We appear to be on the cusp of more Celtics drama. Following their embarrassing loss Monday to the undermanned Timberwolves, whose players didn't even know each other's names, Al Horford said he and his teammates have to look at themselves "individually and as a team." Given the Celtics' losing record, the veteran seems to be stating the obvious.
The Celtics are broken, and the responsible parties need to undergo some serious self-evaluation.
But Jaylen Brown apparently doesn't have an interest in that. When asked about Horford's words, Brown brushed them off. "Searching and looking in the mirror? Nah. No comment," he said.
The Celtics are on the way to their second straight enraging campaign. Despite featuring two young All-Stars, Jayson Tatum and Brown, they can't emerge as legitimate contenders. If the season ended today, they would once again find themselves in the play-in game.
Some of their problems stem from talent deficiencies. The Celtics aren't a deep team, and their front court remains a weak point. On Monday, somebody named Jaylen Nowell dominated Robert Williams III inside.
But a team with two top-20 players just entering the primes of their careers should be better than 16-18. The Celtics tinkered around all the edges last offseason, bringing in a new coach and array of veteran role players. Yet, they're in the same place. And we'll probably never find out what's actually going on.
As we rightfully begin to loosen stringent Covid-19 guidelines — the CDC recently shortened its recommended quarantine period from 10 days to five — pro sports leagues are still putting up their respective walls. Press conferences are back, but there's a dearth of access. Reporters aren't allowed in the locker rooms or around the players while they're getting ready for game time. Traveling rules are tightened.
Earlier this year, Dan Shaughnessy told me he thinks the restrictions will be indefinite. "The access is never coming back," he said. "It's the Pentagon, it's the White House press room. Everything is kept in-house, exactly the way teams want it. They'll be able to use 'abundance of caution' to stiff-arm us forever now."
Armed with social media accounts and in-house PR organs, leagues and players no longer feel like they need independent reporters to get their messages out. They don't want scrubby beat writers snooping around their locker rooms, and frankly, fans don't care either. Sports fans were screaming about fake news long before Donald Trump descended down those escalators.
But the lack of access dampens fans' understandings of their favorite teams. The Celtics are a perfect example. With reporters now kept away, there are scant opportunities for journalists to develop actual relationships with players, and thus, get close enough with them to find out secrets. Increased access doesn't always correlate to more information (just look at the Red Sox' chicken and beer saga), but there's a better chance we would know about the internal problems that plague this Celtics team if scribes were permitted to leave their press chairs.
Look no further than the 2020 NBA Bubble. The Boston Globe's Gary Washburn was in Orlando, and what would you know, he overheard a shouting match explode in the Celtics' locker room following their Game 2 loss in the Eastern Conference Finals. We later found out Brown and Marcus Smart were the ones going back and forth.
But if Washburn wasn't there, the verbal altercation probably would've remained secret.
Earlier this year, Smart publicly criticized Tatum and Brown for not distributing the ball, and then the Celtics held an unproductive players-only meeting, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski. But we don't know the actual story, outside of broad strokes. We also don't know how Tatum, Brown and Smart interact with each other. It's been almost two years since anybody not affiliated with the Celtics has been allowed inside their locker room.
Without first-hand accounts, we're left with one-sided scoops from Insiders and gossip from anonymous coaches and execs. There is an information vacuum.
Our knowledge about the woebegone Celtics matches their on-court chemistry. It doesn't exist.
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Madden the innovator: Like most millennials, my strongest memories of John Madden come from playing his iconic video game. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't know just how innovative he was in the booth.
As I learned in the New York Times' obituary, Madden was the first analyst who watched game film and interviewed players and coaches before hitting the air. As a result, he was able to supply viewers with first-hand knowledge about what they were seeing, instead of offering empty bloviation.
Oh yeah, and his personalty was electric. Madden was also the first NFL analyst to make the game accessible to laymen. He is the most iconic sports broadcaster of all-time. They'll never be anybody like him again.
Madden's passing invites worst takes in Twitter history: When Madden passed Tuesday, scores of people took to social to share their favorite memories of the all-time great coach and broadcaster. But one Twitter user with more than 258,000 followers, "@emptywheel," decided to dampen the mood with some ridiculous performative wokeness.
"Everyone eulogizing Madden: How many concussions could we have prevented had he not turned brain injuries into a video game?," she wrote.
I'm getting a concussion trying to understand her point.
That's the definition of trying too hard. In the world of online wokeness, everything is about everything. Madden spearheaded the most popular sports video game franchise ever, and as a result, NFL doctors obfuscated the truth about head trauma? Does this person think the popularity of Madden kept the NFL afloat?
Dr. Andrew McGregor, supposedly a real person, also offered this take, saying Madden dehumanized Black bodies and glorified brain trauma. He must be a blast to have at parties.
I have lots of opinions on John Madden. The creation of the Madden video game was not a great development for the U.S. It further glamorized violence and dehumanized Black athletes, helping to establish plantation cosplay that has grown worse in the era of fantasy football.
— Dr. Andrew McGregor (@admcgregor85) December 29, 2021
Of course, there's no actual reasoning attached to either tweet. Wokeness is all about the show.
Laugh a little: Earlier this week, members of the Patriots media establishment ganged up on a poor reporter who asked Bill Belichick about his New Year's Resolutions following the Patriots' disastrous loss to the Bills. Apparently, they've never had an editor assign them a silly story.
The same woman who posed the resolutions inquiry to Belichick asked Damien Harris the same question. Either she takes New Year's Resolutions more seriously than anybody on this planet, or you know, was trying to do her job.
That's something Belichick can probably appreciate. Everybody in that press room should laugh a little more, including the coach himself. How's that for a New Year's Resolution?
