Do AS Games count? Cuz he only has 1, and is a 11 PPG career scorer. Honestly may have had a better chance if he retired right after the FInals MVP.
Celtics vs. Warriors, NBA Finals
- Thread starter Devizier
- Start date
Rocco was never banned nor left due to any bet. He was very active on SoSH pre-2005 on both the Main board and once the Cellar was established. He gradually moved away from this board at that time when he partnered with myself, TonyJalaPena (IT part) and (name drop whatever) Bill Simmons to form “Stuck on 16” after the latter reached out to build a private board of Celtics fans after someone on the main board tested his thin skin. It was right around 2015 when Rocco fully took over that board, rebranded it as “CelticsNuts” and dedicated a ton of his time making it his own after Simmons had left years prior.
I’ve known Rocco off the internet and he’s a super cool guy, Coach, broadcaster, and basketball savant in his town. He had 4-5 of us over his house for the 2010 Finals too. He hasn’t been active on social media in awhile and hasn’t responded to a msg from a year ago. I hope he’s ok.
I just want to say I'll eat a log of @HomeRunBaker 's shit if Draymond doesn't get into the Hall.
With the caveat that if he kills another player on the floor and gets arrested for murder charges, the bet is off.
With the caveat that if he kills another player on the floor and gets arrested for murder charges, the bet is off.
Does Basketball have any Dale Murphy's? Players who might have played themselves out of the HOF by sticking around too long.
I am too. And I agree that if he played for Charlotte his whole career, we're not talking about this, but he didn't.
In addition to the stuff he's done with the Warriors that's already been mentioned (and it merits adding that advanced stats have mostly loved him throughout his career), he was a great 4-year college player for a team that made two Final Fours, he has two Olympic gold medals, and he's been a high-profile, media-spotlight guy his whole career, who's now building a new-media machine. All of that stuff matters in the NBA HoF. I'd bet a lot of money on him getting in.
I believe it was if a KG-lead Celtics team would win a title. He famously hated KG.
A lot of the old port cellar crew migrated to a different board sometime ago, which is why you don’t see them here anymore.
That may be the case. I saw the post below from 2016 by @Eddie Jurak that mentions 2008.
Someone needs to make the Rocco Graziosa promise that they will eat a log of their own shot if Durant signs here. That worked well when Rocco did it in 2008.
Can't believe I didn't know about Simmons actually wanting to create another board to talk Cs because he couldn't handle the heat in the SoSH kitchen.
The best part of the story is that he ultimately left the board that he helped create for this very same reason.
View: https://twitter.com/JADubin5/status/1535242412561416195
The Warriors had the NBA's third-best half-court defense during the regular season. In two of three Finals games, the Celtics have blitzed that defense for 114.1 points per 100 possessions. How have they done it? At @FiveThirtyEight: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/golden-states-half-court-defense-bostons-half-court-offense-finals-2022/
View: https://twitter.com/JADubin5/status/1535243804487430149
In G2, Tatum walked into an open 3 and you could see how angry it made Steve Kerr, who wanted the GSW to pick him up higher on the floor. BOS solved that strategy in G3, too. G1: 34.5 ft, 114.1 pts/100 G2: 39.5 ft, 77.1 pts/100 G3: 38.3 ft, 114.1 pts/100
Boston has gotten the ball into the paint more often with each passing game in the series, and is finishing better at the rim than the typical Golden State opponent.
The Warriors had the NBA's third-best half-court defense during the regular season. In two of three Finals games, the Celtics have blitzed that defense for 114.1 points per 100 possessions. How have they done it? At @FiveThirtyEight: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/golden-states-half-court-defense-bostons-half-court-offense-finals-2022/
View: https://twitter.com/JADubin5/status/1535243804487430149
In G2, Tatum walked into an open 3 and you could see how angry it made Steve Kerr, who wanted the GSW to pick him up higher on the floor. BOS solved that strategy in G3, too. G1: 34.5 ft, 114.1 pts/100 G2: 39.5 ft, 77.1 pts/100 G3: 38.3 ft, 114.1 pts/100
Boston has gotten the ball into the paint more often with each passing game in the series, and is finishing better at the rim than the typical Golden State opponent.
Could it lead to a stress fracture? Just curious. It's the finals, so the dude is going to play.
He's not the only guy to leave this domain for that reason, but that is also my recollection.
