Entry 9:

G'morning Chas,

Like you, I'm watching these playoffs in New England, in Vermont (where I've just moved), at the Middlebury College student union (because my dish hasn't been hooked up yet). When I showed up for Game 1 of the Celts-Nets series, I was astonished to find the big screen commandeered by hockey fans deep into the Stanley Cup finals. Maybe all those prescription drug runs to Quebec have people up here reoriented north and no longer toward a city long known, for good reason, as the Hub. Maybe interest in the NBA has simply slacked off everywhere. But during the Bird era that canteen would have been packed. I can only hope that this has nothing to do with matters of pigmentation. And I will say that the half-dozen watching last night howled delightedly at every Antoine Walker flourish, celebratory ones included. Whenever I hear people invoke "Celtic Pride," I want to jump in and remind them that pride is one of the Seven Deadlies.

I know that Rick Pitino got run out of town and that he's breathtakingly self-absorbed. But I think a little Ricky P. revisionism is in order. Yes, NBA players won't produce for coaches who insist that everything revolves around their stinkin' Armani vine (pace John Calipari and, yes, even Pat Riley). But, on the whole, history will be kind to the Youthful Genius. At Providence back in the late '80s, Pitino was the first coach to figure out the potential of the three, marrying it to that full-court press he and his staff called the mother-in-law defense ("constant pressure and harrassment"). Every time Walker, Tony Delk, or Walter McCarty does something good for the Celts, let's remember that Pitino at least didn't keep them from winning an NCAA title as Kentucky Wildcats. And the man did blow into the game's two white-is-right institutions—Kentucky and the C's—and assembled essentially non-Caucasian teams. That's where Pitino's outsized ego helped: Only someone with consummate self-confidence, who cares not a whit what anyone else thinks, could swan into places like Lexington and Causeway Street and so thoroughly change the culture.

Remember Jeremy Weissman, Princeton '02, from your February visit to my Old Nassau writing class? He thinks that you're (quoting here) "too hard on history's other Pierces, notably Ricky. Of course, if you ignore spelling, you can call on fellow Boston eminence Charles Sanders Peirce, whose polymathy and pragmatism hovered over Paul Pierce's graceful response last night to Kenny Smith's invitation to 'Explain why you're a Top 5 player.' "

Aristotle. Confucius. And Pierce. Will someone please cue up Monty Python's Philospher's Song?

Peace out,
Alex