I gotta admit I'm getting a chuckle out of this thread. It's definitely being over-dramatized and made into a bigger deal than it actually is. In the last day, people have gotten away with calling me a "psycho" and "clinically insane". C'mon. Let's admit that the people making these dramatized declarations about me are ALREADY ignoring my posts - hence why they think I'm some kind of monster. Their perception has become their reality.
I mean, what's my most shocking and "outrageous" recent opinions right now? Do these people even know what they are? What's these board-damaging psycho clinically insane thoughts I'm sharing? I'll sum them up for you. But first, let's talk about the opinions that I have that people don't freak out about:
Ok opinions: I supported the shift to making a playoff run two years ago. I was a big believer in our free agency abilities and staunchly defended the Celtics ability to lure big names. I was even perhaps the first person here to suggest Kevin Durant would be a legit possibility and I spelled out in-detail why he should consider this team. I've raved about Jae and Avery's progress. I've continued to say I think Marcus Smart can still make a leap. I've consistently raved about Boston's depth. I've consistently raved about the brilliance of Danny Ainge. I was on board with the Jaylen Brown selection IMMEDIATELY and have consistently expressed my excitement about his long-term potential. I've written extensively about my optimism surrounding Kelly Olynyk. These opinions, for the most part, are fine with the masses.
Ignorable opinions: I've consistently defended Philly's strategy. I genuinely believe it has a really good shot of working out for them. I've continued to defend the Embiid pick for them. I am not as down on Okafor/Noel as most people here. Additionally, I had real concerns about Brooklyn's ability to stay competitive after two straight playoff appearances. I've also gotten flack for pointing out that Marcus Smart has thus-far been a disappointment. He's coming off the worst shooting season of any player ever. I also believe the several reports that Boston attempted to move the Brooklyn pick at the trade deadline for Okafor. I supported signing Bismack Biyombo for cheap over trading 6 first round picks for Willie Cauley Stein - I've been vindicated for this.
Not actually opinions: I started a handful of threads last offseason that were taken out of context and used against me all season. These were outlined as admittedly outlandish out-of-the-box thought experiments and I never actually took a definitive stance one way or the other. I was talking about the potential of the #16 pick in relation to the potential of young
available guys who had already been labelled busts. Namely, Ben McLemore, Nik Stauskas and Anthony Bennett. Find those threads and you'll see me outlining the overlooked positives of those players in order to get people to think about it - despite acknowledging that player contracts (such as Bennetts) made such a hypothetical exceedingly unrealistic. It should be noted that the guy we ended up taking #16, while showing encouraging signs of late, spent the entire season the D-League so nothing about those thought experiments have even been proven "clinically insane". This has been misrepresented for a full year by folks who just say "LarBrd33 hates the Celtics young guys, but thinks NIk Stauskas and Anthony Bennett will be stars"... That's on you.
Since this thread is full of discussion about me in-direct, I want to acknowledge something. People going out of their way to share my previous inaccurate thoughts isn't entirely on them. Part of it is my fault. Let me explain...
Part of the reason folks here think I'm a troll is because a lot of the opinions I have in the moment are exceptionally unpopular (though later proven true). Yes, I might occasionally play the contrarian or devil's advocate, but a lot of the times I'm straight-up telling the truth about something that fans don't want to hear and I'm being ridiculed for it in the process. Such as recently when I strongly dismissed the garbage Blake Griffin rumors everyone was obsessing over. Or going back a decade, there were threads where people were calling Orien Greene a future star PG - I disagreed. They thought Marcus Banks was a future star - I disagreed. They thought Jiri Welsch was the next Larry Bird - I disagreed. They thought Gerald Green was the next T-Mac - I disagreed. They thought the Walker/Pierce Celtics were legit contenders - I disagreed. Someone once said Kendrick Perkins was a better fit for this team than Hakeem in his prime - I disagreed.
