Le Basketbawl

New York  Vinnie has told you from Day One that Pro-Athletes should not be role models; and if you are a parent that uses one as an example of what your child should aspire to be then shame on you! The only thing your child should learn from a Pro-Athlete is how to play the sport they play, certainly not life lessons! These are not community leaders or learned men; they happen to be able to perform a physical feat well enough that they get paid for doing it. Dwight Howard’s views on the economy are not worth a rat’s behind to New York Vinnie; that is not his area of expertise.

Would you tell your child that R&B star Chris Brown is a good role model? How about Lindsay Lohan is that who you want your daughter to grow up to be like? These people are entertainers and they earn a lot of money at a young age and some handle it well while others do not. Pro-Athletes are in the same boat young men who are talented enough to get incredible Frickin money to do what most men in the USA would love to do for free; play a Frickin game.

Unfortunately all too often these young men allow the moment to master them rather than them mastering the moment. They get frustrated with a situation and they start verbally lashing out or complaining; the problem is there is usually a member of the media around and then it becomes public knowledge. Athletes live under a Frickin Magnifying Glass and what you or I could say at our jobs could be on the back page of the tabloids when an athlete says it.

The Boston Celtics had high aspirations going into the 2009-2010 NBA season and many thought  including New York Vinnie that they had a very good chance of winning their second NBA Title in the last three years this June. Injuries derailed the team somewhat in January but they seemed to have dodged a bullet with Paul Pierce; as there were reports of him possibly breaking his left foot Tuesday. It turns out it was just s strained foot and his status is day to day.

When a team plays below expectations they get frustrated; they can handle it one of two ways. The proper way of handling it is to keep any problems in house and present a united front to the public via the media. You win and lose as a team that is the Frickin bottom line. If you have problems you handle them behind closed doors.

The other way of handling it is to allow the situation to get the best of you and start airing your dirty laundry in public. That sadly is the case with the Boston Celtics where All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo started airing his grievances to the “Boston Herald.”  The Celtics have been a tight knit bunch over the past couple of seasons but according to Rondo something is different this season.

The Celtics guard said “In the locker room, you can feel it. You don’t feel like it’s the same continuity and camaraderie in the locker room as it was the first year. The first year, it was a crazy spirit in the locker room. But now it doesn’t feel the same. It’s not the same right now. We’ve got to find a way to get that back somehow, some way. It’s a different team this year. That’s our problem. A couple of years ago, we didn’t have the same team. We had the same main guys, but it’s still a team effort, from the first guy to the 15th guy.”

Yo Rajon, things do not stay the same forever and especially not in the modern era of Pro-Sports. Now please tell New York Vinnie exactly what was positive about opening up your Frickin Yap to the media? Do you expect that now that it is out in the open everybody is going to embrace and have a good sing-along around a Frickin camp fire? Because New York Vinnie believes the only smoke you will see My Man is coming from the ears of Doc Rivers and Danny Ainge!

You have a problem you talk to someone who can solve the Frickin problem. Now New York Vinnie has been reading Herald reporter Steve Bullpett’s stuff for a long Frickin time and he is a great writer. But he does not set the Frickin tone in the Boston locker room. Rajon by doing what you did you may have set the Frickin tone for the next few weeks; and New York Vinnie does not think it will be pleasant!

The month of January, 2010 was not a good one for the Boston Celtics; in fact it was the first losing month since the team traded for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen in the off-season before winning the 2008 NBA Title. The Celtics went 6-8 for the month losing their last three games and they now have a 6-11 record since December 27. There is no doubt as to what the source of the problem is; it has been injuries to key players including Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Rasheed Wallace.

 Boston fans are not taking this particularly well either. New York Vinnie paid a visit to Red’s Army on Friday and there was all sorts of talk about Garnett never being the same player he was before he injured his knee last season. Now New York Vinnie believes that is Crapolla; the injury was not that severe and the “Big Ticket” is an elite NBA player. Garnett has said it himself; a lot of his problem is still timing missing 10 games puts him right back at square one to get into “Basketball Shape.”

Boston ended the first month of the new decade Sunday against their chief rival the Los Angeles Lakers and would lose 90-89. The “Boston Globe” spoke with the Boston players before the game and Garnett told reporters that his team would have to be pretty much flawless to beat L.A. The starter for the Eastern Conference All-Star Team told reporters “If we come anything less than great we’re going to get our (tails) kicked. We’re losing. I don’t think anybody’s proud of that. We all look at ourselves as a unit and we’re trying to figure out a way to fix this. The words that we want to use you guys can’t write in your columns or put on this television. But we’re going to get better. We’re too prideful, too competitive as men, to go another route.”

