Inadvertent inspiration?

By Vincent Musco Sports Central Columnist

Become Paul Pierce for one moment.

Two years ago, you came within a whisker of beating the New Jersey Nets and getting into your first NBA Finals. Last year, you made the playoffs again. Your coach, Jim O'Brien, is one of your favorite people. You have a team around you with talent (Antoine Walker) and heart (Eric Williams, Walter McCarty, Tony Battie). You cannot wait for the new season.

Then, Danny Ainge enters your life. He trades Walker, though he said he would not, and sharpshooter Tony Delk and gets damaged goods in return (Raef Lafrentz). Also gone are Williams and Kedrick Brown.

Your beloved coach, fed up with the front office mentality, resigns. You, Paul Pierce, now start every night along such players as Chucky Atkins, Mark Blount, and Brandon Hunter. You see more double-coverage than Randy Moss.

Painful, no? Then comes this blurb from Ainge himself:

"For the long-term part of this, it's obviously better for us to get a higher draft pick. That's just the truth. I understand that it's good for your players to get playoff experience. But I'd rather take a hit on that if it means getting us better players so we can get to the postseason and then make a serious run."

Paul Pierce was once knifed in the face outside a nightclub. Ainge's stab, however, is much more excruciating, since it came from the back.

Ainge's comments, however they were intended, will not serve his stated purpose of missing the playoffs at all. In fact, Ainge may have just lit a fire under his team.

Boston resides on the playoff bubble, battling with several other sub-.500 Eastern Conference foes all scrapping for the final playoff spot. On paper, the Celtics are not favored to beat out the likes of LeBron James' Cavaliers, the surprisingly competent Miami Heat, or even Vince Carter's Raptors In fact, Boston has been playing for a coach, John Carroll, who already knows he will not be offered the permanent head coaching position by Ainge.

But now, thanks to the climax of Ainge's feelings about the Celtics' players and playoff hopes, the Celtics have a real reason to gel as a team: a common enemy.

Consider Ricky Davis' recent comments regarding Ainge's words:

"It's against everything that I believe, to go into a competitive situation and say, 'I'm okay with losing.' I just can't wrap my arms around that idea. I still think each game you have to try and win it, no matter what. And wherever you wind up, that's where you wind up.

But to me, if you compromise that, it almost speaks to me to have some moral implications, too. What are you standing for when you say, 'I'm okay with losing?' What are you saying to your team, to the people you represent and to your city? I know some people think you just try and take advantage of the rules that benefit you. But I just don't think they were set up to promote losing."

Any of Davis' former coaches (he's had five in the last 18 months) would have done anything to inspire such team-first, playing-for-pride rhetoric. After all, Davis is known as one of the most selfish players in the NBA. Last year, one rebound shy of a triple-double, he shot the ball at his own basket, missing on purpose, and grabbed the rebound. Coaches have tried in vain to turn Ricky around, always to no avail.

But Ainge did it with a 30-second sound byte.

So if Ainge's comments can inspire "me-first" Ricky Davis, imagine what they will do to, say, Paul Pierce?

Pierce, after all, is the guy who, while making shots during practice, would yell out the names of the teams who passed on drafting him (nine in all, the Celtics nabbed him with the 10th pick). Pierce has been Boston's emotional leader during their playoff runs, and is known as one of the game's most ferocious competitors. Think all this will sit well with him?

The Celtics have won five in a row. Mark Blount is getting double-doubles every night. Davis, though not starting, is contributing off the bench. And Pierce is, well, Pierce.

And maybe, when the regular season comes to a close, Pierce, Carroll, and the rest of the Celtics team and coaching staff will have a rebuttal response to Ainge's hope of missing the playoffs:

Sorry, Danny, but thanks for the inspiration.

Article courtesy of Sports Central.