Every indication we have says that Wyc Grousbeck plays to win. He pays the luxury tax every season, opened his pockets to retain both Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, and generally makes every effort to field the winningest team possible. Including luxury tax last season, Celtics player salaries totaled $82 million, and Grousbeck is the man signing those checks.

Yet there have been grumblings that Grousbeck is among the hard-lining owners willing to lose the entire season if that’s what it takes to re-work the Collective Bargaining Agreement in the owners’ favor. Yahoo’s Kelly Dwyer revisited those claims today.

“With Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce all on the downside (if, in Pierce’s case, just barely) of brilliant careers, why would the owner of the most ‘WIN NOW!’ of the win-now teams want to lose the 2011-12 season?” Dwyer asks. “Or why would he want a truncated season in its place, when the 50-game sprint during the post-lockout 1999 run destroyed veteran teams?”

Because he’s a smart business-man, Dwyer assserts.

“Grousbeck knows what’s good for his bottom line,” Dwyer writes. “And if we can get cynical and Donald Sterling-y with things, he’s really under no obligation beyond that.”

Judging in a strictly Donald Sterling-y fashion, there really is no other obligation. Grousbeck is free to suck the players dry of as much money as he can manage, and he is free to suggest that the owners lengthen the lockout as long as necessary to achieve the desired concessions from the players. That’s his right, and if you consider a business owner a blood-sucking leech whose only obligation is making money for himself, that’s precisely the way Grousbeck should act.

But I’d like to think there’s a lot more to owning a sports franchise than the thirst for as much money as possible. When an individual buys a sports franchise, he should enter the purchase with the intent to field a winning product. I don’t say that because I’m an eternal optimist who thinks all business owners operate with impeccable morals. But mega-millionaires like Grousbeck and other sports owners could afford any business, so if they want to penny-pinch, why choose sports, where a losing product affects more people and affects those people more strongly?

For example: If Grousbeck bought Levi jeans and put out a shitty product, sure, Levi jeans fans would be upset that their favorite jeans suddenly sucked. But those same fans would soon forget about Levi entirely and move onto Guess jeans, or whatever jeans the kids are wearing these days, because the brand loyalty to Levi cannot survive such a shitty product. Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs have sucked for the last century. Yet even in Massachusetts, I know Cubs fans who suffer through season after season. Rooting for a sports team is a far deeper bond than choosing a pair of pants.

I’m not suggesting that Grousbeck is a penny-pincher, nor does he put out a shitty product. He has run the Celtics the right way since buying them. He turned my favorite team into a champion and he has kept them a contender ever since, paying well into the luxury tax every season in order to field a winner. He has earned some good faith.

But if he is really willing to miss the entire season in order to get the best deal — and maybe we shouldn’t even be having this conversation now that the NBA lockout is looking at least slightly more optimistic, two months after the report of Grousbeck’s hard stance — then Grousbeck should be on every Celtics fan’s shit list.

Grousbeck was worth a reported $360 million in 2005 and is now an owner of the reportedly-worth-$452 million Boston Celtics. Even in a down economy with a collective bargaining agreement that will undoubtedly improve for the owners, the Celtics made millions of dollars last season, and that’s not including any other local businesses Grousbeck owns that flourish due to the Celtics presence in Boston — common benefits NBA owners receive from their franchises but don’t have to report in the accounting books, benefits that Deadspin’s Tommy Craggs calls “interconnected wealth-generating mechanisms.” And after the season, the Celtics are close to signing (or have already signed?) a deal with Comcast that will reportedly afford them a 20% equity stake in Comcast and a “healthy increase” in the annual rights fee Comcast pays to telecast games (the Celtics currently receive between $15 million and $20 million per year).

