Category: NBA

Less than one week away from training camp, the Celtics are the NBA’s unofficial mystery men.  This is a team that has far more questions than it does answers. They might as well change their team symbol from the shamrock to the question mark, because absolutely nobody has any idea what to expect of them.  

Chances are that even if you’re relatively wet behind the ears you’ll have at least some recognition when I mention the game of chicken that James Dean and Corey Allen played in Rebel Without a Cause. In the film’s defining scene, Dean’s character Jim races Allen’s character Buzz off a cliff in the ultimate contest testing the machismo of the adolescents. In the end, Buzz goes down in a blaze of glory, while Jim, bruised ego and all, goes on to learn the error of his ways and along the way bags Natalie Wood and boosts the sale of under shirts by, like a billion percent. Good stuff.

Not Everyone Understands Why the Celtics Traded for Gary Payton

Does anyone remember the obscure Saturday Night Live sketch that showed the New York Times pressroom the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor? The Times’ editors were trying to determine what the next day’s front page story should be, while an increasingly crazed newsman (played by the late Phil Hartman) attempts in vain to convince his colleagues that the attack is the only story that should be considered. Although I can’t recall the exact wording in the sketch, the other editors do their best to calm Phil down, telling him something like “we’re just trying to cover all our bases.” In the end, the headline the following morning turns out to be “Local Reporter Commits Suicide,” whereas the report about Pearl Harbor was a tiny blurb on one of the back pages.   I’m starting to understand what he was going through.