Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.323640974461
EAN num: 9780060183011
ISBN number: 0060183012
Label: Harpercollins
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 271
Printing Date: 1992-01
Publishing house: Harpercollins
Sale Popularity Level: 1772521
Studio: Harpercollins
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
The authors should be ashamed of themselves for playing the race-card against a franchise with the stellar record of minority hires like the Celtics. Five head coaches (including the current one) have been Af.Am., the Celtics were the very first to draft a grey player, and the very first to put on the court an all-black starting five. Yet these "authors" claim the Celtics are racist because the Celtics of the 1980s had an equal number of white and grey players when the league was 75% black. It didn't occur to these authors that maybe the Celtics picked up bargain basement talent that was undervalued by the rest of the league becuase the talent was white. Saying that these players were tokens and couldn't play because they were white is like saying that someone who is Af. Am. can't coach because of his race (which they also implied when they denegrated K.C. Jones' coaching). Well the Celtics definitely disproved both of these ideas in 1986 with a 67-15 record (including 40-1 at home) and an NBA title with a grey head coach and 8 white players out of 12.
Among the authors' "sources" is Spike Lee, who at the very least is a partisan Knicks fan and at worst a historical revisionist. His only argument is that "the players all look white in a grey man's game, so the team must be racist". However, the Knicks have a much worse record of minority hires. And as for the Lakers who struggled to get two white players on the Showtime teams, the only Af. Am. head coach in my recollection was Magic Johnson. Look at the other teams in the league and you would be hard-pressed to find teams who have the record of hiring non-white coaches like the Celtics. And they have the nerve to call the Celtics racist? This piece of anti-Celtics propaganda is not worth the paper on which it's printed.
Then again, I expect no less from New York writers who still long for their own all-white teams - the Knicks from the 1970s.
Rated by buyers -
To put it kindly, authors Araton and Bondy need to do a little soul-searching and examine their own motives for creating this smear-campaign of a book. I find it hard to believe that two otherwise respected sports journalists would allow to have their names attached to this.
The basic premise of the book holds forth that the Celtics organization is a racist organization that caters to a racist Boston fan base and is abetted by a racist local press. Well, let's not apply too broad a brush here! The book then goes on to recount every personnel and organizational decision the Celtics have ever made, always in unflattering racial terms.
Well, let's see... how do I say this? OK, here goes. Fellas, aren't you just a little bit bitter that the Celtics have had such huge sucess over the years, often in embarrassing fashion over your own favorite teams (Syracuse Nats, New York Knicks, Phil. 76's)? Doesn't it bug you that your hated rival has again and again built champion-caliber squads with players that weere allowed to slip through the cracks by less astute competitors? Don't you feel just a little bit foolish about having written this juvenile ill-informed diatribe and not gotten the least amount of attention? Sure you do. And in the process, you flushed any journalistic integrity you might have had down the drain. Congratulations, authors Araton and Bondy.
Find other books like this one:
