End of an Era: Boston Embraces Rebuilding Phase

They're all gone. There is not a single player left on the Boston Celtics roster that was with the team for their championship run in 2008. The last man standing was Rajon Rondo, the multifaceted point guard who rewrote the record books in Boston throughout his eight year stint with the Celtics. As of last night, Rondo is now a member of the Dallas Mavericks, an organization who has enjoyed their own title run in recent years. Rondo will join future Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki for what is now one of the best starting lineups in the league. The hype in Dallas is real and the Mavs look to prove that they can now be championship contenders, yet the city that Rondo left behind is now forced to accept the fact that it will be a while before the Celtics are ready to compete for a championship much less an Eastern Conference title.

Rondo leaves Boston as one of its greatest point guards

Boston is currently on the outside looking in as far as the Eastern Conference standings are concerned. With a 9-14 record, they sit in tenth place in the conference behind the Brooklyn Nets. However, the Celtics now have to embrace life without their only All-Star, their only player with any championship experience as a Celtic. With Rondo's departure comes the arrival of Branden Wright, Jameer Nelson, Jae Crowder, and two draft picks. Aside from Nelson and Gerald Wallace, the Celtics don't have anyone that is over the age of 30, and eight of their players are below the age of 25. While they do have guys like Wallace and Jeff Green who are veterans in the league and have careers of some longevity to their name, it's no secret that the Celtics' roster is young and still developing.

While the trade will certainly take away the Celtics' most skilled player, it also takes away the face of that organization. Don't get me wrong, Rondo was no Larry Bird or Paul Pierce in terms of leadership. He had his fair share of moments in which his attitude was questioned and many wondered if he could truly gel with Brad Stevens when he came to Boston. Yet, at the end of the day, Rondo was "the guy". He was the one with a ring. He was the one that will go down as one of the best point guards to ever put on that green uniform. You can't immediately replace a presence like that which now leaves the Celtics in search of a new face, a new leader.

With #9 gone, Jeff Green will need to lead

They have guys like Jeff Green, Brandon Bass, and Gerald Wallace who are the team's veterans, but whose team is it now? There was never any doubt that the Celtics followed the lead of great players like Bill Russell, Larry Bird, and Paul Pierce. Sure those Hall of Famers all had tremendous teammates and they played alongside countless fellow Hall of Famers, but there was never any doubt that the team belonged to those three aforementioned stars. While Rondo is not on that same level of greatness, he was the leader of this current Celtics team. It was his leadership role to lose, no matter how often his legacy would be questioned. Yet he's no longer there to lead, there are no All-Stars left.

By no means are the Celtics now in shambles. They're not a last-place team nor is the season lost. They can still be a playoff team especially in the lowly Eastern Conference. And while the Celtics will certainly miss Rondo, Danny Ainge's decision to trade him is one that will benefit the organization in the long run. They have good pieces and, in time, they will have the potential to compete. But for now, Celtics fans will have to be patient. The makeover of the NBA's greatest ball club has begun, yet that doesn't mean Boston should be forgotten. They're a first-class organization with a championship pedigree; they'll be back.

Johnny Victim: Manziel's Performance Drawing Far Too Much Criticism

By now the less-than-impressive performance that Johnny Manziel put on this past Sunday is playing second fiddle to the Chicago Bears' decision to bench Jay Cutler against Detroit this week. Yet amidst the news of Jimmy Clausen getting the start for the Bears this Sunday there has still been plenty of talk about Manziel's future both in the coming week and the seasons ahead. Sure the Browns took a ruthless beating from the Cincinnati Bengals, but is it really worth all of the emotion and analysis?

Hoyer's performance quickly fell off after week 10

Going back to Manziel's days at Texas A&M, I found it hard to be a fan of him. I loved his game, but his antics off the field really dissuaded me from supporting him. He was exciting to watch and gave the college football world a very special and unique talent, but the constant media attention to every little thing he did while at A&M got annoying real quick.

When he was finally drafted late in the first round this past April, the quarterback competition began immediately in Cleveland. It was believed by some that Manziel would be named the starter to begin the season yet Mike Pettine chose to go with Brian Hoyer as the first-string quarterback. Though Manziel still managed to find his way into headlines throughout the first half of the season, he had begun to fade into the background as Hoyer had the Browns in playoff position. Through the first nine games, Hoyer led Cleveland to a 6-3 record while completing ten touchdown passes in comparison to just four interceptions.

However, it was in week 11 when Hoyer's season started unraveling. After the 6-3 start, the Browns dropped three of their next four behind very poor performances from their starting quarterback. In those four games, Hoyer threw for only one touchdown while tossing eight interceptions. With the Browns playoff hopes dwindling, Pettine decided to go with Johnny Manziel in week 15, which brings us now to this past week of embarrassing commotion.

Most everybody knows how Johnny Football's debut went. No touchdowns, two interceptions, 10-18 passing, and 13 yards rushing on 5 attempts. Not exactly your Hall of Fame statistics by any means. However, the debut of Johnny Manziel was so hyped, so over-analyzed, and so highly-anticipated that the only way Manziel could have lived up to it all was to have a Manning or Brady-like performance. Instead, the AFC North-leading Cincinnati Bengals chewed Manziel up and spit him out. They taunted him. They crushed him. They flat-out embarrassed him. Yet I find it incredibly unfair and wrong that the news networks, specifically ESPN, have gone to the extent of questioning whether or not Johnny Manziel belongs in the league.

