Oh Rajon… you’re so young and naive. You violated one of the cardinal rules of being a pro athlete…. especially in Boston… telling people where you spend your personal time:
I went Christmas shopping with my family. The mall was packed! It’s always funny because whenever I go to the mall, someone will ask me if I play for the Celtics, and I will play around with them for a min and tell them that I don’t…but eventually I tell them that I do, and they don’t believe me, so they always look a little confused because they don’t know what to think. Anyway, I went to the Natick Mall Sunday. That’s the mall I always go to whenever I’m home. They seem to have every store that I like in that mall.
I hope you got paid for that Natick Mall endorsement buddy (oh… excuse me…. the Natick “Collection”. By the way… don’t buy a TV in their parking lot). Why do I get the feeling that adoring Celtics fans wearing #9 jerseys will suddenly be prowling the mall… hoping to catch a glimpse of the Celtics point guard of the future. He’ll probably have to find a new mall because he’ll be sick of me them following him around for hours.
The Herald has a big piece about how great the fans at the Garden have been. I think the crowd has been better… but I don’t think the crowds have been as good as they can be. I still believe that there’s a small fraction of real fans (like you faithful Red’s Army readers) that go there and go nuts… but the majority of fans are too prone to shutting up after the first missed basket.
Remember… we’re doing a call-in show tonight at 10pm. As always, you can visit our show page to listen to the show (or past shows). Or you can just call (718) 508-9841 between 10 and 10:30.
Herald: Perk’s bedtime story | Kings scouting report | Parquet Power | Ray’s a big help to big men | Globe: Unfinished business | Unsettling bedtime story | Sac Bee: Beating Boston would be major upset | AceTickets: C’s bigger draw than Pats
They’ve completely priced out true fans, I like this new team as much as anyone, but its interesting that they’ve gone full-blown Red Sox style corpo-crowd without even winning 20 games. I think the crowds were good for the first two home games, decent for the Lakers game, and pathetic every other game.
The NBA doesn’t care about true fans anymore. Making money is the top priority, which is why NBA executives were so keen on implementing the dress code last year to try to remove the street quality to the NBA and package it up and sell it to more mainstream fans and sponsors and more people around the world. The NBA is a business, and keeping it true to loyal fans is much less important than growing it to a larger audience, and consequently, making money.
I absolutely love that the Cs are so nasty this year and I love that Pierce is happier, but I felt more pride last year when, people like us, we were the bandwagon.
And that NBA Cares bullshit. Who, besides Bruce Bowen, wants to spend an off day reading to kids when you can be rolling with beautiful women and living the life of an NBA superstar?