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Over the past few years, the Boston Celtics have become the laughing stock of the National Basketball Association, a shadow of its former self, a mockery of all that is good in America.

Plainly speaking, the Celtics, for the past 15 years, have looked like this year's edition of the New York Yankees.

(Quick aside: if you had sentence No. 2 in the "When will Sweeney take a dig at the Yankees in this column?" pool, congrats. You've won. But I digress.)

And now, on the eve of the 2007 NBA Draft, I have to admit something to you, my dear readers who I've greatly missed over these near three months that I've been away.

I'm scared shitless about what Danny Ainge may or may not do tomorrow night. I really am.

OK, so scared shitless may not be the proper terminology to use here. Hopelessly befuddled by his actions in past years is more like it, and in the back of my head, there is this nagging feeling that Ainge will screw up once again.

He did it last year, trading the No. 7 pick - which ended up being Randy Foye - for several bloated contracts and a player who was, at best, a third string point guard in Sebastian Telfair. Obviously, that deal has bombed, the question around Boston the past month has been this: How bad will Ainge fuck up on Thursday?

I've been openly critical of Ainge in this space, and I've also praised him when necessary: his trading deadline pickup of Antoine Walker two years ago comes to mind as being one of praise. But his working of the market, picking up useless players who have not done much to help this team win, has been about as abysmal as any of Will Ferrell's latest movies.

(Quick aside: if you had paragraph No. 7 in the "When will Sweeney take a dig at Will Ferrell in this column" pool, congrats. You've won.)

Let's list Ainge's good moves:

Picking up Antoine Walker at the trade deadline for Tom Gugliotta (yes, he played for the Celtics and was an absolute bust), Gary Payton, Michael Stewart and a late first-round draft pick.

Drafting Delonte West, Al Jefferson and Tony Allen in the first round of the 2005 Draft.

That's it. The rest of Ainge's moves have not really worked out, and yes, that includes trading Walker not once but twice for useless players in exchange, drafting crappy players who don't deserve to wear the White and Green, and signing stupid contracts to players who have already passed their primes.

Now I know what you're going to say. How about Ryan Gomes? Agreed, Gomes was a good pickup at the start of the 2005-06 season, but is he really going to be a star in the NBA? Maybe, maybe not. If he does, then yeah, that move will pan out.

Here is what the Celtics need, and I'm going to use practically every top team in the league today as a model: a top ten draft pick that is a bona fide NBA player (tomorrow's pick, hopefully one of the Florida boys and not the import) that the team can build around, a veteran to take that player under his wing (he's already there in Paul Pierce), a Bill Walton-like presence to be a role player coming off the bench (right now, that's Wally Szczerbiak, and he even has Walton's feet), several young studs that are continuing to develop (Jefferson and Allen) into solid role players, and a solid point guard that can also play defense (not there at the moment). They also need to dump salary (bye, Kendrick Perkins, Theo Ratliff, Telfair, Szczerbiak) and take the inevitable cap hit that comes with it, but that salary will be used next off-season to sign a solid veteran to come in and be the player that Pierce needs to win that coveted NBA Championship.

And yes, you read that correctly. I'm already writing off the Celtics this year, the 16th year in a seven-year rebuilding plan. With the money the Celtics will save on dumping those four contracts, coupled with the poor season the team will inevitably have this year, Boston will be able to sign a role player.

The only problem is that owner Wyc Grousbeck can't be his landlord here. He can not be like Jeremy Jacobs. He has to openly spend the money and get players that want to play here.

And in order to do that, the Celtics have to show that they are committed to winning. Over the past few years, the Celtics have not been committed to winning and have tried desperately to find a formula that works. They've failed miserably.

But maybe what they should do is make some changes in the front office. Bring is people who are good evaluators of talent.

Getting rid of Danny Ainge would be a great start, especially if he fucks up tomorrow.

Sean Sweeney is a columnist for SportsFan Magazine and the sports editor of the Southbridge, Mass. Evening News. Check out his web site, www.johnfitchv.com, where his fantasy novels are available.


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