More controversial were my opinions on guys like Rajon Rondo. That's where all this "troll" nonsense started. Two straight years of me admitting this board had overrated Rondo, saying the "playoff Rondo" concept was a myth based on his minutes and usage, agreeing that Ainge was trying to trade him, agreeing that he wasn't as good as Chris Paul. I once even got bashed for admitting I'd trade then all-star Rondo for an oft-injured young shooter by the name of Steph Curry, because I believed a Ray Allen and Steph Curry back-court would be potentially lethal. I didn't think we needed a true point guard in today's NBA. I was basically describing "pace-and-space" before there was a name for it. Back in the day, I'd have endless "debates" with BBallTim about it. The Rondo fans felt it easier to label me a "troll" and a "hater" than admit to Rondo's shortcomings. Now a couple years later and I've been 100% entirely vindicated for my views on Rondo. Most people here now share the views I was attacked for years ago. Likewise, I started the tank bandwagon in 2013-14 much to the chagrin of folks here who thought rooting for losses was clinically insane trolling. Eventually, everyone else hopped on board. We have Marcus Smart as a result.
So here's how this comes into play. There's only so many times a person can get called a "troll" or "idiot" or "hater" for accurate opinions. It's not like anyone was later saying, "hey LB... sorry for the two years of trashing you about your Rondo opinion - you were right. My bad!". So I admit that on occasion, I've dug up some of my own prior unpopular opinions that proved to be accurate and shared them on this forum. "Hey, remember when I spelled out in detail why Dwight would be still be traded despite having signed an extension? Remember when you guys called me a lunatic and brushed it off? - BOOM!". Naturally, that kind of stuff irked the folks who spent two years being on the wrong side of debates. So it kind of organically grew into folks now going out of their way to share my previously inaccurate opinions. Part of that is on me. So my bad. But, it should be noted that I wasn't going out of my way to trash other posters or rub egg in their face - I was merely pointing out that, "Hey guys... You know all those times in the past you called me a troll for having rational opinions? I think you owe me enough to re-evaluate them. I warned you."
More of the same today. It's still happening. Five months from now people might be saying, "Wow, Philly's young team looks good. It looks like it worked out for them after-all." Don't count on MBunge making a post admitting that LarBrd33 had been right to defend them.
I try my best to police my own behavior here. While we're mentioning people by name, it should be pointed out that Eddie20 has been transparently trolling me in thread after thread for well over a year. There's been at least a half-dozen times where he's flatly accused me of being a 76ers fan. He doesn't stop. He's constantly taken things I've said out of context and tried to convince people that I'm some cancer that needs to be removed from the forum. If I remember correctly, I think at one point he even created a thread on that very topic that was quickly locked by mods. He long ago stopped treating me with any sort of respect. His new shtick is to just make not-so-thinly veiled insults about my personal life both on the forum publicly and in private messages. Suggesting I have no friends, my life is terrible, I'm a sad and lonely depressed man, that I need to be medicated. He even took the time to psychoanalyze my entire upbringing. It's fine. I'm not even upset about it. I'm mostly just impressed that my comments about the 76ers could fire someone up that much. I assure you Eddie, my life isn't all that bad. Here's a clip of me just the other day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2dXRFGhzME ... But on top of that, I've been presented as some kind of raving ego-maniac who refuses to admit when he's wrong. Perhaps my method of dealing with these insults rub people the wrong way. As opposed to engaging with these remarks, having pointless fights over it, and creating more unnecessary drama, I'd rather just steer into the slide and try to make light of it as a means of hopefully diffusing the situation. So sure, I'm an ego-maniac. Whatever. So on that note, the only real question left to be answered about the iconic home-dingering LarBrd33, is who belongs on the Summer 2016 Mount Rushmore along with him, Kanye West, and Donald Trump? Then can we please get back to talking about the Celtics? Thx.
I encourage people to please opt-out and unsubscribe to my posts if they are that upsetting to you. But honestly, I feel that Celtic forums like this will soon go the way of of the Dodo anyways. It has been one of the best outlets for actually talking about the team and expressing viewpoints. Compare it to somewhere like RealGM where it's actually entirely an echo-chamber and alt-viewpoints are openly harassed and scorned, and there's no contest. But as internet culture shifts more towards the Reddit model where only popular opinions are upvoted, back-and-forth discussion of differing opinions basically gets ignored anyways. And that's not even a knock on the Celtic subreddit, which I find myself browsing more and more frequently as a better source of Celtic-related info. I suspect old-school forums will eventually die out to the upworthy model of non-discussion. It's been a fun 10+ years here, though. Go Celtics.