Tag Archives: James Posey

February 11, 2009 · 7:06 AM

Slow Wednesday

After the A-Roid stuff yesterday I thought a Bruins column would be good today. Unfortunately Joe Thorton’s return was a successful one so I abandoned that idea.

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So now what?

Well, Miguel Tejada was charged with lying to Congress. The same Miguel Tejada who was hitting balls in the Houston All Star Game that were landing in Mexico. Safe to say he was on the juice? Um yeah. Like Da Guy said yesterday, until teams release all these juice heads it’s never going to leave the game. We know that’s not going to happen.

The C’s are facing off against New Orleans and old friend James Posey tonight. Doing it without Tony Allen and possibly without Paul Pierce. On the road against one of the best in West. Well, after losing against the Spurs and Lakers you think the odds are in the Celtics favor to win a game against a Western Conference team, but at the Hornets is a pretty tough way to win.

But hey, pitchers ad catchers report Friday at noon and their first workout is Saturday. Awesome! Back tomorrow with hopefully a better column and some relevant news.

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July 18, 2008 · 9:09 AM

The Great White Hope?

So everyone is up in arms about James Posey leaving. Now I’m not going to act like his departure doesn’t upset me or try and talk down his contributions but instead try and find a silver lining.

In a thread of emails yesterday some friends and myself all agreed that the fourth year was too much and after reading John Hollinger’s piece I felt even better about not bringing him in given the expected decline. So who’s going to fill the void?

Sure Scal didn’t sniff the floor in the playoffs but this guy gets the biggest pop out of everyone not named Pierce or Garnett anytime he touches the ball. The Garden goes crazy when he drains a three. And does anyone box out better on the rebound?

The thing with Posey was the stats are very deceptive (only 7 points a game?). It seams every time he had an open look at a three he would drain it. The playoffs just let the rest of the NBA see what we’ve been looking at all season. Also, on defense, he was the shut down defender the C’s needed off the bench against the likes of Kobe and LeBron.

So will Scal fill those minutes? Not likely although we can all dream that a great white hope will one day return to the NBA to the likes of Larry Legend. What will the Celtics do to fill the void?

They’ll probably resign Tony Allen as Hollinger suggests, who was a good defender and a decent scoring option, he just needs to lose the fear he got after the injury. Between Tony, Scal and the rookies the Celtics should be able to fill the void in the regular season. What they’ll miss most is having a money guy off the bench come playoff time.

To quote Da Guy, “I’m not worried.” Danny built up his assets and won a Championship, I’m sure he has a plan here as well. In Danny We Trust.

But on to the Red Sox and the West Coast road trip. Let’s play ball!

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July 17, 2008 · 7:34 AM

Mid Season Report Card

I know everyone thought I would write a Posey artucle today but that’s not in the cards. Good job James, you found someone to guarantee that fourth year. Danny didn’t want to fuck up the salary cap so my good job is also to Danny. Now find us a sixth man again. If you read this article, you’ll feel much better about Posey not coming back.

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On to the mid season report card. Now if you can remember back to March when I gave you the American League and National League previews. Now it’s the All Star break and time to check in on my picks and see how bad I’m doing.

Let’s start with the National League which I know nothing about. I picked Philly in the East followed by NY, Atlanta, Florida and Washington. Thanks to a recent 9 game winning streak by the Mets, the standings are almost exact. The only thing different is a flip flop of the Braves and surprising Marlins. I did pick NY to win the Wild Card and as it stands right now they’d be out thanks to an impressive Central bolstered by recent trades.

I picked Milwaukee to win the Central and if the season ended today I’d be wrong. The Brewers are actually in third behind the Cubbies and surprising St Louis. So I had the top three right, just in the wrong order. I had the rest of the mess dead on Reds, Pirates, and lowly Astros rounding out the cellar.

In the West I picked the Dodgers, in fact in my 2008 prediction column I picked them to win the National League pennant. My huge mistake was liking the Padres so much with no hitting. The West is a two horse race between AZ and L.A. followed by the Giants (holy crap), surprisingly struggling Rockies and the lowly Pads rounding it out.

Overall the NL isn’t too bad on the prediction front. I still could pull out the NY Wild Card depending on how the streak continues after the break. Johan for Cy Young doesn’t look like it’ll happen. Ryan Howard for MVP could happen (he leads the league in HR’s and RBI’s) but he’ll get a run from Chipper Jones. Fukudome as rookie of the year, well he was an All Star. Finally Joe Torre for manager of the year, if the Dodgers pull out the West it could be a lock.

Now onto the AL something which I’m a little more educated.

AL East was picked Sox, Yanks, Jays, Rays, O’s. Who on Earth would have thought the Rays would be in second place? Well my picks could still fall into place especially if the Rays keep dropping road games. They’ve lost their closer and need to make a deal for a bat, if they do that, I’ll be wrong in my predictions.

Now the central which I butchered, so much for “being educated”. I had the Tigers followed by Cleveland, Chicago, KC, and the Twinkies. The White Sox are leading the pack and the Twinkies are only a game and a half out. My pick of the Tigers? They’re floating at .500. KC in fourth I got right, but no one had the Indians in the cellar. So much for Cleveland winning the Wild Card.

