Celtics have hit some rocky waters as of late. They are currently one game behind Cleveland for the top spot in the Eastern Conference and have gone 3 - 3 in their last six (Thanks AdamMan) games with losses to Detroit and the Clippers.

But Leon has certainly done an admirable job filling in for the injured Kevin Garnett. Combine KG's absence with the additions and thus adjustments of Mikki Moore and Starbury, there are certainly questions surrounding the defending champs. The Show has continued to come off the bench with first Scalabrine and now Big Baby starting, but has responded with 9.8 points, 6.2 rebounds, and a 50% FG percentage all in 22 minutes of play-since Feb. 22nd.

"Look how awesome this guy is!"

I've maintained since last season that Leon could put up these kinds of numbers if he only got the playing time. Now granted, the well talked about free throw shooting problems have kept those point totals a little lower than they should be. But it takes KG and Brian Scalabrine's busted noggin' to get Leon some burn. The Celtics have 21 regular season games left to overtake the Cavs and Lakers for home court advantage throughout the playoffs. Some Boston fans that I have talked to don't seem terribly optimistic, but the hope is that Garnett can come back fresh and instill fear into his teammates they way only he can. Leon's minutes will inevitably go back down but hopefully Doc keeps him in mind come playoff time.

Oh, and yeah, Dwyane Wade has been playing out of his freaking mind pretty much all year, but these past couple of weeks have been RIDICULOUS. He's set new career highs in points (50) assists (16) and steals (7) since February 22nd not to mention his 41-9-7-7 game last night against Lebron. Unfortunately, Miami lost three of those games. Just when it seems like the Heat can slip past the Hawks and into the 4th spot in the East, they blow it. But, yeah, totally had to mention Wade.




Don't hate on the band-aid.

Celtics vs. Clippers 2/25/09

Nothing like a live NBA experience to break up the work week. No Garnett (and Scalabrine) meant more Leon. Since I'm swamped at the office, seriously, I'm going to list my 10 favorite things about the game in no particular order. Oh, and since I don't own a camera and my cell phone is from 1988, I don't have pictures. What a blog!

1. RED PANDA ACROBAT!

2. Sitting in the Premier Level area (thanks Mike) and not being able to afford anything on the menu. Great view of the game though.

3. How many different Celtics shirts/jerseys/jackets people were wearing. To the jersey t-shirt that had "Chief" and the dub zero on the back, to the 350lb. Irish dude wearing a Pierce jersey with no shirt on underneath. Even the little girl with the pink 2008 championship shirt was cute.

4. But none of those compare to the guy in my section wearing an authentic MICHAEL JORDAN WHITE SOX JERSEY! Speechless...

That went well...

5. The sequence of Zach Randolph slamming his shoulder into Leon, Leon flying to the floor, Randolph dribbling over his prone body, then the ref calling a foul on Powe. You can't make this stuff up. It's one thing to watch the refs on TV and complain. But you really don't know just how awful the officiating is until you have good seats at a live game. Unbelievable. Anyway, Leon was a trooper last night grabbing nine boards and defending a guy with at least three inches and 75 bills on him. Randolph had his way early on but Leon really buckled down in the second half. Plus Leon's only field goal was a MONSTROUS alley oop dunk. I mean, he really got up there. But Leon, seriously, work on your free throws dude.

6. Baron Davis fouling out and proceeding to bitch at the refs for a good 45 seconds straight but not getting a technical with less than two minutes to play.

7. The French kids sitting next to us flipping out and trying to take pictures of Adam Sandler who was sitting courtside. Next to Marcus Allen which was quite the odd pairing. Also, Sandler was shaking hands with people at halftime and seemed like a pretty likeable guy. Too bad he hasn't made a good movie since 1996.

8. Knowing that the game could have been over if Pierce hit a wide open three following a sick block by Leon. It would have put the Celtics up by 12 with 8:42 left. Trust me, even with that much time left, Randolph was getting tired, Eric Gordon couldn't hit the water if he fell out of T-Pain's boat (He finished with 4 points. Gordon, not T-Pain.) and Camby and Davis were inconsistent all night. But Pierce bricked it and the Clip, to their credit, hung in there and forced Pierce back into 2006 mode at the end of the game where he just dribbled at the three point line for about 10 seconds, then drove towards the foul line and launched an off balanced jumper. Which he also missed.

9. As Rondo drove the length of the court with five seconds left, Big Baby whiffs on setting a screen but pops out to the three point line anyway and holds his hand up motioning that he's open while Rondo proceeds to dribble the ball out of bounds, ending the game.