From what I remember he made a post on the main board that heavily leaned into clutchness and intangibles without much statistical backing and some people (I mostly remember SJH) lit him up pretty good and he wasn’t seen from again…..
Which tracks with what you both said about expecting a certain amount of deference and reverence that wasn’t there
Thanks for posting that article. As a comparison, I heard on Lowe Post that in G1 and G3, GSW's half-court offense was in the low 90s per 100 possession. Don't know about G2.
Oh, I knew about him taking his ball and going home - but I didn’t realize he built a whole new court and recruited people to play with him over there! Amazing level of pettiness.
Simmons questioned the signing of Edgar Renteria "on the grounds that Simmons 'never felt scared' when ER batted during the WS." There's a brief discussion of this in the Simmons thread.
There were a bunch of responses to this but SJH was, errr, the most "vocal" critique when Simmons tried to defend his thesis.
Without any inside knowledge, my bet is that Simmons thought he could monetize the concept but HRB can correct me if I'm wrong.
For context. GSW had the third best half court defense in the NBA, with a 91.2 per 100
Haven't seen it posted yet, but on the most recent Lowe Post, Zach shared the following.
The Celtics have assisted on 67% of their baskets in the playoffs, which is number one for all playoff teams and would've ranked number one in the regular season as well.
In the finals, that number creeps up to 74% incredibly enough.
Testament to the Jays and the rest of the team finally doing the thing the fans/coaches have been asking them to do for years. It's obviously paying off.
The Celtics have assisted on 67% of their baskets in the playoffs, which is number one for all playoff teams and would've ranked number one in the regular season as well.
In the finals, that number creeps up to 74% incredibly enough.
Testament to the Jays and the rest of the team finally doing the thing the fans/coaches have been asking them to do for years. It's obviously paying off.
He was/is definitely thin skinned but there were also professional concerns re: stuff he wrote and what he would be OK with ESPN knowing…The best part of the story is that he ultimately left the board that he helped create for this very same reason.
The offense has sort of been the unheralded part of the Celtics' growth into a contender because the defense became so dominant. Honestly we may not get the full scope of how good the offense has become until next season after a bit of rest, maybe a worthy new addition or two, and the combination of championship confidence, natural growth, and most teams going back to playing regular season-level defense.
I have to debate this a bit. If you are talking Satch Sanders, sure. But Russell won every year he was 100% healthy, Every year. He had an injury in 67 he kept under wraps. Then Havlicek went and won 2 titles against plumbers like Kareem. Had the Celtics of that era won 4 in a row or even a Yankeesque 5 then yeah, maybe it was just the era but they won 11/13. Dynasties were easier in the 50s and 60s but the Russell Auerback Celtics dominated more and for admirable reasons. They created the up-tempo entertaining brand of basketball, they were on the cutting edge of civil rights, they were a team.
I dislike all attempts to diminish this run. All sports had similar advantages will no free agency etc. The Celtics did not have the money advantage the dynastic Yankees did to warehouse talent at the minor league level and keep them from other teams. Wooden did similar things with large number of scholarships at UCLA. In a sport where one player can make the most difference, The Celtics had to get by Wilt Chamberlian surely (especially when allowing for the time he played) the most dominant individual in the sport's history. Then just owned Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. They couldn't beat the Celtics even once. They faced ten game 7s . Ten and won all ten.
There is no way the Warriors have accomplished more. They won with a great core, and a superstar who in a much much-mailigned move joined them after losing. Jerry West didn't join the Celtics.
The famous Rocco thread was “Is KG a Phony???” This, of course, was a thread started in the midst of KG’s first season with the team, in which they won the NBA title. The log of his own shit wasn’t if KG won a title, it was something else. I forget, though.
Celticsnuts was pretty good when the Cs were bad and this forum was dead
Fwiw, I know of three other people who started their own forums because they weren't getting what they wanted out of SoSH. That's fine. It's supposed to be fun.
Yeah it's crazy talk. When someone talks about only 8 teams, I think "holy shit, those teams must have all been fucking stacked". And they were, most of them. Russell's teams had like five hall of famers at all time. The others had 3 or 4.
Imaging the 2022 NBA contracted to say 12 teams, to account for the international players. Every team would be loaded. Would it be easier to get win the title? I'd say NFW. Every series would be hard.
