Halo halo

rondo’s getting traded to Public Enemy

AP Photo/Charles Krupa

I thought Perk deserved better than getting blindsided in Denver, then having to limp around with a sprained knee and pack his stuff with tears rolling down his face. Maybe I’m a sap. But that was our guy. Family. On the phone, my dad decided — completely seriously — that he would rather have lost the 2011 title with Perkins than have tried to win it without him. Why?

“Because he was truly part of our team,” Dad said. “I don’t want to root for laundry. I watched that guy for eight years. That should mean something. Continuity should mean something.”

Within a few weeks, both of us will have talked ourselves into the Jeff Green era. That’s what fans do. We take the hits, shake them off, keep coming back. The Celtics will morph into something slightly different: a little more athletic, a little more flexible, a little younger and, hopefully, almost as tough. Perkins will fly to Oklahoma City, live out of a hotel room, make new friends and try to help Durant and Russell Westbrook make the Finals. Maybe the Celtics will see him there. It won’t feel weird at all, because that’s the way professional sports work. We are rooting for laundry. Whether we want to admit it or not.

      — Bill Simmons 

I will give $100 to th first person who can correctly explain to me why looking @ this picture and reading this passage makes me unbearably sad, even though I lost nothing, nobody lost anything, it’s just a millionaire moving from one town to another town, think about what’s happening in Africa, think about th unemployment rate, think about war, think about yr parents getting old, these things are important, meanwhile hasn’t life been good to you, don’t you love yr friends and yr family, haven’t you never been hungry, isn’t this a cold cruel Earth in which Kendrick Perkins’ humble contributions to th team are soon forgotten and won’t you die alone, unloved and unmourned …?