BGleas

Its like IU isn't even trying to control the ball and set up attacks. When we get the ball we just give it right back.

I'm not soccer expert, but IU looks awful.

IU is getting dominated. Luckily on soccer the score is still 0-0 and it only takes one shot. But man, IU can't control the ball at all.

Agree. The Movement had much, much higher expectations. There were literally fans heading into the 2012-13 season saying our bench would finish 2nd in the Big Ten (which was ludicrous, but people still tried to argue it). The 2018 class was viewed as Langford as the one and done star and then the rest were foundation pieces not big difference makers.

Same. The Celtics need to upgrade they're depth and I could definitely see him included in a deal. At this point I'd guess a team would want Nesmith over Langford and Ainge would want to keep Nesmith.

Literally, all he ever does is just stand on the corner. Its almost like he's afraid to be aggressive, even in a lineup with 3 undrafted guys he just stands there. This upcoming offseason is probably the most important moment in Langford's career. First, its his first healthy one on three years, bit also if he doesn't develop a jumper and some semblance of ball handling skills and a left hand, he might be destined for the G League.

Completely agree, and especially when Hunter himself hasn't posted anything. Most of the time when teammates post a "congrats" its a retweet or repost of that players announcement and Hunter hasn't announced anything publicly yet.

As a poster stated previously, "welcome to big boy sports". It's similar to the real world, not everyone gets treated the same. Yogi had equity built up with the coaches. There's a reason he's #1 in assists and #6 in scoring in IU history, he was a great player. Coaches trust their great players and they sometimes (most of the time really) get treated differently. The best 2-3 players on most any team are going to have leeway that the 7-10th guys on the team don't have. Your 2nd best player can come down and jack a bad shot and then turn the ball over the next possession and probably not get taken out, whereas your 8th man comes in and does the same thing and he's getting yanked immediately. Some guys can understand those roles and some can't. The ones that can't or think they're miscast in that role are going to be disgruntled and potential transfer candidates. This is exactly why I always take it with a massive grain of salt when a rumor comes out that players hate a certain coach. Well, it depends on who those players are. What was their role and how did they accept it? Every coach in the world is going to have a subset of his players that hate him.

Yogi was on the Hoosier Hysterics podcast this week and had a lot of good things to say about Crean. This idea that Crean didn't develop his NBA guys or help players get to the NBA is crazy.

When you say 'lucky to make the playoffs' do you mean make it at all or get through the play-in? The Celtics are almost a lock to finish top 8 in the East. But it has of course been a tough season in Boston. I chalk the vast majority of it up to 1) injuries and Covid, 2) teams like Brooklyn, Philly and Milwaukee making some strong roster moves, and 3) Danny Ainge not putting a stronger roster of depth around Tatum and Brown. Kemba, Smart, Robert Williams, Tristin Thompson, Jaylen Brown, Tatum and Fournier have missed a combined 98 games (as of this morning). That is a lot of games missed from their top 8-9 guys. I think if healthy, the Celtics are still the 4th-5th best team in the East. They are better than New York and Atlanta when healthy. I like Kemba, but he has been a massive liability defensively and the knees are going. Clearly the Kyrie fiasco has set the franchise back. Ainge has also struggled drafting in the middle of the first round. He's actually done really well historically at the top of the draft and at the end of the first round, but those middle first round picks have been rough. Drafting Kelly Olynyck over Giannis? Yikes! The problem now is the Celtics have so much salary tied up into Tatum, Brown, Kemba and Smart, which isn't a very balanced top 4, and it's forced them to fill most of the roster with rookie salary guys. Ainge will need to decide if he can move guys like Kemba and better balance the supporting cast around Tatum and Brown, or does he see what Brown can get him on the trade market? I still believe in both Tatum and Brown, Tatum is a borderline superstar and Brown is a star. But I also see some of the same issues we're seeing with the Clippers in Kawhi and PG. It's a weird dynamic when your two best players are both wings that need the ball in their hands and like isolation. Edit: Just saw a stat that the Celtics top 7 (Brown, Tatum, Smart, Walker, Tristan Thompson, Robert Williams, and Daniel Theis/Evan Fournier) never played a game together this season. Not once were all 7 healthy/available for even a single game together this season. Edit #2: The top 4 of Brown, Tatum, Smart and Walker played a total of 292 minutes together this season. That doesn't rank in the top 125 of 4-man lineups in the NBA this season. Edit #3: The Celtics have had the most days of players in Covid protocols with a total of 167 days of players in the Covid protocol. The next closest team is Dallas with 118.

