Old School Pic of the Week 5.29

You thought Doc Rivers was getting a bit testy on the sidelines Monday night as his Celtics took on the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals? He begs to differ. The technical he received early on in Game 1 "has to rank as the worst I’ve ever had" according to Rivers.


Not sure if Doc got T'd up for the above incident, but in this installment of the Old School Pic of the Week we harken back to a time when Doc was undoubtedly deserving (against his future team, no less.) His Celtics will need adopt the mean streak Rivers displayed in this photo during their Game 2 matchup to have any hope of beating a Miami team that is, as the name would suggest, heating up at the right time.

Old School Pic of the Week 5.15

Lost behind the headlines about Chris Bosh's injury, the 76ers' and Pacers' improbable wins, and OKC's blowout against the Lakers, was Jeff Green's graduation. Green is set to graduate this weekend from Georgetown after leaving school early in 2007.

Speaking of which, Lew Alcindor AKA Kareem Abdul-Jabbar walked at his UCLA commencement. See if you can manage to spot him in the photo. Hint: not the shorter white lady with the yellow cord.

2012 NBA Should-Be Awards

It's that time of year again. With the conclusion of the regular season, the time to present the annual awards is upon us. Already, Gregg Popovich has been named the Coach of the Year and LeBron is a near lock to take home the MVP for the third time in the last four seasons. But since that debate has been all but settled, we are looking to decide the the awards that the people really care about. No, not the Defensive Player, 6th Man, or Rookie of the Year. I'm talking about the 2nd annual NBA Should-Be Awards, the obscure honors that the NBA does not recognize but we at Court of Appeals are proud to hand out.

The Dilemma of a Seattle Sonics Fan in 2011

by Connor Witt

I generally try to refrain from being a resentful Seattle sports fan who cries about losing his pro basketball team to conniving thieves masquerading as honest basketball owners Oklahoma City, but on Wednesday night TNT left me no choice.

After Kevin Durant completed his superhuman fourth quarter to will OKC to a series-clinching victory, TNT displayed a graphic proclaiming that this was Oklahoma City's first playoff series win since 2005. Well, TNT - allow me to provide some historical backgroud - the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise did not exist prior to 2008.

Alright, that's just me being bitter. Of course I know the station was referencing the Seattle Sonics' 4-1 victory over Sacramento in the first round six years ago, but Oklahoma can't lay any claim to that series. I get that it's technically the same franchise with shared records, so TNT isn't "wrong" per se. But everything that has transpired throughout the whole relocation process gives Oklahoma City no right to call anything the Sonics accomplished their own.

I believe that OKC owner Clay Bennett forfeited that right somewhere between promising to keep the team in Seattle, demanding the city build him a new arena on their dime, the now-infamous "I am a man possessed!" e-mail, and ruining 41 years of basketball tradition in Seattle. (The documentary "Sonicsgate: Requiem for a Team" provides much more detail on all the injustices that took place in the relocation saga. I recommend it.)

But the real problem for me at the moment isn't TNT running that particular graphic. It isn't even with Clay Bennett stealing my city's team, my team. The problem I'm facing is simpler: the Thunder are really really good, and I'm having trouble restraining my urge to become a fan.

In 2008, when Clay Bennett ripped the still-beating heart out of my chest and handed it to me in a fast-food takeout bag moved the Sonics to Oklahoma City, I vowed that I could never root for a team he owned. For the most part, I've been very true to my promise. It hasn't been so easy though. Now don't get me wrong here, I haven't gone soft, I haven't forgotten what happened to my city, and I don't despise Clay Bennett any less than I did in 2008. What's hard for me to ignore is that the guys going out there and dominating the Nuggets in the first round were my guys not so long ago.

Nick Collison was a fan favorite in Seattle. We respected his hustle on the court and his blandness off of it was endearing in an ironic sort of way. Seattle fans loved him like America loved McLovin in Superbad. Both played the role of the charming goof, the guy whose skills were limited, but that you pulled for anyway. Rising stars Russell Westbrook and Serge Ibaka never donned the green and gold, but every time we see Westbrook's high-flying dunks or Ibaka's thunderous blocks Sonics diehards know that those are our 2008 number 4 and 24 picks out there (and no, I didn't have to look that up. It seems us Sonics fans aren't very forgetful about the past.)

And then there's Kevin Durant.

I was first amazed by Durant when I passed by him at a hotel restaurant in Spokane, Washington during the 2007 NCAA tournament. He was successfully taking a phone call in his left hand while texting one-handed on a Sidekick with his right. A Sidekick, that's a QWERTY keyboard.

I should have known he was destined for NBA stardom at that very moment.

In May '07 when the Sonics were awarded the second draft pick in the lottery, I immediately grabbed a green sharpie and drew a #35 jersey onto a plain white tee so I could be the first one representing Durant at school the next day.

In Durant, we had the future of basketball playing in our backyard and we embraced him even though our '07-'08 team had little else to brag about. We may not have had many wins, but we had the second best thing, hope.

Then the whole city had the proverbial rug yanked from beneath us and next thing we knew the Durantula was a Thunderclap, or Thunderbolt, or whatever the hell you call one individual unit of Thunder.

At first, my loathing for Clay Bennett and bitterness toward the whole relocation debacle made it easy to resent the Thunder. I put aside the reverence I held for Durant & Co. and put full force behind scorning my former franchise. I made it through the first two seasons of Thunder basketball in that mindset without wavering.

