Rick Pitino felt his career as Celtic coach ended before it began when he had the first and fourth slots going into in the Tim Duncan lottery and came out drafting third, Billups, and sixth, Ron Mercer.
Pitino is a self pitying fool. He only had I think a 38% chance of drafting first, so the chances were, the Celtics weren't going to draft first, and since Keith Van Horn was chosen second, if you had the draft over, Billups would be taken ahead of Van Horn.
The Celtics traded Billups during his rookie season with Dee Brown and ballast to the Toronto Raptors for Kenny Anderson and Popeye Jones. There may have been an "after hours" incident involving prostitutes that factored into that trade decision, but I honestly don't remember the details. Billups has been a hell of a player and if his career ends now, he is, unfortunately, a little short of having a Hall of Fame resume.
The Celtics, meanwhile, have won five in a row and are four games above .500, and five of their eight remaining games before the All-Star Game break are nationally televised. Boston fans bash General Manager Danny Ainge, but he has put together a nice bench with the acquisitions of Bass, Petrius, and Wilcox and the second year development of Bradley. They could use a shooting guard off the bench, but otherwise, this team has about as many pieces as any team does. The question now is, is the geriatric "Big Three" still good enough?.
