Following a 117-109 loss to Orlando on December 16, former Boston Celtics point guard Eddie House — a member of the vaunted 2007-08 championship squad — launched into a venomous tirade against the Magic.
House, while speaking on the NBC Sports Boston postgame show, said Orlando is ‘still garbage’ despite the win, and made the point that with just 10 wins in their first 30 games, he doesn’t foresee the team making the NBA Play-in.
House was on the Boston Celtics for two and a half seasons and was dealt away to the New York Knicks at the 2010 trade deadline in a deal that also included J.R. Giddens and Bill Walker being NY-bound and the Cs getting back Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry.
Former Boston Celtics guard way off base on Orlando Magic
There’s no way to watch what the Orlando Magic were just able to accomplish against the Boston Celtics on Friday, December 16, and truthfully come away from it with the takeaway that the team is ‘garbage.’ Orlando outrebounded Boston by 15 boards even with Robert Williams and Al Horford back in the lineup and kept the Cs to under 25% shooting from beyond the arc.
That was some strange homer behavior to display by House, who has Celtics pride but shouldn’t let that seep into his analysis. With a rookie of the year candidate in Paolo Banchero, a second-year forward making a leap in year two in Franz Wagner, and a project who is projecting the exact type of play necessary to move the needle for an NBA team in Bol Bol, the Magic are set up to contend in the east. This isn’t like the ‘Process’ era Philadelphia 76ers or the late-career Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers — Orlando is for real, and Boston found that out the hard way.