Take a look your Eastern Conference All-Star team; the Cleveland Cavaliers the team with the best record in the Frickin NBA has one player on the squad, as do the Orlando Magic, and the Atlanta Hawks. The Lakers have two players on the Western Conference All-Star team. The Celtics are the only Frickin team in the entire NBA with three players on the team. What does that mean to New York Vinnie? It means you have a more complete team which is how the Celtics historically have won. Going back to the days before even New York Vinnie was born back in the era of Bob Cousy and Bill Russell.

The Boston Celtics have too much Frickin talent to go in the dumper. They have to get healthy and get back to their strengths shut down defense and your offense stems from there. New York Vinnie predicted before Training Camp that Boston was winning the NBA Finals in June. If the Cleveland Cavaliers can get themselves what is now being labeled as a “Stretch Four” in other words a Kevin McHale/Karl Malone power forward they may be unstoppable. The Pacers Troy Murphy and the Wizards Antawn Jamison have come up as players who might fill that role for Cleveland. But barring that if Boston has everyone healthy New York Vinnie will stick with the Celtics.

New York Vinnie has never  joined any “Fantasy Leagues” in any sport. New York Vinnie has nver quite grasped the concept of rooting for players that do not play on your own favorite team. If Red Sox catcher Victor Martinez is on my “Fantasy Team” I would have to root for him when plays the Yankees?

Are you out of your Frickin mind? That like goes against Frickin laws of nature; it’s like mating a dog with a cat. Its just Frickin wrong in New York Vinnie’s opinion to root for any player not on the team that you are a fan of. But a whole lot of people think differently and that is why “Fantasy Leagues” are so popular.

New York Vinnie roots for “New York Teams.” The World Champions the Bronx Bombers in MLB; the New York Giants in the NFL and of course “MY BOYS” the New York Knicks in the NBA. There is no divided loyalties in New York Vinnie’s head. Well at least until this NBA season there wasn’t.

You see your Old Pal New York Vinnie made a prediction back in the summer that the Boston Celtics would win the NBA Finals next June. So now New York Vinnie’s reputation is on the line; and I don’t back away once I make a prediction. You read guys all the time making predictions at the beginning of the year they come up wrong and they never mention it again. New York Vinnie is not like that; if the Celtics win or lose you will know whether I was right or wrong. Now as a fan I never want to see Boston win; but as the man who runs “The House That New York Vinnie Built” Le Basketbawl I now do have mixed loyalties.

Last year on Christmas Day the Boston Celtics were 27-2 on Christmas Morning before they took on the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center that day. Los Angeles defeated Boston 92-83 and the Celtics would start a long slide down as they would go 2-7 and were 29-9 on the season after losing to Cleveland on Jaunuary 9.

Boston played this year on Christmas Day beating the Orlando Magic 86-77 and get their record to 23-5. The Lakers lost that day to the Cavaliers so both teams had the same record. The Celtics  then traveled to the West  Coast and on Sunday they were back in the Staples Center however this time they faced the Clippers a team that is truly in the have-nots category in the NBA. The Celtics lost that game as Baron Davis hit an outside jumper at the buzzer to give his team the 92-90 victory.

Monday night Boston traveled up  the coast and took on another bad team the Golden State Warriors and once again they lost 103-99. The Celtics are now 23-7 and will  take on the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday in the last game of the road trip. Phoenix defeated the Lakers on Monday night and the Celtics lost to the Suns in Boston on November 6, by a score of 110-103.

New York Vinnie could never in my wildest Frickin imagination conceive writing the following words but I am concerned about the Celtics! Now granted the team is playing without one of their key players as Paul Pierce is out after knee surgery. However even without Pierce they should have beaten both of the stiff teams they lost to.

So Boston despite New York Vinnie’s disgust in admitting it this year I do have a rooting interest in you. Now don’t go and make it Frickin worse and prove New York Vinnie wrong.

The good news for fans of the Boston Celtics is that Kevin Garnett is back playing and is no longer in pain. The bad news is except for the occasional moment here and there the “Big Ticket” has yet to start playing the way he has throughout his career. Garnett missed the last part of the season as well as the NBA Playoffs as he had injured his right knee. Garnett had off-season surgery that corrected the problem and took away the pain, however Garnett still has been a tad off all season long.

The Celtics are now 9-4 and could very well be 13-0 if they had KG playing in mid-season form. Two of their losses may have occurred anyway as they lost to an Atlanta team that is currently the hottest team in the NBA and lost Friday night to Orlando a team they have problems matching up with in the best of times. However they never should have lost to the Pacers and most likely would have beaten the Chicago Bulls if the Boston All-Star forward was in peak condition.

