Who’s responsible for my Celtics misery?
A listless first half-performance dug the Celtics too deep a deficit to overcome as they fell 117–110 to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night.
After an 8–3 start to the season, the Celtics are 12–17 since January 15. They sit at .500, sandwiched between notable NBA powerhouses like the Charlotte Hornets and New York Knicks. They struggle to keep pace with elite teams, routinely sleep walk into losses against poor ones and have an inability to win on back-to-backs with Kemba Walker out of the lineup.
After making the Eastern Conference Finals six months ago, the Celtics seem to be destined for the NBA’s inaugural play-in round and an eventual first-round matchup with one of the conferences’ elite teams.
It’s been a slow motion car crash kind of season for a franchise with lofty expectations. And I can’t look away.
In a time where happiness and fulfillment are at a premium, I find myself tuning into Celtics basketball multiple nights a week. It’s had a detrimental impact on my mental health and I would like to hold those who are to blame accountable. So let’s do so. Let’s slice this blame-pie up and figure out who’s most responsible for why I put myself through this waking hell.
My Parents- 50 percent blame
The logical starting point is the reason why I’m here in the first place. These two lovebirds met their freshman year of High School, built a relationship based on love and respect for one another and are still going strong three and a half decades later.
Truly abhorrent behavior.
If these two didn’t decide to further their genetic lines, the gangly depression-ridden man typing this doesn’t spend three nights a week watching Jeff Teague dribble into two defenders with his head down.
And that’s not even touching my dad’s burning desire to turn me onto basketball at a young age. My father really put me onto his lap, pointed at the tiny players running across the screen and said “Look at that son, doesn’t that look fun?” as if he didn’t know it would one day lead to me anticipating Romeo Langford to save the season.
My Nana- 20 percent blame
My parents couldn’t have come from more different backgrounds. My father was brought up believing rules were more suggestion than law and school was something that could be entertained as an option when it was too cold to go to the beach. Meanwhile, my mother was raised in a house just a few rulers shy of a nunnery. The abbess of the operation was my Nana, Hazel.
A god-fearing woman who wouldnt let my mother or her four siblings read satanic works such as “1984” or “Catcher in the Rye”, she disapproved of her daughter galavanting (and showing ankle) around town with a long-haired hippie but was unable to put a stop to their escapades.
Come on, Nana. You thought Woodstock was the first sign of the antichrist’s return. Put your foot down! You knew he was corrupting your daughter just like that no-good rabble rouser Springsteen.
You wanted to put a stop to this. You could’ve put a stop to this. So why didn’t you?
Samuel Slater — 10 percent blame
The Lambert family has its’ roots up north. My father’s side of the family are descendants of the French Canadian immigrants that flooded into New England at the turn of the 20th Century seeking employment in the region’s booming textile industry.
The foundation for those factories aren’t laid if not for Samuel Slater, a former cotton spinner’s apprentice who brought the secrets of the trade across the Atlantic. It required significant effort to do so. England forbade textile workers from sharing technological information. Slater’s Rhode Island yarn factory was the first major textile factory on American soil. It paved the way for a legacy of child labor violations, health code infringements and a hooligan named Keith Lambert roaming the mean streets of Hingham.
Stretch from NBA Street Vol 2- 20 percent blame
NBA Street Vol 2 was the first sports video game I ever owned. My father impressed an interest in basketball on me at a young age but I don’t think it took hold until I saw Stretch throw a basketball off Allen Iverson’s forehead, do a cartwheel and then perform a 720 degree dunk.
This game, and Stretch’s enormous afro, were what convinced me that watching basketball with the old man could be a fun bonding experience. Little did I know that, aside from one year, it would lead to being bounced in the playoff by LeBron James every season. If we’re lucky to get that far.
And the ball doesn’t even sparkle after hitting three shots in a row.
Raw deal, if you ask me.
And that’s it I think. Nope. Can’t think of anyone else.