Grousbeck is millions and millions of dollars away from starving for money and the Celtics are doing well financially, yet Grousbeck is reportedly willing to sacrifice what could be the final year of the Big Three — or at least what will assuredly be their last chance to contend, if their window hasn’t already closed. Rationally, I understand why — Grousbeck wants to secure a collective bargaining agreement that will keep money flowing into his pockets. The NBA is suffering and Grousbeck wants the landscape significantly altered. But damn it. Grousbeck — owner of a win-now team, owner of a franchise that still makes plenty of money if not heaps of it — should be the owner most desperate to see this lockout end.

Cynics will say Grousbeck owes fans nothing, but we buy the tickets, the jerseys, the hats, the NBA league pass subscriptions, the Celtics DVDs, and we are the reason the Celtics and Comcast are entering a partnership. And if he doesn’t want the lockout to end for the fans, most of whom Grousbeck will never meet, he should at least want the lockout to end for Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, a trio Grousbeck presumably knows well, a trio that could see their last meaningful season together crumble under the NBA lockout.

If Grousbeck doesn’t see the importance of having an NBA season, especially for the Celtics, well then hell:

Maybe he should just buy Levi.

The NBA formally began a lockout at 12:01 a.m., and Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck is reportedly a driving force behind the NBA’s insistence on a hard cap. According to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski, Grousbeck calls the lockout “an investment.” He is willing to lose the entire season if it means re-working the Collective Bargaining Agreement in the owners’ favor.

Grousbeck’s willingness to lose the whole season—if true—is an unforgivable sin to Celtics fans. The Celtics have one championship run left in them, maybe. A lost season would mean the end of the Big Three era, or at least end the Big Three’s run as contenders. Hell, a lost season might even call the Grim Reaper to polish off Kevin Garnett or Ray Allen’s career.  Grousbeck, worth a reported $360 million in 2005, owner of the now-worth-$452 million Celtics, one of the owners who still makes money, is willing to risk losing the greatest Boston Celtics era since Larry Bird, all to save a few million more dollars.

The owners claim to have lost money this past season, and bushels of it, but as Tommy Craggs cautions on Deadspin, those claims don’t explain everything. In many cases, NBA owners don’t just own NBA franchises; they also own companies or real estate in the surrounding area. Craggs calls these “interconnected wealth-generating mechanisms.” Even when the team itself loses money, the owners can still benefit financially from owning them. NBA teams create a boon for an owner’s local businesses, so a franchise’s real value can’t be known without also taking into effect its value on the owner’s other assets.

Additionally, Craggs noted how creative bookkeeping can make a $7 million profit look like a $28 million loss. He secured the New Jersey Nets’ financial statements from 2004, when the Nets claimed a huge loss but really made money.

“There are certain baked-in advantages to owning a team,” wrote Craggs. “You have both the relevant labor law and the tax code firmly on your side. You are making money you didn’t exactly earn from the moment you sign the paperwork, and you are making more money for your other businesses — your shopping mall across the street from the arena, your legal practice, your broadcast holdings — and then, come tax time, you are allowed by law, and even encouraged, to pretend you are not making any money at all. Remember this the next time David Stern says the NBA’s economic system is broken. ‘The bottom line about the bottom line,’ says Fort [Ronnie Fort, a sports economist at the University of Michigan], ‘is that even if it looks like they’re losing money, it doesn’t mean they’re losing money.’”

The owners want to pay for their own mistakes by taking money from the players’ pockets. The union said the owners’ most recent offer—which guaranteed the players $2 billion annually over a 10-year agreement—amounts to a 12% pay cut for the players. Meanwhile, the owners are unwilling to develop an effective revenue sharing plan. The Los Angeles Lakers just signed a 20-year television deal with Time Warner Cable that some value at $3 billion. But unlike the NFL, which equally shares its television revenue, the NBA allows teams to keep the money from their regional television deals. Spread that $3 billion around (and Boston’s regional television deal, and Chicago’s, and other big-market deals) and the owners would likely have many fewer complaints about losses.