The Bengals smothered Manziel this past Sunday

You'll be very hard pressed to win games if your quarterback doesn't perform well. That's the nature of the sport. But at the end of the day it was Manziel's first career start. You don't think that playing a playoff team in front of your home crowd with the playoffs on the line would cause a hint of nerves? It was obvious Manziel wasn't used to the speed of the NFL game. Passing windows close up much quicker, your decision-making has to be quicker, etc. It's not a situation most quarterbacks can just walk into and immediately succeed in, especially a game as pivotal as this one. Why are "analysts" now questioning whether or not Manziel has what it takes to play in the NFL?

It was almost comical to watch some of the guys on ESPN talk about Manziel's performance. Merril Hoge had the quote of the week when he said that Johnny Manziel "has first-round hype with sixth round talent." You're going to say that after ONE GAME? Take a look at the quarterbacks in the past who had poor debuts: Joe Montana was 5-12 passing for 53 yards and no touchdowns, John Elway was 1-8 passing for 14 yards and an interception, and Peyton Manning threw one touchdown, three interceptions, and was sacked four times. In no way is Johnny Manziel comparable to these three Hall of Famers, but if you want to base a young player's forthcoming career off of his professional debut then you don't belong in the business. That quote from Hoge had more immature emotion in it than a 13 year old girl that didn't get asked to a junior high dance. Give me a break. There's no reason to be that extreme.

I'm still not Manziel's biggest fan. However, I can't help but feel bad for the guy for all the skepticism he's currently experiencing. Did he bring some of the expectations on himself? Absolutely. He's got a bit of an ego and at the end of the day he's a Heisman Trophy winner. His personality alone has brought on these sky-high expectations but to expect him to live up to them in his first game? That's the society we live in; there's no patience whatsoever and there is constant criticism whether it's warranted or not. It's not a mistake that Johnny Manziel is in this position. He's going to adjust to the NFL game and he's got the talent to excel professionally. It takes time. Everybody needs to stop freaking out and allow Manziel's career to unfold. He'll have another chance to prove himself this Sunday against Carolina.

Rose's Toughness Called Into Question

Derrick Rose is an individual that receives a lot of recognition on this blog as well as from the worldwide media. He is perhaps under one of the bigger spotlights in all of sports due to his continued recovery from two major knee surgeries. Fans questioned his toughness multiple times after he chose to sit out the entire season two years ago, and now here we sit, twelve games into the season, and Derrick Rose has missed seven of those games.

Rose has missed 7 of 12 games this season

There are multiple reasons for Rose's absence, the latest being a minor hamstring injury he suffered late in the Bulls' win over Toronto last week. While also receiving treatment for two sprained ankles, it's safe to say Rose has been battered and bruised in the first month of the season. Clearly he's not 100 percent and he's got his injuries that he's dealing with, but the worst part about all of this is that it seems the injuries are becoming a bigger deal than they should be. Derrick Rose needs to get back on the floor.


Obviously, there are two sides of the spectrum here. There are those Chicago fans that believe Rose should take his time and wait till he's fully recovered, and there are those that believe it's time to take the toughness up a few levels and play as soon as possible. While it's not exactly hard to realize the Bulls' organization is being cautious because they're paying Rose nearly 19 million dollars this year, it's also hard to accept the fact that they're comfortable paying him that much to sit in a suit and tie for more than half the games played thus far. Clearly if a player is injured then he should sit, regardless of who it is. Yet Derrick Rose is waiting till he's back to 100% with each setback he experiences. That's where the problem lies.

This is the NBA. You'd be hard pressed to find any player that plays a meaningful amount of minutes that's at 100 percent each night. This is the best basketball league in the world, you're going to have bumps, bruises, tweaks, etc. It's to be expected. This is the issue with Derrick Rose's absence. He has chosen to sit for three straight games now after he himself described the injury as minor. Is it so bad that he couldn't have given twenty minutes against Sacramento last night? There was no MRI needed, this is not a muscle tear, it's a minor injury that's causing Rose's mental, as well as physical, toughness to be questioned. And rightfully so.

Rose's health has never been the same since his first major injury

This is Chicago. This is where sports icons like Michael Jordan, Walter Payton, and Carlton Fisk have played and have emulated Chicago toughness to a tee. You battle through injuries, and you do what it takes to win. If that means giving what you can give despite a little discomfort then so be it. How can Rose sit in the same locker room with guys like Joakim Noah who played the entire playoff stretch two years ago with plantar fasciitis, an injury that ultimately ended the career of Yao Ming? How can Rose be okay with missing numerous games when Jimmy Butler has played through a sprained thumb and is now battling a shoulder injury night in and night out while still managing to play like the front runner for this year's Most Improved award? I understand that Noah and Butler haven't dealt with two major knee surgeries in back-to-back seasons, but if you want to win a championship, if you want to be great, if you want to back up the talk of bringing Chicago its seventh title then you have to play through a little pain. That's what the great players do.

Derrick Rose doesn't care what I, or anyone else, thinks about this situation and I respect him for that. I'm not jealous of him for having to go through all this speculation and doubt on a daily basis, but at the same time he has now brought this on himself. Hamstring, knee, and calf injuries are a part of coming back from the surgeries he has undergone, so why is this as big of a deal as he is making it? He's 26, obviously he doesn't want to jeopardize his career, and in no way am I saying Rose should be playing every single game, but there comes a time when toughness has to take over. I don't question Rose's dedication at all; he's done everything right in recovering from his surgeries. However, I am at the point where I question his toughness.

The Bulls have built a championship-caliber team around Rose. The organization underwent quite the makeover when they traded one of the best players to ever put on a Bulls uniform in Luol Deng and now they've added Pau Gasol along with picking up two rookies with a lot of potential in Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic. This is the Bulls year to win. They're a good team without Derrick Rose, but with him they're great. He is the face of this organization and they will go as far as he will take them. I understand the tweaks and soreness and I understand the fear of another major major injury, but it's time for Derrick Rose to toughen up.