:(

Yes, we knew this was coming.

But still.

Sad face.

Metal Monday: Awesome Internet Gadgets Edition

Two toys from the interwebs:

1. The first is a flowchart useful for determining what genre of metal you are listening to. Spend some time on the "Discussion" page for the heavy metal genre entry on Wikipedia and you'll find that this chart is both under- and over-inclusive, and a more expansive version, done properly, could be even more hilarious, but "Are the lyrics about dragons?" still makes me chuckle after about a week.

(a/s to my buddy Chris for passing that along.)

2. I came across the second one on a wonderful site called Chart Porn, which is a great resource for fun stuff like this: a widget that evaluates and compares the "evilness" of Slayer albums based on the frequency of terms like "kill" and "Satan". 1985's "Hell Awaits" turns out to be the most sinister album, at 27% evil. And the most evil song? "Blood Red" off of Seasons in the Abyss, which contains one of the seven "evil" words in a whopping 54% of the song's lines.

Lyrics here. Relatively-tame-by-Slayer's-standards thrash metal in the video below.

Celtics Add Pair of Former Boilermakers

Boston didn't have a lot to work with in Thursday night's NBA Draft, but they made the most of the two picks they did have.

First, they traded the 25th pick to New Jersey for the 27th and a future second-rounder. They used #27 to draft JaJuan Johnson, a 6'10" power forward out of Purdue.

When I jotted down some thoughts on Johnson after watching him against Northwestern in December, I wasn't terribly high on him. He's a big guy who likes to play 17 feet from the basket, and I just don't think he's good at shooting those jumpers to justify taking them rather than going into the post, especially in college. He was passive on defense, also, though that may have been because he has a history of foul trouble and Northwestern's Luka Mirkovic isn't worth worrying too much about. (Though Mirkovic did burn Johnson a few times in the second half.)

My evaluation of Johnson hasn't really changed since then, but I do think Boston is a great spot for him. Mainly, I think Kevin Garnett is the perfect mentor. They play the same position and have the same type of offensive game. There's a good defensive player lurking inside Johnson -- I believe he was the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year last season -- and KG's intensity is contagious.

Johnson spent four years in college, so he should be mature enough to handle the pressure of playing with an intense, veteran group like the one in Boston. And with Shaquille O'Neal retiring and Nenad Krstic off to play in Russia, the Celtics need someone to step into backup minutes in the pivot right away. That may have tipped the scales to Johnson from young Jeremy Tyler.

Johnson is far from a sure thing. There are plenty of rangy, athletic bigs who prefer the perimeter who haven't made it in the league, and it's unclear to me that Johnson will ever be comfortable in the post. He weighs just 220 pounds and isn't likely to get much bigger -- he has long arms but not a particularly broad frame, and he's already put on 40 pounds since his freshman year in college. But he's a great upside pick at the end of the first round.

Boston might've rolled the dice with dynamic scoring wing MarShon Brooks from Providence (the player they originally took for Jersey with the 25th pick) or Texas' Jordan Hamilton (the player other than Chris Singleton -- who is going to be really good, by the way -- who dropped the most in the first round) instead of Johnson. But given the team's needs, and given the guy they got with the 55th overall pick -- Johnson's classmate at Purdue, E'Twaun Moore -- Johnson was probably the right call.

Moore is a 6'4" shooting guard with a good floor game and solid leadership skills. He's a streak shooter -- that same game against Northwestern, he hit a bunch of threes on his way to 31 points -- and a good defender. I like him a touch more than guys like David Lighty and Ben Hansbrough, because I think he's more dynamic offensively.

There are a bunch of guys every year who have his skills, and most of them don't have NBA careers that amount to much. But every so often, a guy like Wes Matthews ends up exceeding everyone's expectations. I'm not saying Moore will be that kind of guy, but the possibility that he could be is all we could ask for out of this pick in this draft, a draft in which most of the last several selections were used on foreign players who can only be defined as prospects in the loosest sense of the term.

BGWG: Los Angeles Really Hates Boston

As many of you know, the Bruins won the Stanley Cup earlier this week. I'm not a Bruins fan (though I was ecstatic for goalie Tim Thomas, the MVP of the playoffs and a former Vermont Catamount), but Game 7 is a must-watch just about any sport, and I allowed myself the luxury of having the game on in the background as I made some Remedies flashcards.

Well after the Bruins' 4-0 victory, once all the pageantry had ended, the local NBC affiliate switched over to the local news. In teasing the top story (the game), the anchors spent a solid half-minute bemoaning the fact that Boston, and not Vancouver, had won.

Now, it's true that Southern California does have hockey. LA's Kings were a marginal playoff outfit this season; Orange County's Ducks were the fourth seed in the West. (I had to look all this stuff up.) But as far as I can tell, no one really cares about hockey here -- certainly not the way folks do in the Northeast and Midwest. And I'm pretty sure there's no on-ice Kings-Bruins or Ducks-Bruins rivalry to speak of. I suppose Angels-Red Sox contributes some, but it's interesting how history on a basketball court can define a relationship between two cities in so many other aspects.

