Stop me when this sounds familiar:

  • Sports league has annual draft.
  • Local team has a ton of draft picks shrewdly acquired through various trades.
  • Lots of anticipation and speculation as to what local team should do with picks.
  • Local GM with Championship experience makes draft selections based on players he and his scouts like.
  • Internet scouts and airchair GMs decry picks because they’re not in line with their own rankings and expectations.
  • Same people shout that trades should be made, ANY TRADE.
  • When trade IS made, it involves future picks, not players.
  • TV analysts left scrambling for highlights of said picks because they’re being taken out of the generally prescribed order.
  • Fanz and media are generally underwhelmed by results.

Following the NBA and NFL drafts on Twitter can be one of the most frustrating experiences ever. Instant judgment! Should’ve done THIS instead! Oh, Player X is still on the board, they’re foolish not to take him! WHAT AN AWFUL PICK!

Or the one spilling over into today: DANNY AINGE OVERRATED HIS ASSETS! HE’S TAKING THE FANS PATIENCE FOR GRANTED.

Ah well. What can you do?

I’m largely in agreement with Chad Finn today on Mike Adams:

Mikey Adams was a lock for laughs at WEEI

I was not a fan of the Mike Adams schtick in the early days, but recently as the sports radio landscape became more and more negative, panic-mongering and hot-takez-oriented, I began to appreciate the show more.

It’s odd how that works.

 

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

17 thoughts on “A Familiar Scenario”

  1. I work with a guy who predicts doom and gloom for every Boston franchise he follows. “The Sox have no pitching.” “Brady’s too old.” “The Celtics need more, whatever.” And when they succeed, he says, “Yeah, well, New England didn’t win it; Seattle lost it.” or, “The Sox got hot at the right time.” So these negative attitudes don’t surprise me. I think people in this fan base are afraid to be optimistic. Ditto for reporters. It opens them up to ridicule. Well, I, for one, am excited to see which of these picks stay with Boston and pan out. There are no guarantees in pro sports. But I think Boston is ging in the right direction.

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    1. Agree….and if your friend ever says “Seattle lost it, the Patriots didn’t win it” again in your presence, respond with: Seattle wouldn’t even have been there if Green Bay hadn’t executed one of the biggest chokes in conference championship game history two weeks prior.

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      1. I used to do things like that, Tony, but he’s so comfortable in his idiocy, that disabusing him seems cruel. Only if it’s really egregious do I slap him around verbally.

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    2. Derek (and Tony)

      I am just curious…are you younger than 35? The younger set who have seen 9 championships in the last 20 years…and all the resulting success have a completely different outlook on Boston Sports than us old bastards. Other than the Patriots (it only took 2 SB titles for me to trust BB completely) I wait for the other shoe to drop always. I have been rewarded well by both the Bruins and the Sox the last few years. The Celtics are different because I grew while they were still winning championships so I don’t have the same jaded view of them as I do the Sox and Bruins (and more importantly their owners).

      My point is…nattering nabobs of negativity were raised and cultivated by years…neigh…decades of incompetence, choking, a lack of effort and bizarreness that only served ingrain a sense of hopeless in 5 generations of fans. You can’t win when arguing with us. You did not sit through Bill Buckner, Bucky Freakin’ Dent, Dick McPherson, Rod Rust, Harry Sinden, or the countless other incompetents who have run or been part of franchises in this town.

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      1. Sadly, I’m way past 35. I suffered through ’78 and ’86 with the Sox, and too-many-men-on-the-ice with the Bruins in ’79. Heck, I still get aggravated thinking about the undermanned (due to injuries) Celtics dropping the ’85 and ’87 finals to the hated Lakers, and having all of America thinking it was because LA was better, not because the C’s were too banged up to compete over a full 7-game series. As for the Pats, I remember the bad old days all too well, and I remember watching the ’93 season finale on TV and thinking it was the last game the New England Patriots would ever play — Will McDonough said the move was imminent and a “done deal.” So, I’ve definitely had my fair share of disappointments, and I’ve always been sort of a Boston sports pessimist because of it.

        However, with regard to the Pats and Celtics, in particular, I tend to take a broad view and not get too bogged down in the micro stuff. For instance, I’ve come to expect over the last decade-plus that BB and his staff will put a team on the field every year that is capable of winning anywhere from 12 to 14 regular season games, and that is capable of winning the Super Bowl. The only wild card factor is injuries, and how many they will sustain. For all the criticism BB got for “laying down” in Miami in Week 17 last season, to me, that was an indication that their already ridiculous injury situation was far worse than any of us thought (and we all thought it was bad enough) Let’s face it, they win the Super Bowl last year if you take away just half of those injuries (and if the refs hadn’t stolen away the regular season game at Denver, but that’s another argument). So, I really don’t get the constant hammering BB gets, other than the “he’s a big meanie to us (the media) so we’re going to make him pay” factor.

        As for the C’s, reality dictates that they have to build a championship team “the hard way,” because that is life in the modern NBA: this ain’t LA, Miami, New York, or tax-free Texas. As much as we like to fantasize about this being the summer a big-name FA will finally sign with the C’s, the reality is they’re going to have to build through the draft and then hope another Garnett-type deal presents itself while they still have all of those draft pick assets in tow.

        So, I guess I am not as critical of either of those two franchises because I feel it’s better to take a step back and look at the big picture: the Pats are always going to be a contender as long as BB is running things and Brady is the QB, and injuries, more than any other factor, will determine whether or not they’re playing in the big game in February; and the C’s, due to the reality of the modern NBA, have to take a patient approach to team building, because those big name FA’s, 99 times out of 100, are signing with LA, Miami, Dallas, New York, etc…..they’re not coming here.

