Recycled Columns

Shank's written variations of this column at least three times now...

Picking Paul Pierce first in an all-time Celtics draft is an easy second-guess

It was a great idea in the middle of our gameless, COVID-19 spring/summer. Globe Celtics beat guy Adam Himmelsbach suggested we produce an all-time Celtics draft. Choosing from 75 years of a franchise that produced 17 championships and more than two dozen Hall of Famers, five Globe scribes had a chance to assemble their own teams. Himmelsbach, NBA columnist Gary Washburn, self-described Celtics honk Chad Finn, de facto NBA commissioner Bob Ryan, and yours truly had a chance to build our own teams in a Zoom draft.

We Zoom-gathered on the evening of Monday, June 29. We’d had a week to study the rules and prepare our depth charts. But we did not yet know the draft order.

After our official Globe Draft Ping-Pong balls fell into place, our commissioner, deputy sports editor Scott Thurston, informed us that Wash would be picking first. Then me. Then Chad. Followed by Himmel and Ryan. It was a snake draft, so Ryan would get picks 5 and 6.

Swell.

Knowing I was going to pick second made it easy. Wash would of course select Bill Russell or Larry Bird, and then I would start my team with the one he didn’t take. I was hoping he’d go for Bird. Russell was clearly king of the hill, cream of the crop, top of the heap, and A-number one.

And then it happened. With the first pick in the Globe’s 2020 all-time Celtic draft, Gary Washburn selected . . . Paul Pierce.

You know the rest, don't you?

The Biennial Paul Pierce Question

Shank writes a column about Paul Pierce's rightful place amongst the all-time Celtic greats:

Red Auerbach didn’t live to see Paul Pierce win an NBA championship with the Celtics, but Red knew what kind of a player he had a few years after the Celtics selected Pierce out of Kansas in 1998.

“He would absolutely fit in with the Celtic teams I coached,’’ an 84-year-old Red told me in 2004. “He’s the whole package, offensively and defensively. He’s respectful, and he doesn’t bitch. Old-fashioned. I really like him.’’

Red died a couple of years later, two years too soon to see Pierce named MVP of the NBA Finals when the Celtics destroyed the Lakers, 131-92, in the sixth and deciding game of the championship series.

If you get the feeling that you've read this column before, it's because you have read this column before!

Asking The Tough Questions

Shank's latest column features one of his staple of lazy column themes:

Is Paul Pierce one of the top five Celtics of all time?

Your all-time top five Celtics?

In my book, the first four are easy: Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Bob Cousy, and John Havlicek.

Then it gets tricky. Do you go with Kevin McHale or . . . Paul Pierce?

I have gone down this path before,

So Shank's recycling yet another column? Why, yes he is!

Is it time to put Paul Pierce in the starting five for the all-time Celtics team?

I’m starting to think so. And my man, Bob Cousy, sounds almost ready to elevate Pierce to the Hub’s Fab Five.

“I certainly think he’s a viable candidate now for that position,’’ the 83-year-old Cooz said Wednesday before leaving his house for a round of 18.

Many of you perhaps already have Paul in your Parquet Pantheon. Not me. I’m a holdout. But Pierce’s one-man demolition of the Hawks Tuesday night reminds me that I’m one of the many who have never appreciated Pierce’s true greatness. We all know that Pierce has never gotten his due from the national media - not even when he was MVP of the NBA Finals in a series (2008) that included Kobe Bryant.

Look up the Celtics’ career stat leaders, and it is clear Pierce belongs. He ranks third in games, third in minutes, second in points, and second in points per game.

Absolutely pathetic. Not only does Shank rewrite another of his columns, he went from maybe to maybe on that Paul Pierce question in that time span.

Formulaic, lazy and indecisive - that's Shank's latest 'effort'. His body might not be in winter hibernation but his brain sure is.

He Passes on Writing Worthwhile Rondo Column

The CHB's attempt at characterizing Rajon Rondo, who returned to the Boston Garden for the first time since his December trade, is as off the mark as one of his subject's free throws.

Here's the lede: "After all this time, after all these years, we still know almost nothing about Rajon Rondo."

Well, no.

We actually know quite a bit. As The CHB's far superior colleague Gary Washburn writes in a far superior column today, "Rondo ... adores glitches, shakeups, tremors." Clearly, Rondo wasn't excited about playing with the second team, and it showed in the box score.

Comparing Rondo to Paul Pierce, a completely different type of player, Shank writes, "Pierce was different. Pierce fulfilled his potential on the court. When Pierce was traded, we knew we had seen his best. With Rondo, we are not so sure."

Again, no. Rondo's a four-time NBA All-Star who has led the league twice in assists and one in steals. He was occasionally capable of putting the team on his back, but frankly, just because a guy scores 44 points in one game does not mean he's a 44-points-a-game scorer. And if it does, then Eric (Sleepy) Floyd is a Hall of Famer.

Then there's a contrived segue to the trade of now Celtics GM Danny Ainge about a million years ago. In his first game back, Ainge apparently was thrown by the presence of Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach at courtside. To borrow the cliche, Red Auerbach hasn't walked through that door in years, and (much as I like him) Brad Stevens is no Red Auerbach.

Like one of Rondo's errant no-look passes, this column is a total throwaway.