But something different happened this year; OKC rose from a team content just to make the playoffs to a true contender in the West. Along the way they began playing an exciting brand of basketball characterized by Westbrook's high-flying dunks, Ibaka's defensive dominance, Durant's elite scoring ability, and James Harden's awesome beard.

It became increasingly difficult for me to see them play and fight off the urge to enjoy what I was witnessing. I watched Durant explode for 44 on Christmas Day and I caught myself sneaking guilty fist pumps after a dunk or clutch 3. Since the playoffs began, it's become even tougher on me. Durant is still the same guy whose handcrafted jersey I wore so proudly just three years ago, how can I be expected to deny his heroics just because I dislike the guy who cuts his paychecks?

Oh, that's right, because the guy who cuts his checks screwed my city on a scale never before seen in professional sports and heisted the team that I had grown up worshiping. But as KD rained jumpers on the Nuggets in the fourth en route to 41 points Wednesday night, it made me wonder. How long will it take me to forgive the whole OKC franchise for their injustices against Seattle? At the moment I don't have the answer. Maybe when Bennett is no longer the owner, maybe when professional basketball returns to Seattle, maybe when Satan begins construction on a subdivision of the underworld specially for Bennett and his ownership group. I don't know.

This is the dilemma of a Seattle Sonics fan in 2011.


Court Adjourned.

Forecast of Heat

by Connor Witt

July 8, 2010. 9PM Eastern. The Decision.

We all remember where we were when LeBron James so famously informed the world that he would be taking his talents to South Beach. To most, these words made LeBron a villain, a coward, and a traitor. But while the rest of the country was busy crucifying James for betraying his hometown, I was curious what the implications would be on the basketball court.

There was no shortage of theories. Jeff van Gundy insisted that this team would not lose twice in a row all season, and he predicted they would beat the regular season record of 72 wins. Others doubted the Heat, concerned that the egos of Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and LeBron James would prevent the team from jelling. How will the team survive with two incredibly ball-dominant scorers in the same backcourt? Who would take the last shot? How will they win with no frontcourt depth? Before the Heat had even played a game together Miami’s Big Three were the hottest discussion in sports.

For me though, the Miami Heat were an opportunity. At age 19 currently, I was too young to fully appreciate the great NBA teams of the recent past. I never got to see the great Showtime Lakers or Bird’s Celtics. I was only seven when Jordan sunk what we thought was his final shot to beat the Jazz and complete the Bulls’ second three-peat. I remember the Lakers’ dynasty at the beginning of the 2000s, but was not old enough to really appreciate it from a basketball standpoint. But with LeBron’s decision, I had hope that I would finally be able to witness a truly great team that I could appreciate for their ability. It was as if LeBron was speaking directly to me when he made his projections for the Heat’s future upon his arrival in Miami. The Heat have shown flashes of greatness this season, but they will need to demonstrate greater urgency than they did in Sunday’s Game 4 if they want to both make their vision and my basketball fantasy come true.

Celtics in the Post-Perkins Era

By Connor Witt


It’s been the question that has run rampant in the minds of basketball enthusiasts since the February 24^th trade deadline. How would the Boston Celtics fare without Kendrick Perkins, their best interior defender and emotional leader? He was far from Boston’s best player, but according to the other players he was an important part of the team’s chemistry. There are two worthwhile analogies that could play out in the post-Perk era in Boston. Best case scenario: Kendrick Perkins is guitarist Hillel Slovak of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (minus the heroin). The Chili Peppers enjoyed considerable success with Slovak, but were still able to continue their success after his death with John Frusciante. (For the sake of the argument Paul Pierce is frontman Anthony Kiedis, Garnett is Flea, Ray Allen is Chad Smith, and Rondo is Josh Klinghoffer.) The grimmer alternative is that the Celtics go the way of the Backstreet Boys, who were tragically unable to recapture the success of 1999’s Millenium after Kevin Richardson’s departure from the group. Now that I have included the Backstreet Boys in a basketball column and hell has frozen over, let’s take a look at what the Celtics have displayed since the Perkins trade that sent them Jeff Green, Nenad Krstic, and a first round pick in 2012.

The numbers are undeniable. Pre-trade, the Celtics record stood at 40-14 and was good for first in the East. Since: 15-12. But this is basketball not math, and anything can happen in the playoffs. The rationale – or at least the hope – of Boston’s front office was that Jeff Green’s perimeter defense could keep Paul Pierce from defending the opponent’s most athletic wing scorer throughout the postseason (Carmelo, LeBron, Bryant, etc.) With the opening of the playoffs America got its first taste of the new-and-not-necessarily-improved Celtics in postseason form.

            Facing the Knicks in the first round was a dream come true for curious basketball fans like myself. The Knicks provide an intriguing test because they possess one of the NBA’s premier wing scorers in Carmelo Anthony and one of the league’s best post threats in Amar’e Stoudemire. General Manager Danny Ainge finally got to see if his latest move would rival the success of the Garnett/Allen acquisitions or be a disaster on par with Mark Blount’s six-year, $42 million contract. The Celtics were unimpressive in the first half, and it had me wondering whether this aging team is officially over the hump. Never was Perkins’ absence more glaring than when Amar’e Stoudemire completed a huge slam over Glen Davis with 34 seconds remaining in the second quarter.

In the second half the Celtics shut down Carmelo Anthony and were able to escape the game with a victory following some late-game heroics from Ray Allen. However, Jermaine O’Neal played out of his mind this game and his contribution will be crucial to Boston’s success in this series and throughout. So are the 2011 Celtics the Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Backstreet Boys? Perhaps Jermaine holds the answer.

Court Adjourned.