        The B’s and Sox have been mismanaged over the past few years IMO, and they, right now, deserve most of the media’s scorn (though the Sox, fortunately for them, are currently reaping the benefits of Theo’s 2011 draft class, and so their situation isn’t as bad as it could be after having tossed away about $200M on the likes of Sandoval, Castillo, et al, over the past two years).

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  3. Guilty as charged. Haha. Thanks for the sanity reminder, Bruce.

    What it comes down to I think is intellectual insecurity. You don’t have a voice if you can’t find disagreement with the decisions. Imagine if they just said, “yup, they got it right”, next topic. No talk jock has enough critical thinking mass to do the latter and still find reasonable dialogue to contribute, unfortunately. As a fan, I find myself rooting for whatever the talk world is spitting about so I no longer have to listen to them bitch. How awful is that?

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  4. I just watched the Simmons, “Any Given Wednesday” show. Was that Bruce dressed as Ben Afleck?

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  5. OK, after taking some time to digest Thursday night I am nowhere near as upset as I was then. And no Mr. Ordway it’s not because I can’t put a benefit to Brown as a draft pick.
    Quick side note, granted I don’t listen to Ordway much anymore and really haven’t in a while but I used to listen to him fairly religiously and I can’t remember him being so wrong about the pulse of the fans. He thought people were upset because they didn’t take the player they wanted, i.e. Buddy Hield who shoots 3’s, or Dragan Bender who rebounds and shoots. Nope, they were upset because hours before the draft all the way up until the Celtics were on the clock, twitter was ablaze with rumors about the Celtics and the players they would be trading for. I saw the Celtics getting Kris Middleton and Greg Monroe from Milwaukee for picks 16 & 23 and Avery Bradley. Wow we’re getting those two guys and we still have the third overall pick! Then as the Celtics are on the clock Wojo tweets that the Celtics and Bulls are talking about a deal for Jimmy Butler that is centered around the third pick (Kris Dunn.) Holy cow we’re getting Jimmy Butler, Kris Middleton and Greg Monroe tonight, as Portnoy would say Cue the Duckboats! Unfortunately none of it happened.

    Fans booed Wyc not because they think Brown is not a good player, but because it wasn’t Jimmy Butler. I freely admit it I was upset. I thought all the “assets” that the Celtics had acquired over the years were finally paying off. And as Charlie Murphy says, Wrong! Not only did they take Brown with the third pick they then took Euro Stash players at 16 & 23 and not for Milwaukee. As time has passed and you realize that the rumors on twitter were only that, rumors not reported deals, well you come back down to reality and realize that they did the best they could while keeping themselves among the top teams in the league in terms of cap room for potential free agents. Like specifically for guys whose name rhymes with recant. I now realize they took the Europeans in the first round because their contracts are guaranteed, and they don’t have room for them, plus they are probably not ready, so they can leave them in Europe to get more experience without impacting the 15 man roster.

    Bottom line is the Celtics were a 45-50 win team last year, and they can bring the same roster back with minimal loss and some valuable experience for the younger players on the roster. If the KD plan doesn’t work out, which no one will be shocked if it doesn’t then they just have to be careful how they spend money this offseason as next year’s free agent crop will be bigger and better, and could also include KD again.

    It’s not the fireworks I and obviously others had hoped for, but it could work out well. Most importantly it did not upset the good position that the Celtics are in for the future.

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    1. “Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night.”

      The more I hear and read about them, that is what Twitter trade rumors sound like….and most of them turn out to be just as untrue as that statement.

      You are 100% correct: the fans were booing the lack of a big deal, not the draft pick. Brown, by all accounts, is raw, but has tremendous upside. However, it’s not the “fireworks” type of move everyone was hoping for, so the natural reaction is to boo and clasp your hands to your face (for the benefit of the cameras panning the crowd at the Draft Party).

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  6. Chris Simms thinks that scientific evidence is a bunch of crap. OK. You know what’s a bunch of crap Chris the idea that your dad was a great QB and not an overhyped game manager with a terrific defense.

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    1. OK. You know what’s a bunch of crap Chris the idea that your dad was a great QB and not an overhyped game manager with a terrific defense.

      Or, that his dad is a good announcer for the #1 CBS slot? Lets just start right there.

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    2. I have absolutely no idea what went down between the Patriots and Simms back in the day when they thought about adding him to the roster, but clearly, he’s still got a bug up his entitled behind about it. That was utter jibberish (and not authentic frontier jibberish, either).

      I just don’t get it.

      And his dad, one would think, is a Belichick guy since BB’s defenses were a huge factor in Phil getting two SB rings with the Giants.

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    3. I think the thing about Simms the younger is that, like some media guys, he has a stance and he sticks to it, regardless of any new information, data or analyses. That’s it. I don’t think it’s much more complex than that. I am confident he hasn’t read a word about this issue in a year. He was on one side of this and he ain’t moving. IS that what a good analyst should do? No. Has anyone said Simms is any good? No.

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  7. Saw Schilling on Anthony Cumia’s show yesterday. He said he was going to be getting into radio and doing a conservative radio show and a baseball show in Boston with someone he’s become pretty good friends with over the last couple of weeks.

    Has this been announced yet? Was curious who the Boston baseball show was going to be with, and on what station/format will it be broadcast? Should be interesting.

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