In the West I caught a lot of shit from people for not picking Seattle after the Bedard trade. After John Lackey went down for the Angles, I was really worried. Well the Angles have the best record in baseball and the Mariners are in last place. Eat it! The A’s and Texas are both playing above .500. The A’s doing it with pitching, the Rangers with hitting.

With the AL I would really like to see the Rays take the Wild Card. That’s just the baseball fan in me. I think it’d be good for them, but we’ll wait and see. It’d be even better if the Sox win the East and the Wild Card comes from somewhere else.

Now the funny. I picked Beckett for Cy Young (whoops, looks like Cliff Lee), Jacoby for rookie of the year (who would have thought Longoria from Tampa would be that good?), Leyland as Manager of the Year (Rays skip Joe Madden walks away with it even if they don’t make the playoffs) and Vlad Guerrero as the MVP (which I guess could happen considering his team has the best record and he leads his team in every offensive category).

The best news in all this? The Red Sox are back in action but not till tomorrow. The bad news? They’re on the West Coast and you have to stay up till 1AM to watch the games. But it’s the weekend, so enjoy.

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July 11, 2008 · 10:08 AM

Free Form Friday

With the Sox having the night off last night there’s not too much to talk about so I thought I’d just touch on a few different topics around the region.

We’ll start with the Sox who are front and center. Our boy Clay Buchholz, who gave me a ball at last year’s World Series, rejoins the big league club tonight. I hope his time in Pawtucket made him even hungrier and he comes out and pitches another gem tonight.

When Ortiz went down I predicted he was out for the season and the Sox needed to make a move. Well, judging from what I’ve seen since he went down, the replacement may already be here. Sean Casey, who took an 80% pay cut off his last year’s salary, is hitting .371 in limited time. If Coco is traded and Manny returns to left, Casey would be a great DH.

I’d like to see Coco moved during the break and get some relief help. The Yankees are hot on the Sox heals and are charging towards the Rays as well. Any Sox fan rooting for New York the past couple of days really doesn’t get baseball. You want to burry the Yankees. You don’t want them hanging around even with their ailing pitching staff.

Let me save you some suspense. Barry Bonds won’t play baseball this season. When his own agent says that no one’s called and offered him the league minimum and it’s July, just call it a career. Maybe if he wasn’t such an asshole, someone would be happy to call him up.

Onto some Celtics news.

The C’s lost out on the Corey Maggette sweepstakes. Rumored to join the Spurs or Celtics he ends up in Golden State? Now I can’t blame him for taking what amounts to be double what the Spurs and C’s were offering, but Golden State? Obviously he has no desire to win a championship, but given the same situation and age, we probably all would make the same decision.

So Danny is back to focusing on James Posey. The entire NBA found out in the Finals what we knew all year, that this guy was the best 6th man in basketball. I don’t care if he didn’t win the award, he clearly was. So the C’s are offering him their full mid level exemption rumored at three or four years. It’s also rumored that the Lakers, Washington, New Orleans, Cleveland, and Orlando are all going to offer him the same. Why wouldn’t you return to Boston? You won a Championship here, you get along with the boys, just return to Boston.

Back Monday with a recap of the Baltimore series. Then I’ll have to make up some headlines Tuesday through Thursday because I don’t watch the WNBA. I guess the All Star game recap would be alright, but Thursday’s column is going to suck worse than this one.

You’ve been warned.

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June 16, 2008 · 12:25 AM

Back to Boston

Damn.

So, I won’t mix words. I’m pretty pissed off. With a chance to tie Pierce brings the ball up and dribbles off his foot, turns the ball over, Kobe dunks and the Celtics pretty much lost the game.

House puts them within 3, almost steals the ball and then with about 10 seconds left, Posey inbounds to Rajon who hands the ball to the Lakers.

Game Over. Lakers win 103-98.

Worth noting that Garnett blew a tip in and followed that up immediately by missing two free throws that would have made it a two point game at that point.

At least I got something right.

“In one of these games, if not tonight I predict the Paul Pierce is going to go off. I don’t mean for 20 or so like he did in the first two games, I mean like 35-45 points in front of his hometown crowd.”

Pierce blew up for 38 and was aggressive taking the ball to the hoop.

Not having Perkins was a huge hole in the lineup because it really shortened an already short bench. Doc was smart starting Powe, but when he saw Powe struggle he immediately had Brown in the game to be the big man.

It’s worth noting that this is the first Celtic team not to win a Finals game five when leading the series 3-1. Also this is the first game in the series that the C’s were outscored in the third quarter.

Now, as the headline reads, they’re heading back home and hopefully will close out the series. All the “analysts” are saying the C’s are the better team, well coming home they shouldn’t stink it up in the first quarter and hopefully this will mirror the Atlanta game seven where the Celtics come out early and shut down the Lakers.

I hate Phil Jackson. I hate Kobe Bryant. I hate Sasha Vuyachich (I refuse to spell check that name). Most importantly I hate the Lakers. Let’s hope some home cooking for the C’s ends this series.

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