Boston Celtics head coach Doc Rivers told the “Boston Herald” after the loss to Orlando that his veteran is playing pretty much how the Celtics bench boss expected him to be playing at this point of the season. Rivers told reporters “One day he’s explosive, one day he’s not, one day he’s healthy, one day he’s not, and that’s just gonna take time. Coming into the year, obviously you would want him to be explosive if you could pick tonight. Tomorrow we don’t need you. But you could see that today. It takes time. Some days you have legs, some days you don’t. It’s your back. It doesn’t matter what the injury is, almost. That’s just how it works.”

Rivers is basically saying that he realizes his veteran’s game is a work in progress. It is one thing to be in shape but a totally different thing to be in NBA shape.  However when you are dealing with a player that has the track record that the Boston star does as long as he is is healthy the timing will soon return. This man has been one of the top players in the NBA for more than a decade. If you watch him play every once in a while you are seeing what he is still capable of. It will not be too much longer before the “Big Ticket” is back full time for the Celtics.

Your Old Pal New York Vinnie had a very illustrious athletic career; unfortunately it came to an end at the age of 11 years old. New York Vinnie was one the Premiere Stick-Ball Players in all of Queens; with a broom stick in my hands and someone pitching me a pinkie ball I was one dangerous batter. My Pops from the time I was three started training New York Vinnie in Stick-ball and by the time I was six I was just about unstoppable. 

New York Vinnie was magical with that broom-stick; if we needed a single through the hole to score a runner I got the job done. When it came time to hit that long ball New York Vinnie could hit towering shots just like the “Mick” in his prime! However at 11 we all switched to baseball and New York Vinnie never could handle a bat like a broom stick and soon my glory days were over.

Now our team was by far one of the finest Stick-ball teams in all of Queens; we had just one team that could play toe to toe with us and that was the team from Union Turnpike. The Union Turnpike Team had an African American player named Maurice who even though he was our age was much bigger and stronger than the rest of us. The only problem Maurice ever had was staying focused on the game especially if you got him mad. When Maurice got mad he would start to press and when he started to press he made mistakes. So naturally New York Vinnie always made sure that I would get Maurice upset about something every chance I got.

Maurice however was no dummy; he caught on and by the time we were ten and eleven Maurice would not allow himself to get distracted. Now as good a Stick-ball player as New York Vinnie was Maurice was a better player; he was bigger, stronger and more athletic. So once New York Vinnie could no longer get in his head we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would always finish second those last two years to the Union Turnpike team. It was painful to admit; but they were the better team.

The reason this comes to mind is that New York Vinnie has to make another painful admission; if the Boston Celtics stay healthy and focused they are going to win the NBA Finals next June. Now if you are a regular here at the “House That New York Vinnie Built“ Le Basketbawl you are well aware that New York Vinnie is no fan of the Boston Celtics. In fact the Boston Celtics have caused New York Vinnie a lot of anguish in his life because they usually Punk My Boys the New York Knicks each time they play them.

The Celtics are expecting their All-Star forward Kevin Garnett to be back at full strength this upcoming season. But they have also added a few new wrinkles namely Rasheed Wallace, Shelden Williams and Marquis Daniels which is going  to make a deep Boston team that much scarier. “The Boston Globe” spoke with Celtics head coach Doc Rivers and he thinks that Daniels is truly going to be a boost to his team. Rivers said “Marquis, that’s the guy no one talks about. I’m really looking forward to coaching him. I didn’t like coaching against him; I thought he was very difficult to match up to. He can play 2 or 3 and he has the ability to handle the ball. We’ll use him at point forward.

Defensively is where I like him. I thought last year, without having Posey, we didn’t have that other guy that could guard guys off the bench, and that put a lot of stress on Ray and Paul. And this year, we’ll have another guy to defend.

He’s going to replace (James Posey) as far as minutes, but they are totally different. Both of them are very tough-minded, which is good. Posey was a guy who spread the floor more, Marquis will be a guy with the ball in his hands more and making decisions.”

Rivers also told reporters that veteran big man Rasheed Wallace is going to be a game changer for his club. The Boston coach said “Rasheed is a leader, he’s an amazing guy. So far, just watching him, he’s so verbal on the floor. Having him and Kevin on the floor, verbally, defensively, will be amazing for Paul, Ray, Rajon, and everyone else.”

Now injuries happen as Boston found out up close and personal when they lost Garnett for the Playoffs last season. But as New York Vinnie wrote at the top; if the Celtics can stay healthy and focused their will be another  banner going up on the rafters next year.