Winners And Losers of the Garnett Trade
In one of the great upsets of our generation, the Celtics managed to steal the headlines from the Red Sox yesterday on the final day of the MLB trading deadline, despite the fact the Sox acquired Eric Gagne. And in 24 hours the NBA has gone from a joke in the midst of a disastrous gambling controversy to a real sport again in this city. Now it’s time to evaluate the biggest winners and losers from the deal.
Winners
FSN – Imagine what NESN would be without the Sox. Well, that’s been FSN for the past million years. I think the Barstool Sports Radio Hour had better ratings than Celtics games this past decade. That should all change this year, thanks to the arrival of the new Big 3.
Greg Dickerson - I don’t know if Greg Dickerson is married or has kids, but I do know that yesterday was the greatest day of his life. This guy has been the punching bag of the Boston media for as long as I can remember. He’s been stuck trying to make people care about the Celts on a channel that nobody was watching. Now he will be viewed as the pseudo-ringleader of what is sure to be one of the hottest tickets in town.
WEEI- There had to be some insider trading here, right? I haven’t seen anything this fishy since Mr. Beaks got inside info on the orange crop. I mean, WEEI gets the Celtics back on their airwaves and suddenly Danny Ainge builds a contender? I wonder how much WEEI paid for the radio deal? 10 cents? You know the guys at 1510 - The Zone -are sitting there shaking their heads (Or at least they would be if the station didn’t go out of business.). Basically, the Celts bankrupted 1510 and now they are poised to line the pockets of WEEI. Seems like a cruel twist of fate for the ghosts of 1510. This has to be an especially tough hot dog to swallow for Eddie Andelman.
North Station – No place needed this trade more than the bars in the North Station area. The place has been a dead zone for the past couple years - except, of course, when we had a Barstool Party there. And it’s too bad, because there are a bunch of good bars in that area. My guess is that a great Celtics team will revitalize this entire neighborhood which is great news for all the bars in this area.
Scalpers – Back when I started Barstool Sports I used to hand out papers outside North Station virtually every week. As a result, I developed a special bond with the scalpers in the area. They were the only group of people more pathetic than me. Any time I felt bad about my life, I just looked at them trying to get people to buy Celtics and Bruins tickets. They might as well have been selling broccoli juice. As a rule, it’s tough to scalp tickets when you can buy them for face value at the ticket office and the building is half empty. But this year will arguably be the greatest year in the history of scalping as the Sox, Pats and Celtics will all be tough tickets.
Danny Ainge – I haven’t decided whether Danny Ainge is brilliant or just flat out got lucky. The answer is probably somewhere in between. But the bottom line is that he kind of lived up to his word about building assets and then using those assets to create a contending team. Of course if Paul Pierce didn’t get hurt last year then the Celtics probably wouldn’t get the #5 pick and none of these trades would ever have happened. Instead, they’d continue to be stuck in mediocrity and Ainge would probably get fired within two years. But luck is certainly part of the deal in pro sports. Regardless, it’s pretty amazing that Danny Ainge has seemingly turned around 5 years of ineptitude in the span of 24 hours.
Sean Grande - I actually think Sean Grande is an excellent announcer. The only problem he had was that nobody listened to Celtics games. Again, that will all change this year as the Celts will not only be on WEEI, but they’ll actually be good again.
Celtics Dancers – I think they already picked the Celtics Dancers for this year. And from what I’ve gathered they aren’t the most impressive crew of girls ever to come down the Pike. These chicks should be thanking their lucky stars that the tryouts are already over and done with. Because something tells me that with all this new hype, hot chicks would have come out of the woodwork to audition for the team. But the ugly ones are already grandfathered in for this year. The Celtics need to pull a Making the Band move and reopen the auditions. But until that happens the ugly Celtics Dancers made out like bandits.
Bill Simmons – Whether you love him or hate him you can’t deny that the NBA and specifically the Celtics are right in his wheelhouse. The only problem is that he hasn’t been able to write about them since he went to ESPN because nobody cared about them. But now that the Celtics are relevant again, this should give him a ton of new material to write about instead of recycling the same old stuff. I’m guessing a Celtics Championship run will bring out the best we’ve seen of Simmons in years.
Losers
Doc Rivers – Sure some may say Doc Rivers was a winner from this deal but I’m not buying it. It’s now put-up or shut-up time for Doc. He can’t make up excuses about lack of talent and injuries anymore. If this team doesn’t win and win now it’s going to be his fault. Suddenly, the pressure is on and I’m not sure he’ll be able to handle it.
Bruins – The Bruins are a fucking joke. They’ll be lucky to draw 10 people to their games next year. And I’m talking 10 people for the entire season. Also, it’s one thing to suck when you have another team that sucks, but now they’re all alone. Unless, of course, you count the Boston Lobsters, which is a tennis team who I heard had a bad year this past season. Bottom-line is that if people have a bad day at work, get dumped, get mugged or if anything else bad happens in this city it’s going to be the Bruins fault. And the thing I love about the Bruins is they apparently have no clue just how far they have fallen. Yesterday we shot a Bruins Ice Girl for the cover of our next issue of Barstool Sports and the B’s wouldn’t let the girl use their logo. You’ve got to love the marking geniuses over there at Bruins headquarters. Why would you ever want a hot girl to give you free advertising to your target demographic? Makes no sense to me.
The Stool – I was getting ready to rip the Celtics for not advertising with us. I always thought it was crazy that they wouldn’t try and reach our readers, since we have the perfect demographic. Now, unfortunately, they probably don’t have to since they’ll be selling out anyway. And they’ll just waste their money with the Improper or something like that. Oh well, I guess it’s still worth it to see the Celts win a championship. We all need to make sacrifices.
Corporate Fake Gift Givers – For the past couple years there has been nothing corporate bigwigs loved doing more than giving employees Celtics tickets and acting like they were Mother Teresa. Getting a pair of Celts tickets from the boss was like getting a pair of socks for Christmas. You had to smile and say thank you but deep down you were insulted. Now corporate bigwigs can’t pull this shit anymore. The only thing left is Bruins tickets and I don’t even think the greatest used car salesman in the world can make believe this is a reward.
The Baseball Guys – By the baseball guys I’m talking about the Dan Shaughnessys, Steve Buckleys, Sean Macadams and Tony Masseratis of the world. The guys who have made a cottage industry out of beating to death anything and everything related to the Red Sox. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the dead of winter, the first day of spring training or Game 7 of the World Series. Their main goal in life is to make sure that there is always some crisis happening with the Red Sox that keeps them on the front page of the Sports section. The fact that the Celts are going to be good not only will take the spotlight off these guys, but it also forces them to fake like they know what they’re talking about in regards to basketball. It’s truly a lose, lose situation for them.
So there you have it. The winners and losers from the Kevin Garnett trade. If you think I forgot any feel free to send them to me at randomthoughts@barstoolsports.com.