NBA and LaRussa

I often read Bill Simmons’ articles on ESPN.com’s Page 2. Simmons is very funny, though, he gets too crude for my taste frequently. (Eh, what can you do? I just click to something else. Ah, freedom!) But today he’s got a great bit about the poor Celtics. I have to admit I can’t imagine what it would take to get me to like the NBA again. (What to do today? Let’s see, make the NBA interesting to the casual sports fan or build a perpetual motion machine? Hmm . . . Hey! Bowling’s on!)

Anyway, there was a time when I was interested in the Celtics – all the Larry Bird years, natch - and sometime in the mid-70’s, though I don’t remember the exact years. Let’s just say I remember the ABA and I think it’s really too bad there isn’t a Buffalo Braves anymore and I remember an incredible 3 or 4 overtime game between the Celtics and the Suns in which a number of shots from somewhere between the circles kept going in at the end of several overtimes. What a game!

But that’s a while back and Boston hasn’t been too good lately, er, a long time. So Simmons is openly campaigning for the Celts to go in the tank the rest of the season so they can have the best chance at the number one pick in the NBA Draft. His running diary of Boston’s game with the Rockets is an attempt to jinx his team and snap them out of their (recent) winning ways.

He writes:
7:58 -- Has any athlete changed less over the past 15 years than Juwan Howard? He just drained a 15-footer -- throw some baggy shorts and a box haircut on him and I'd feel like we were watching the '93 NCAA Tournament. Remind me to find a place for him on the Tony La Russa All-Stars this year.

I’m sure it’s just an oversight, but they got LaRussa’s name wrong. It’s “WORLD CHAMPION ST. LOUIS CARDINALS manager Tony LaRussa”.

There. I just wanted to clear that up.

Otherwise, a good job outta you, Bill.