Unfortunately for Langford, he's been passed in the rotation by Aaron Nesmith. Nesmith has really come on over the last two weeks or so, scoring 15 or more points in 4 of his last 6 games, on top of playing similar defense to Langford. He's still young and has a long way to go and injuries haven't helped, but it just doesn't seem to be happening for Langford. Stevens and the organization love him, so not giving up on him by any means, but oddly enough considering his scoring prowess in high school and college he just provides nothing offensively. Much like at IU, offensively he just runs to the corner and stands there. When the ball comes to his side he thens just runs away to the opposite corner. When he does get the ball it's like hot potato, he just gets rid of it as fast as he can. It's a weird thing for a guy that was known as a prolific scorer.

Maybe. He hasn't helped himself with all of the injuries. He's missed a ton of time over his two seasons. I'd also say those same things haven't seemed to hurt Nesmith. Sure, even Nesmith would probably get more time elsewhere, but when he plays he impacts the game and has scored in double figures several times the last month or so.

Sounds like it will be another strong second half!

Sad to see that Aaron Nesmith has passed Romeo Langford in the Celtics rotation. Langford still plays some, but Nesmith is ahead of him. Nesmith plays just as hard defensively but is way ahead of Langford offensively.

Here's a change of pace. Who does everyone have for MVP?

Lots of really good insight and points there. It is weird how sports is the one place where we always back ownership and not the workers. With that said, you're right on it being mostly about the ownership/loyalty we feel as fans to the team and we want that reciprocated by our players.

Has football not done the same thing though? It's all about the quarterback. Guys are constantly changing teams in the NFL as well. Player empowerment is catching up in the NBA as well. You hear players opinions all of the time as well, and a lot of that actually started in the NFL. I think you're first part about the larger than life stars, etc., etc., is more where your age factor comes into play. It's tough to compare things to how you felt about them when you were a kid. Again though, this is all opinion. I think a lot of it boils down as well to fans not liking players having power for some reason. It actually doesn't make a ton of sense, as most of us are employees not owners, so we should relate more to players, not owners. But for some reason fans don't like players having power and the NBA is a players league. This is probably why player empowerment and player voice has hurt the NBA more than the NFL. Many of the same things are going on in both sports, but in the NFL with the way contracts are still structured the owners still have a ton of power.

Definitely an opinion/personal preference thing, and neither of us are right or wrong, it's just what we like and prefer. I know I sound like a broken record, but I just don't see what people love so much about watching a random college basketball game, outside of the pageantry of college sports which I enjoy as well. I don't see what is to like so much about watching Oregon State vs. Cal on a random Tuesday in January as both teams brick wide open shots, turn the ball over and struggle to score in the mid-60's. I watched the Celtics-Blazers on Sunday and the game was a thing of beauty (until the refs ruined it in the 4th with too many reviews). Both teams had over 70 in the first half and it wasn't because of bad or lazy defense, the level of shot-making, passing/ball movement, spacing and general offensive skill was off the charts by both teams. It was beautiful basketball. These guys were making incredible shots at a high rate. To be clear, I enjoy college basketball. I wouldn't have ten's of thousands of posts racked up on the various versions of HSN over the years if I didn't. I'm purely talking about the actual play on the court. But other than maybe the Final Four game between Gonzaga and UCLA, I can't remember the last time I watched a college basketball game and thought it was really well played. I don't mean close or exciting, I mean well played by both teams.

