Celtics Beat Timberwolves, Stay Undefeated
Since nothing much is happening in the baseball world, let’s briefly turn our attention to Causeway Street, where the Boston Celtics are currently undefeated (6-0) after defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves last night.
After reinforcing their bench with the additions of Rasheed Wallace and Marquis Daniels, along with the signing of star point guard Rajon Rondo to a 5-year contract, the C’s are looking like a solid bet to finish the 2009/10 season as one of the top three teams in the Eastern Conference.
You know what’s really impressive about the long-term successes of teams like the Celtics (and, similarly, the NFL’s Patriots)? They manage to do it under a salary cap. I mean, I suppose if there was no salary cap, they could go out and spend 80% more in payroll than the second highest salaried team in the league, and then they would be hard pressed to not win a championship every season. While that might seem like fun at fist glance, eventually we would devolve into obnoxious fans with a sub-human sense of entitlement.
At that point, being a fan would no longer be interesting.
The Celtics face a true test in their next game, as they take on the Phoenix Suns, a Western Conference powerhouse.
COMING NEXT:
Baseball related posts (I promise).
A middle aged Yankee fan here…you’re right, no real joy in winning last night. ‘96 was great, coming off a long drought and in a time when the money thing wasn’t quite as bad, but each succeeding year has been worse as baseball seems intent on commiting suicide. 4 hour games, late night finishes, bad umps, snow delays, money inequality, etc. drag the game down. I’m convinced most fans around here are Red Sox fans first, not really baseball fans. Now that the passion of chasing the elusive title has waned you’re left with bored fans in the stands and Sox Appeal…
Hi Siggy,
In all honesty, I would have no problem at all with the Red Sox spending a lot more money and winning more games. The rules allow the Yankees to do that, so, they do it, and as a result, they win quite a bit more often than other teams. If the roles were reversed and the Red Sox had won with a 200MM+ payroll, I would have been happy. However, each season where the Sox failed to win it would be very, very disapointing. I could not imagine a team with that sort of payroll not making the playoffs (i.e. 2008). I think there would be riots here if that happened to the Sox.
Anyway, congrats…your team was clearly the best in baseball in 2009. That lineup was for real, from top to bottom.
Siggy-
I think you’re right – most Sox fans do seems to be Sox fans first, then baseball fans. In saying that, I assume you’re saying the opposite is true of Yankee fans, which I would argue is not the case at all. Living in the tri-state area surrounded by Yankee fans has proven that point – it’s the Yankees, then everything else. Most Yankee fan friends of mine (yes, I do have very close friends that are Yankee fans) don’t even watch other team’s games…and could care less about the rest of baseball unless it impacts their team.
The Yankees had a great team this year, no doubt, but I’d love to see all teams on an even playing field so that we can see which organization is truly the best, and not just those that are able to take advantage of significant geographic advantages (Sox included).