The Celtics make money. They play in a big market. They are owned by two local millionaires who supposedly care more about winning than making millions. Yet at least one of those owners reportedly would not mind seeing the Big Three era collapse under the weight of an NBA lockout. If the report is true, Grousbeck’s nothing but a fraud.

The Morning Walkthrough is a set of links to Boston Celtics articles throughout the internet, designed to get your day started the right way.

Julian Benbow, Boston Globe – “They each have their quirks. Paul Pierce might be the cockiest player to ever wear a headband. He’d trash talk a nun. He’s never seen a last-second shot he didn’t want to take. Ray Allen has know-it-all tendencies. ‘Wikipedia,’ as Kevin Garnett calls him. Garnett, of course, is intense beyond measure. Fluent in all languages profane. On the court, there are different levels of maintenance for the Celtics’ Big Three. Coach Doc Rivers will tell you that Pierce and Allen are ‘thirsty scorers,’ their appetites for the ball constantly needing to be fed. Garnett, on the other hand, can be painfully unselfish, to the extent that young point guard Rajon Rondo will yell at him to ‘shoot the damn ball!’ But they knew each other’s peculiarities when they signed up three years ago. Since that June 2007 news conference when the three stars first aligned, they’ve made it work.” Read more »

Garnett enjoyed himself on the bench last night, even after his underwhelming game. (AP Image)

For the Boston Celtics, a lot of good came from last night’s game. Semih Erden emerged as a fan favorite; Shaq looked good in his first Celtics action; Marquis Daniels was active; Stephane Lasme came out of nowhere to provide excitement; and the defense — albeit playing against a team that started both Jodie Meeks and Trent Plaisted — was stifling. One thing that wasn’t quite as good? Kevin Garnett’s performance.

I don’t want to read too far into it, so I’m not going to. I’m not going to say Garnett’s still showing effects of his injury. I’m not going to say he will have another (relatively) down season. Not yet. Not after one unworthy preseason game. Not after 15 minutes and 13 seconds in Manchester, New Hampshire, during a 28-point blowout, against Trent Plaisted, Spencer Hawes and the rest of the NBA’s worst frontcourt.

But pardon me — after Garnett said he was “revived,” after Doc Rivers spoke repeatedly about Garnett’s explosiveness and improved low-post game — if 2 points and 2 rebounds were lower than my expectations. I was hoping to see Garnett sky for alley-oops and harass point guards full court. I was hoping for his patented, unblockable fadeaway jumper, and I was actually hoping that when he shot it, it wouldn’t be an airball. Needless to say, my hopes didn’t come to fruition.

That’s not to say they never will. That’s not to say Kevin Garnett is unimproved. That’s not to say he’ll be unhealthy this year. He just didn’t show us otherwise last night.

Tonight, at 7:00 p.m. against the New Jersey Nets, Garnett will get another chance to prove his revival. While I know that preseason basketball is widely useless, I’d love to see some evidence that Garnett is healthy. And I’d prefer if that evidence was a little more concrete than, “well, he really, really got air that one time he went for a block and missed it.”

Wyc Grousbeck pumped up for this season

Owner Wyc Grousbeck doesn’t mind saying the Celtics should be great this season. (WEEI)

“It’s not only a fun team, it’s fun to beat people senseless,” he said. He must have really loved last night’s waxing.

“I just saw camp, and based on camp, these guys know it’s right in front of them,” Grousbeck continued. “We all want to get back there.” This time, let’s take the championship home. Alright, gentlemen? The whole kit and kaboodle.

And, just for fun, Semih Erden tries out for Dancing With The Turks.

Every once in a while, I link to a few articles from other writers around the internet. You know, I throw some dimes.

