We don't want our players being HONEST with the media. We want them to be good little soldiers and talk the party line because that is what is best for the Celtics. Causing disruption due to comments to the media for selfish reasons is not how you win championships, no matter how small. If he had made the right comment then this thing would be put to bed. It will be real easy for a reporter later in the season if he has a few games of DNP's or small minutes to bring this up again trying to make a big thing out of a small thing. If the Celtics win a championship this year I don't CARE whether he plays even one minute. It's not about him. His response was about HIM.
Okay, you stand on the side of Falseness. That's your choice. I'll stand with Truth. The funny thing is, the people standing on the side of Falseness (advocating a politically correct non-answer) are the same ones claiming this is a 'disruption' and worrying about the 'distractions' it'll cause. Talk about self-fulfilling prophecies.
You can be truthful and stay faithful to the team. Those two viewpoints are not mutually exclusive. Baby's response was about him, because the question was about him and how he's fitting into the larger team fabric. And don't forget his answer--he said it will be a struggle going from starter's minutes to reserve minutes, but that it was great to be a part of a great team. That sounds like a honest man who knows his sacrifice will be as great as his reward.
This all boils down to emotions and honesty. Baby's an emotional player and he uses that emotion to give him an edge over his opponents. But the thing with emotions is that if you have them and don't express them, they begin to exert control over you. That's where honesty comes in. If you're an emotional person, you need to be honest about them when you have them. Baby recognizes the pull between individual glory and team success; he recognizes his desire to be a star, and his desire to be a part of something greater than himself and so by expressing those honest, personal emotions, he's able to control them and funnel them to use in a team context. If you listen to KG (another player who relies on his emotions for his 'edge'), you'll hear the same dichotomy.
