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Thursday, December 02, 2004
The Benching Incident

I'll preface this by saying that I don't have the time to really get all my thoughts down on this right now, but this will suffice for now - and give you a separate topic to comment on.

I don't need to explain what happened, you can read all about it all over the net and in the newspapers (as well as hagrid's game recap - which covered the entire game perfectly). What matters most is what will happen now.

This is a watershed moment in Paul Pierce's Boston Celtic career. As I mentioned already, he can go one of several different directions now.

1. he can sulk (like Nomar)
2. he can demand to be traded (like Vince)
3. he can lobby to get the coach fired (like Kidd)
4. he can truely be a unique individual and learn from this with humility

I refuse to pass judgement on him yet, because short of the spitting incident, I have not seen evidence to make me think that he could chose options 1, 2, or 3. He's admitted in the offseason that he considered demanding to be traded, but he didn't. He certainly misses old teammates and coaches, but even moreso, he misses being in "big games." He's tired of losing.

We are all glad that Danny and Doc are on the same page. What matters now is getting Doc and his star player on the same page. Clearly they aren't there yet. The benching was a chess move on Doc's part. He knew it would matter to Paul and he knew that Paul would get upset. I wouldn't even be surprised if he OK'd it with Danny first.

I'm one of his biggest supporters, but even I am waiting on him to act on this one. The first thing he has done right so far is not to talk to the media without thinking through (and talking with peers like Gary) exactly what he thinks of all this.

Doc made his move. It's Paul's move now.

# posted by Jeff @ 12/02/2004 11:58:00 AM

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