You do a quick google search on that screen name now and something more disturbing than the "log of shit" comes up.
I think his screen name was in honor of the dude the punched David Wells, but that guy had other issues too. Maybe Rocco just changed his handle because of that and he's still here....
I think his screen name was in honor of the dude the punched David Wells, but that guy had other issues too. Maybe Rocco just changed his handle because of that and he's still here....
That's certainly the case with baseball. Talent gets diluted through expansion.
Yeah. Whatever happened to that guy? I'm sure he just kind of shut down and never achieved anything of substance given he couldn't "handle the heat"!
Oh wait, he could buy into the Celtics ownership now?!
I assume you just googled: "Rocco Graziosa" The sex offender is a different person, as far as I know. I met Rocco in person once and he was about 2-3x the size of the deviant.
Yes, I was trying to recall why he picked that screen name. The Wells thing. Not sure we knew about the sex offender at the time.
You should get a free name change when you find out that your handle belongs to a guy on the registry, like all those dudes named Mark Fuhrman in the 90s (except worse).
Besides Rocco there were a number. The forum was something like "17 rings" I think. I was there for a bit. There were other names from back in the day posting there. Can't remember who though.
No, monetization was not in any of our ideas ever. Simmons wanted to be able to share direct info which he had access with a non-public group. He reached out bc he knew I was on here and also heavily involved with CelticsBlog at the time, he knew about my interview with Clifford Ray over there, (and had the old Loscy’s Chair Chuckers page). It was his idea that myself and Rocco could “recruit” the best posters from these boards where it would be an intimate group to share specific info that he wasn’t able to share on SoSH due to his ESPN affiliation. I then reached out to Rocco, we did a 3-way (No not that kind) and when we needed an IT guy I reached out to my buddy TonyJalaPena. Two days later we had a site up. He wanted like 20 and we ended up with close to 40 high quality posters before one guy went SJH on him and he left his own board LOL!!
There were some cool tidbits that he brought to the table and one banger which was one of the Ricky Davis trades (I forget if it was when he was coming or going) that he told us was a done deal two days before anyone anywhere even had it as a rumor. I think he said they were finalizing draft pick comp and/or salary fodder but the core of the deal had been agreed upon which he shared. Literally nobody even had it until it was announced so that was pretty cool.
The other was the best. It was a thread he started with something like, “Hey guys, I need some ideas! ESPN wants me to get this series up off the ground. It’s documentary based so if you can think of some good sports ideas we can throw around that would be cool. It’s going to be called 30 for 30!”
This will be the last that I put out on this diversion, but Simmons also did the old 'Port Cellar a solid when he hooked us up with his guy Jim Davis in the Celtics office. We had a couple of outings thanks to that connection and as far as I know nothing since.
Of course a ton of us moved a billion miles away, had kids and other distractions...
I thought this was interesting re: the drop coverage on Steph, similar to what someone said above about limiting the dubs passing game
View: https://twitter.com/KeithSmithNBA/status/1535239878283350016?s=20&t=EXjZeUq9f0UqMSIDmBDnZA
View: https://twitter.com/KeithSmithNBA/status/1535239878283350016?s=20&t=EXjZeUq9f0UqMSIDmBDnZA
Yeah, the idea that Simmons is any kind of a bad guy are flat out off base. He was an edgy Bostonian with a shit ton on his plate but he’d still try and help just as most of us would.
Has anyone seen good breakdowns about the changes the Celtics made on offense? Seemed to me there was more backing out the ball and trying to attack a spread out defense in this one, with more drive and kicks that would lead to 3s (and frequently offense boards despite the open looks). A few times they tried to take on Wiggins, with time on the clock, which did not work well. When they got Steph on the block, or Poole in space it seemed to cause issues for the Warriors.
Yeah this is pretty much it. They drove the lane and dared the Warriors to stop them. It resulted in either layups, free throws, or kick outs for 3.
I don't have the requisite knowledge to break down x's and o's properly, but I couldn't help noticing that Jaylen definitely had a PLAN early on where he was clearing people out and directing traffic. It wasn't to set up ISO (which was my first thought, and probably gave an audible UGH). Later on in 1st half he was chirping at DW because he wasn't heading to the corner.
My layman's take was that they chose to run the O through him instead of Tatum early on. Whatever it was, it certainly worked early in the game.
