Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big storyline. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.
The Boston Celtics will be without Kyrie Irving for the second consecutive game on Friday when they take on the Dallas Mavericks, the team announced on Thursday.
Irving, who suffered two scratched eyes against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday, missed Wednesday’s win over the Minnesota Timberwolves with inflammation in his left eye. Brad Stevens said his right eye — the initial concern — was feeling better the day prior, and Danny Ainge said he expects Irving back soon in a radio appearance on Thursday.
The Celtics might be very short staffed if questionable players are downgraded to out. Robert Williams suffered a left groin strain in Houston and has been out since, but he is listed as questionable, as is Marcus Morris, whose neck was sore after Wednesday’s game. Morris said he felt like he had a crick in his neck, and he expected to be re-evaluated, adding he was “sore as hell.”
A great friend of mine used to work for the post office–graveyard shift, fixing sorting machines. Every now and then he’d tell me that he was having eye problems that day.
“I just don’t see myself going in to work tonight.”
And so it is with Kyrie Irving, the latest snake-bit member of the Celtics’ roster. The team’s holding him out of tonight’s game against Dallas, and he may be joined at that end of the bench by Robert Williams and Marcus Morris. The former has a strained groin, and the latter’s problem makes him sound like an old man (BTW Marcus: those ‘cricks’ in your neck? By the time you hit your late 30s, you won’t even be able to tell where they came from–they’ll just always kind of be there)
Page 2: Where Ainge doesn’t see a lot of possible upgrades, Wyc is still hopeful, and I’ve got a proposal
Will the Celtics make a move before the deadline this season? Danny Ainge on @Toucherandrich: "As far as trading, I don't really see much out there. We have a lot of good ones. It's hard to get better players than we have."
— Nicole Yang (@nicolecyang) January 3, 2019
One of the most amusing things in the league is this weekly appearance by Danny Ainge on 98.5. Ainge is, by this point in time, a master at cranking out ten minutes of patter with Toucher and Rich, that–in the end–leaves you with maybe a funny story or two and absolutely no indication of what he’s thinking about anything.
Ainge is ostensibly there to provide news, and that is the one thing that you never get from him.
However, it seems unlikely that he’s going to do anything earthshaking this season.
This roster–questionable record notwithstanding–is what all of the moving and shaking over the past five years was all about. It’s a deep young team with cornerstone players under–or soon to be under–long-term contracts.
The team unquestionably has the talent to win a championship, and neither the coaching staff nor the front office nor the ownership believe in making hasty decisions.
You can bet that, from the top down, nobody in the organization is happy with the team’s record at the moment. But it does not necessarily follow that the remedy for a lackluster record is a major personnel move.
This is a team that–three months into the season–is still very much trying to figure out who and what it is. As frustrating as it is to let the process play out, there would have to be a pretty compelling case for an upgrade in order to justify making a major move.
Wyc Grousbeck said as much in an interview with the Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach
I just went this morning and with Danny [Ainge] and sort of reviewed the team, A-to-Z, and some of the statistics come out more positively than a casual fan might think. We’re a top-10 offense, top-five defense, and rank top 10 in rebounding as well.
So I’d say overall, when you look at things, there’s no reason to be overly concerned. We need to take another step, but we don’t need to take five more steps.
I feel overall confident and excited we can make some noise over the next 5-6 years with this core group, adding on when we can. But this season still does feel like a work in progress, and it feels like we’ve got a long way to go if we want to make some noise in May again, or even in June.
It has been challenging. I wanted to be at the top of the conference, and we’re fifth, and I guess I’d just say we’re going to try hard to make this year still a special season. I still personally believe that there is upside this season with this group and I like us being stocked with a ton of guys who can play.
However, if I might make a minor suggestion to the Celtics front office–one they can tuck away for later this summer:
A perhaps overlooked aspect of the Celtics’ inconsistency this season is the departure of Walter McCarty. McCarty was a ten-year NBA veteran on a coaching staff that did not–and still does not–include any other NBA veterans.
Granted, you shouldn’t need an ex-NBA player telling you to do what the coach says, but then again, this is a team full of young guys and, speaking from first-hand experience, young guys are generally stupid, and, to make matters worse, are generally unaware of just how stupid they are.
The rest of the links
MassLive: Boston Celtics’ Kyrie Irving leads all guards in All-Star voting after first round of fan returns
Boston Herald: Bulpett: Gordon Hayward needs to be judged on a Celtic scale
NBC Sports: Celtics to remain shorthanded vs. Mavs
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