1. It’s KA-zaam, Von. Damn it. Also, I get the feeling Semih Erden’s translator’s going to provide some serious unintentional comedy.
2. It’s China’s lucky day! Patrick O’Bryant signed to play with Fujian SBS of the Chinese Basketball Association.
3. Avery Bradley will likely miss the entire training camp. No big deal, though: camp only runs through Saturday. Come back quickly, Avery. It’s tough enough (impossible enough?) for rookies to crack Doc’s rotation as it is.
4. You could win a visit from Paul Pierce. You know, if you want to write an essay about a coach in your community.
5. Wyc Grousbeck, speaking about The Game That Must Not Be Named: “”We lost it, but I’m not putting up with that any more if I can help it.”
6. Celtics talk about their first dunks. Delonte West, you are still a clown.
7. Delonte tries to define the term beast. The man’s a Golden Panther.
8. Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel calls Kevin Garnett “a bulky bruiser.” Only if I, a man with a dreadful case of white man’s disease, can call myself an athletic freak.
9. A Nate Robinson tweet: “We all can’t be stars, but we all can shine bright.” Preach on, brotha.
10. Glen Davis is confused. “I love my new role on the team!!” he tweeted. ”I feel like I’m going to be a big help this year.”
11. The C’s sing happy birthday to Red Claws coach, and Danny’s son, Austin Ainge.

Got a tip? An article you think should be included? Send an email to jayking@celticstown.com or hit me up on Twitter @CelticsTown.

Appreciate these guys? Pshh.

Celtics fans are drawn to Kevin Garnett’s fierce passion for basketball and for life, unblockable turnaround jumper, and innate ability to hedge the pick and roll. They adore Paul Pierce’s determined loyalty, knack for late-game heroics, and stepback jumper. (One dribble to the right, step back off the left foot, fade away, splash.) They idolize Rajon Rondo’s on-court creativity, one-of-a-kind talents, and never-ending sense of calm.

But Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca, the owners, the men who pay the contracts and make success possible? Who cares about them?

Not me, I’ll tell you. They aren’t players, obviously, and they don’t draft prospects or make trades either. That’s Danny Ainge’s job. Come to think of it, the owners don’t even care enough about winning to throw a towel skyward in hopes of distracting opposing teams. What kind of owners are they, anyway?

Sure, Wyc and Pags paid $14.9 million in luxury tax last year and are always cool with adding more salary. But how many jumpers did Wyc drain in last year’s playoffs?

In the past year the owners have okayed contracts of $55 million (Rajon Rondo), $60 million (Paul Pierce), $20 million (Ray Allen) and $12 million (Jermaine O’Neal). But how many dimes did Pags drop in the Eastern Conference Semifinals?

I know, I know, the Celtics will go way over the luxury tax threshold again this season, and the owners will have to pay another lump sum (somewhere around $9 million, if the season were to end today) to settle the tax. But where were Wyc and Pags last season when the Celtics needed some goddamn rebounds?

Wyc says he desperately wants to win a title. “We’re coming back after it,” he told the Boston Globe. “I am glad  I got a championship ring, and I want another one.” But talk is cheap. I’ve never seen Wyc box out, and he’s never closed out to contest an open shooter. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him dive on a loose ball either. Who wants an owner like that?

Before this offseason, there was talk that the Celtics might strip down and start a rebuilding process. But Wyc was too loyal to his players. “We live and die with this team,” he explained. That sense of loyalty is refreshing, I’ll admit that. But where was Wyc in the fourth quarter of The Game That Must Not Be Named, when the Celtics needed a big bucket?

Wyc’s happy with the team the Celtics have assembled for the 2010-11 season. “We got a bunch of butt-kickers on this team,’’ he said. “And a bunch of tough basketball players on this team.” He’s right. Just like the Western University Dolphins in Blue Chips (co-starring Shaq), the Celtics put together one of the best teams money can buy. They’re big, they’re bad (bad meaning good), they’re deep, and they’re scrappy. But Wyc’s no seven-footer. He’s not quick and he doesn’t have a handle that will wow you. And I’ve never seen him wrestle a rebound from somebody else’s grasp.

So why do we appreciate these owners? Well, at least they don’t turn the damn ball over.

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The quotes in this post are from a piece in today’s Boston Globe. It’s a good read.