Spring Break
Danny Ainge has a plan that will bring the Celtics back to the glory days of the 80s
Matt Burke
Issue date: 4/27/04 Section: Sports
This past Sunday, painful basketball was on display once again as the NBA continued it's hilarious joke of a playoffs. Two of the most storied franchises in the league, the 16-time World Champion Boston Celtics and two-time World Champion New York Knicks, thankfully had their respective pathetic seasons end in four-game sweeps.
It would be an understatement to give these two teams the old, "Oh how the mighty have fallen" comment and it's downright sad that neither team fields a decent product these days.
When the Knicks are good, there is no place more magical than Madison Square Garden. When the Celtics are good, the "green people" come out in numbers and the FleetCenter begins to feel like the Boston Garden.
Both teams were in the playoffs, but neither should have been. While New Yorkers and Bostonians don't agree on much in the world of sports (other than booing the crap out of Derek Jeter these days), one thing they can agree on is that their NBA franchises play an eyesore brand of basketball.
The futures of both of these once-proud franchises look dim as they both have GM's that have, thus far, looked very inept at running a professional franchise. However, there is an extremely small light at the end of the tunnel for one of these teams and not much hope for the other.
Danny Ainge has a plan, albeit a sketchy one. Isiah Thomas has already executed his plan and it's a horrid one.
Thomas has mortgaged the Knicks' future on shaky grounds. While he should have just blown up the mess left by Scott Layden and cleared salary cap space for the likes of Kobe Bryant (whose Laker days look numbered), or Tracy McGrady (who desperately wants out of Orlando) he instead went for a quick fix, discounting the scary long-term side effects.
He took on the contracts of Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway. Dillusional Knick fans were excited. The hometown hero Marbury was coming to New York and everything was right in the world. The team went on a nice little win streak fueled by nothing more than MSG nostalgia and then inevitably hit the wall as they stumbled into the playoffs.
It would be an understatement to give these two teams the old, "Oh how the mighty have fallen" comment and it's downright sad that neither team fields a decent product these days.
When the Knicks are good, there is no place more magical than Madison Square Garden. When the Celtics are good, the "green people" come out in numbers and the FleetCenter begins to feel like the Boston Garden.
Both teams were in the playoffs, but neither should have been. While New Yorkers and Bostonians don't agree on much in the world of sports (other than booing the crap out of Derek Jeter these days), one thing they can agree on is that their NBA franchises play an eyesore brand of basketball.
The futures of both of these once-proud franchises look dim as they both have GM's that have, thus far, looked very inept at running a professional franchise. However, there is an extremely small light at the end of the tunnel for one of these teams and not much hope for the other.
Danny Ainge has a plan, albeit a sketchy one. Isiah Thomas has already executed his plan and it's a horrid one.
Thomas has mortgaged the Knicks' future on shaky grounds. While he should have just blown up the mess left by Scott Layden and cleared salary cap space for the likes of Kobe Bryant (whose Laker days look numbered), or Tracy McGrady (who desperately wants out of Orlando) he instead went for a quick fix, discounting the scary long-term side effects.
He took on the contracts of Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway. Dillusional Knick fans were excited. The hometown hero Marbury was coming to New York and everything was right in the world. The team went on a nice little win streak fueled by nothing more than MSG nostalgia and then inevitably hit the wall as they stumbled into the playoffs.