The Home Stretch
So far this season has been terrible and great. The terrible is obvious: injuries, historic losing streaks, two deaths in the Celtics family. The great, however, is also obvious: Al Jefferson has emerged, Gerald Green looks like he's learning how to actually play basketball, Rondo is looking like a keeper, and Gomes' range has improved. At the start of the season, I said that wins and losses didn't matter and that all that was really important was improvement and I stand by that. Overall, I think the injuries were a blessing in disguise. If the Celtics remained healthy, we might be able to fight for the 8th spot in the playoffs but personally, I'd prefer a shot at a true superstar at the top of the NBA draft.
There is one downside to all of this losing and that is the effect it has on your veteran superstar. And lately, the rumors of Paul Pierce's attitude have not been the greatest. A lot of his comments echo that of Vince Carter before he forced his way out of Toronto. While I think Vince is a far bigger punk than Pierce is, I also think that Paul needs at least a glimmer of hope in the last two months to get his hopes up for the near future. Al Jefferson's emergence has been impressive but he needs to do it against the top teams to help give Pierce a reason to want to stick around. While Al's rebounding has been impressive against everyone, he's about to go on a stretch where he's facing top level big men and teams that he's averaging around 12 to 14 points against. If Pierce is going to buy into the "One More Year" philosophy, Big Al is going to have to step up against these teams. I don't see Pierce sitting on the bench, looking down at Wally Szczerbiak, Tony Allen, and Kendrick Perkins and thinking to himself, "Yeah, if these guys are healthy we should be all set."
The remaining schedule is tough but if the Celtics are as good as Ainge likes to think they are, they should be able to steal a couple of quality wins and be, at the very least, respectable at the end of the season. If the season progresses as it has to this date, the Celtics beating bad or banged up teams and losing to pretty much every true playoff contender, then it might take a lot to convince Paul Pierce that one draft pick is going to make all the difference.