Metal Monday: A Message For LeBron James

(It's a bit of a cheap shot, and I'm sure it's very unoriginal, but it's just too perfect. I mean, really, read the lyrics; it's like Hetfield wrote this song just for this occasion. Besides, I've been planning on doing this since I dreamed up "Metal Monday," and I plan on making it an annual tradition to post this song on the occasion of LeBron's exit from the playoffs. At least until he gets a ring. My real advice for LeBron and the rest of the Heat, as well as my long absence from these pages explained, after the song.)

First things first, congratulations to the Mavericks. There isn't an NBA team, other than the Lakers, that I wouldn't have been cheering for against Miami in the Finals, but they quickly became a team worth cheering for. I've been a Jason Kidd fan since his days at Cal, and so it's great to see him get a ring, but it wasn't until this postseason that I developed the proper appreciation for Dirk Nowitzki. The Mavericks play team basketball, are humble and business-like, and are worthy champions. Sure, they have DeShawn Stevenson, but no team is perfect.

So, I said I had some advice for the Heat. It's probably not really correct to call it advice -- I'm not sure it can be advice, anyway, if they'll never read it. But I'm among the few who isn't surprised that Dallas beat Miami in this series, and, especially amid all the post-Finals chatter from the talking heads, I want to take a minute to explain why.

So much of the discussion surrounding the Heat this season focused on whose team this was. Is it Dwyane Wade's team? Is it LeBron's team? To their credit, there was never any real fighting about it, though there was never a resolution, either. Moreover, they never embraced the idea that it whose team it was is irrelevant when it comes to putting the ball in the hole. A discussion of who a team belongs to is relevant for leadership purposes only. You win basketball games as a team. It's a lot subtler than saying "Wade is selfish" or "LeBron is selfish." To me, the Heat just don't yet "get" what it takes to beat an excellent basketball team in a championship series, the same way Kobe Bryant didn't "get it" until the fourth quarter of Game 7 in the 2010 Finals.

In the Eastern Conference playoffs, particularly the Chicago series, LeBron seemed to take over at the end of games. Then the Finals started, and after Wade turned in two outstanding performances in Games Two and Three, talk started shifting to how Wade was taking over, since he had succeeded in the Finals before.

That mentality, even if it's not motivated by selfishness, is destructive. When everyone one is so focused on who is getting the ball, the guy who gets it has a tendency to keep it. And if Wade has the ball and LeBron is just standing around, or vice versa, then there's no Big Three to speak of. Putting the ball in one guy's hands -- putting the responsibility of winning on one guy's shoulders -- minimizes the impact of his teammates, and when one of those teammates is one of the five best players in the league, that's a serious problem.

I'll never forget an interview that Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen did early in the 2007-2008 season (it may even have been before the season). The ESPN interviewer asked the newly-formed Big Three who would get the ball in a final shot situation. Pierce, the career Celtic, and Garnett, the much ballyhooed new arrival, both answered "Ray." And Allen said, simply, "the open man."

I recognize that the Heat don't have the luxury of turning the keys to the car over to someone like Rajon Rondo, and that the ball necessarily must more often than not be in the hands of James or Wade. And I recognize that early-season injuries to Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller prevented what could have been Miami's most effective five-man unit from ever jelling. But if you watched and listened to the Heat all season, you never would have gotten the impression that "the open man" was an answer James or Wade would ever give.

I'm not going to delve into any specific post-game comments that the Heat players made. But Magic Johnson talked after the game about how the Heat needed to get into the gym over the summer. To me, that misses the point. Miami didn't lose this championship because their stars didn't shoot well enough. Teams have won championships with less than what the Heat have. But it won't be until how they figure out to play together that they'll get their ring. And the first step is a culture shift. Until they truly embrace basketball as a team game, I predict I'll be posting "King Nothing" more or less the same time every year.

***

Hey Doc, where you been?

Nearly two months without a post, which means I missed the entire playoffs. My apologies. I got busy with graduation, and, frankly, I think the Perk trade broke my spirit a bit. I was absolutely convinced, before the Perkins deal, that we were going to win the championship, and I believe in my heart that without the trade, we would've.

I had written, in my head, an end-of-the-season, "this is a dark chapter in Celtics history" post, but it didn't feel right to post it. I considered ceasing this blog altogether, letting its lifespan last as long as Boston's real championship window. But then Doc re-signed, and quitting didn't seem appropriate. But now that I'm studying for the California bar exam, I haven't had a lot of time -- or any time -- to blog.

I don't really know where I'm headed in life at the moment. I'm taking the bar in July, but I don't have a job lined up yet. Assuming I get one, I may very well have to stop blogging, or severely cut back on my game-watching and writing frequency. If I can't find one right away, on the other hand, I may try to create a more comprehensive basketball site and fold this one into that one. And, of course, there's a real chance of a shortened season, or even no season, next year. We'll just have to see.

In the meantime, I'll probably check in with a post or two before and/or after the NBA Draft, since I'm such a sucker for it. Other than that, barring big news, I probably won't update this site, at least not until August, when the bar is over. Thanks for following me this season.