10. Realizing that out of the 15 total wins the Clippers have this year, I was there for two of them.

This Can't Be Good

I rouse from my New Years stupor to see this horrifying story.

Maybe the most freightening line in the entire article:

When asked specifically about the likelihood of Marbury joining the Celtics this season, the source predicted that "it will happen."

Oh my god Danny, please don't do this. Anything was this. I know you're trying to get people off your back for sticking with Sam Cassell, but going with an even crazier old point guard is not the way to do it.

*crawls back into a bottle*

Things are looking up in South Beach

I was sweating bullets at 7:35 last night. After listening to how trades were falling through, I had this terrible feeling that the Miami Heat were indeed going to pick O.J. Mayo second overall. Looks like I was duped by my old friend Pat Riley. B-Easy is going to rock the red and black alongside two former Jayhawks, Mario Chalmers(!) and Darnell Jackson. Here's what espn.com's Chad Ford had to say about Miami's draft:

"I hate to break it to what looked like a very sober, perhaps disappointed Pat Riley, but the Heat won this draft. They walked away with arguably the best player in the draft and then got a second-round steal at point guard, a position at which Miami really needed help.
Beasley has a chance to be a superstar. With him and Dwyane Wade, the Heat have a terrific future. On top of that, Miami got a player at No. 34 who I had ranked as a potential mid-first-round pick. Chalmers is perfect for Riley: He is tough, plays defense, can shoot the lights out and is a winner. Once the Heat find a way to trade Shawn Marion, they'll be in great shape to make a big run at a young free agent next summer.
And according to John Hollinger's statistical formula, Jackson is one the biggest sleepers in the draft."

He gave them an A+. Needless to say, I am stoked. Hopefully they will find a taker for Marion before the trade deadline. It would be pretty interesting to see Chalmers, Wade, Haslem, Beasley and Marion on the floor at the same time. They could definitely pull it off against a lot of the teams in the league right now.

The Boston Celtics had a chance to STEAL Chris Douglas-Roberts at 30. They instead chose to go with J.R. Giddens. Not a bad pick, but I thought CDR would have been a perfect fit for the C's. He strikes me as a James Posey-type player. We all saw how well that worked out. Guess they're planning on resigning him and his man-hugs. Late in the draft, they traded for Bill Walker who was drafted by the Wizards. He has been described as, "Vince Carter before the ACL injury." Dang. And with the last pick, they took a seven foot dude from Turkey who they'll stash away in Europe. Solid picks but again, I'm really surprised they didn't take Douglas-Roberts. How did he fall all the way to 40?

The whole Memphis-Minnesota trade is weird to me. How did McHale and Wallace even talk to one another? That's quite the meeting of the minds. Don't really see how Love will help out Big Al...

What can be said about ESPN's coverage that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan? I knew it would be horrible, but that was an absolute trainwreck of an embarrassment. AwfulAnnouncing did a great job of pointing out just how bad it was in their live blog coverage. I would start to get into here, but I would just get too worked up knowing that those jokers can be downright unwatchable and my journalism degree is collecting dust. (Thanks BU!)

Of course the Knick fans would boo Gallinari. I think he'll actually do pretty well there with D'Antoni running the show. Anyone but Rose wouldn't drastically benefit the team anyway. They are still a couple of years away from erasing the mistakes of Isiah. Nice Jeff Van Gundy chant though...

The only real shocker was Jason Thompson going to Sacramento at number 12. It looked like they had a chance to get either Bayless or Augustin, but they were both snagged right before the Kings were on the clock. Looks like they didn't have much of a backup plan. Oh and can the Maloof brothers just move this team to Vegas already? After what David Stern is doing to the Sonics franchise, he should give the Kings the go ahead just to balance things out.

So there you have it. There's plenty I missed I'm sure, but the forties of a certain champagne of beers didn't exactly help keep my head clear. And seeing as how I am an unreliable (at best) poster, there are talks of bringing in a few other writers to expand the site. I'll keep you posted.



P.S. Okay, just one thing about Stuart Scott. He badmouthed the person who bought Doc River's "Gatorade" shirt for $50,000. The money went to charity you buffoon! He was atrocious the whole night but that was the icing on the cake. I cannot stand this man. The amount of enmity that flows through my body is getting to dangerous levels. He had no business being anywhere near Madison Square Garden last night. None.

P.P.S. "So Brandon Rush, are you excited to be playing alongside Brandon Rush?" Good one Stephen A.