We're about the same age, so I don't think it has anything to do with being over/under 40. I'm child of the 80's/90's as well. I love football, I'm a huge fan, but between the NFL going from Thursday through Monday and all of the college football games, I find football has been way too saturated. Again don't get me wrong, I'm watching football, but typically by Sunday afternoon I'm pretty bored with it unless my Eagles are playing (or Steelers which is my wife's team). Also again, you know I love college basketball, but the actual game play I find to be pretty terrible. I love watching IU and the pageantry, but I don't get what everyone loves about watching teams struggle to shoot 40% and score 60 points while mostly turning the ball over 15ish+ times. The actual product on the court I find to be pretty bad most nights. As far as the NBA and it's stars, I'm not sure when the NBA has had more likable stars? The stars of the last decade or two are all clean cut, never get in trouble, are highly skilled, etc., etc. You've never heard of LeBron throwing someone through a bar window (and I love Charles Barkley), you've never heard of Steph Curry having money or drug problems like many stars of the 80's. You might not like their politics, but these guys are building schools, donating millions of dollars, etc., etc.

Ok, and I don't have a bias against MLB, I just find it incredibly boring. I don't have a bias against the NFL or College football, I enjoy them both. Heck, I have thousands of posts on HSN racked up over 12-13 years so clearly don't have a bias against college basketball. I played it and I've always loved it. I've never once posted on an NBA or Celtics message board.

What does that have to do with it? I was a huge NBA and college basketball fan before I ever worked for the Celtics, and I still am today. I'm a huge NFL and college football fan. I was a huge MLB fan until I realized how incredibly boring it is. You clearly also have biases against the NBA.

You're not?

I was going to stay out of the discussion the last couple days in this thread because the topic has been beaten to death, but the site is so slow recently so I might as well jump in. First, these are all opinion things so will vary greatly by the person and there are no right or wrong opinions here. With that said, for the life of me I can't imagine sitting down and watching an entire MLB game even if my favorite team was playing, let alone two teams I don't care about. I haven't watched an entire MLB game since the Red Sox-Dodgers World Series. In terms of entertainment value, I would watch 6 random (non Celtics) NBA games in a row before I'd sit down and watch the Royals and the Orioles play a regular season MLB game. I also love the NFL, but even with the NFL come October unless teams I like are playing in the Sunday or Monday night games, I typically watch a few snaps here and there, but then move on to something else. I'm definitely watching if my teams are playing, for sure, but I'm not watching the Sunday night game in November if it's San Francisco vs. Arizona or something. With that said, I also don't sit down and watch entire NBA games unless it's the Celtics. So, it's not like I'm hunting the Hornet-Pelicans game on TNT either. But, I will watch for a bit much like the random Sunday night NFL game. Then with college basketball, again I love college basketball, but you're telling me you enjoy watching Georgia Tech vs. Wake Forrest in January as both teams shoot 40% from the field and struggle to score 60 points? Like, what about that is entertaining? I remember earlier this season IU and the Celtics played at the same time. I chose to watch IU because as we can all agree with fewer games more rides on a singular college basketball game, and I knew when IU ended I would still get to watch half of the 3rd quarter and all of the 4th of the Celtics game. I can't remember who either team was playing, but I just remember when I flipped to the Celtics just being stunned at how immensely better the game was. How immensely better the defense was, the passing, the shooting, the flow of the game, it was an incredibly more enjoyable viewing experience. The skill and game play was head shoulders better. Don't get me wrong, I love IU and I love college basketball for the pageantry the school rivalries and all of that. And again this is all opinion, but I still will never understand how people think the college game (just speaking on the actual game play) is better when teams routinely struggle to score and struggle to even shoot a remotely respectable percentage. It's painful at times.