Celts Acquire Lee, Sox a Circus, Coen Back at Brown
Friday, July 20, 2012
Here's three mini columns for the price of one:
DEALING DANNY:
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWhile many NBA general managers are kicking back and enjoying their summer, Danny Ainge continues to wheel and deal in an effort to improve the Boston Celtics.
Thursday, Ainge acquired shooting guard Courtney Lee from the Houston Rockets in exchange for forward JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore and Sean Williams along with a second round draft pick in 2013.
Lee is 26 years old and will replace Ray Allen who left the Celtics for Miami. He averaged 11.4 points per game for the Rockets last year shooting 39% from 3-point range. He, along with Jason Terry will see the bulk of the minutes at the off guard position.
Lee joins Terry, Kevin Garnett, Jeff Green and Chris Wilcox as offseason signees that should add depth to a team that made it all the way to game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals last season.
CIRCUS ACT AT FENWAY:
If John Henry, Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner were smart, they would put a tent over Fenway Park because it sure has become a circus up there.
The latest developments out of Boston have various reports saying that the team is shopping around outfielder Carl Crawford, a claim the team denies.
Red Sox management claim that other teams have called to inquire about Crawford but they have not initiated any calls seeking to trade him.
Crawford is in the second year of his 7-year, $142 million contract with the team. He woefully underperformed in year one before spending the first half of this season on the disabled list with both elbow and wrist injuries.
In his 3 games since returning from the DL, Crawford is hitting .500 (5-10), has stolen 3 bases and scored 6 runs. In short, he has made the type of impact the team thought that he was capable of when they signed him to that lucrative deal.
Now, it appears that they would love nothing more than to move him to another team that might be willing to take him and a significant portion of that contract. But there are two problems with that approach.
First, this team has its share of players with bad attitudes on it of which Crawford does not appear to be one. He worked extremely hard in the offseason to try to prevent another disappointing season from taking place this year and has also worked feverishly to return from injury this year. If others on the team had his work ethic and attitude, the Red Sox would probably be a lot better than a team hanging around the .500 mark as they have been all season. Even worse, they are supposedly talking to the Miami Marlins about Hanley Ramirez who has had major attitude problems in recent years. Adding another problem child to that clubhouse in Boston doesn't seem like a wise idea.
Secondly, Jacoby Ellsbury can become a free agent following the 2013 season and there is every indication that he does want to hit the free agent waters. In fact, many believe that last year’s runner-up for AL MVP would like nothing more than to leave Boston via free agency in another year and a half.
If that were to happen, wouldn’t you think that the Red Sox would like a player like Crawford at or near the top of their line-up to both get on base and be a disruptive influence once he reaches base? And wouldn’t they want a player with his speed that can cover a lot of ground to be patrolling center field at Fenway Park if Ellsbury were to go? Seems logical, right?
But you wonder what the mindset of this organization is given some of the moves and non-moves that they have made over the past year?
WELCOME BACK, LIAM!
It’s great to see former LaSalle star quarterback Liam Coen back at Brown University coaching quarterbacks for the Bears.
The former UMass star coached at Brown two years ago as a restricted earnings coach before being offered a full-time job as quarterbacks coach at the University of Rhode Island last season. While Coen enjoyed his time at URI, he also made it very clear how much he missed working for Brown head coach Phil Estes.
Estes has been the head coach at Brown since 1998 and has led the program to unprecedented success in his tenure winning three of the school’s four Ivy League championships during that time. A big part of his success has a lot to do with the fact that he has had tremendous continuity on his coaching staff over the years with very few assistants leaving College Hill for other programs.
While many other college football programs may pay their assistant coaches more than the salaries earned at Brown, none can offer a boss like Estes who is universally liked and respected by all of his coaches and players as well as the entire athletic administration at Brown.
Coen missed working for Estes which is why, when the opportunity presented itself to return, he jumped at it.
Welcome back, Liam!