An Unfair Sale

The Selling of the Green

BY Harvey Araton and Filip Bondy;

Harper Collins Publishers;

260 pages; $20.

Starting from the title and continuing throughout the book, The Selling of the Green: The Financial Rise and Moral Decline of the Boston Celtics is a work of deception, a pastiche of unattributed insinuations and unsubstantiated characterizations.

In just 260 pages, these two New York Times sportswriters, Harvey Araton and Filip Bondy, do their best to damage the reputation of the Celtics organization and of nearly anybody who might have made the Celtics organization look good in the last 40 years. That list includes legendary franchise figure Arnold "Red" Auerbach (whom they label "the Godfather"), Boston Globe writers Bob Ryan and Will McDonough ("mouthpieces" for the organization) and former Celtic M.L. Carr (house Black).

Araton and Bondy purport to be taking a truly objective look at the Boston Celtics. In the introduction, they claim their personal basketball loyalties are "balanced enough," as Araton "was a Celtic fan from childhood."

But this book is a non-stop, bitter, self-congratulatory diatribe. As the writers proudly claim in their introduction, "In this book, written by two New York sportswriters with no debts whatsoever to the Boston Celtics, the tables are turned."

Yes, the tables are indeed turned, but in the process, the authors sacrifice objectivity. Every detail in this book is cast against a negative backdrop, often one of racial bias and greed.

The authors could justify the negative backdrop with attributed characterizations and allegations by individuals inside and outside the organization. And Araton and Bondy do provide some extensive quotes from disgruntled former players and other self-admitted nemeses of the organization.

But the writers prefer to leave the real talking to themselves and not their sources. In what is the writers' deceptive modus operandi, Araton and Bondy will extrapolate from quoted statements and assert their own viewpoints and characterizations, often implying the quoted individual is saying what the writers believe.

Araton and Bondy's departure from objectivity enables them to mount a relentless assault on the Celtics organization.

This book is not about the "moral decline" of the Celtics, as the title suggests. Rather, the authors say the organization, under Auerbach, has been rotten and immoral for more than 40 years. And we do not hear much about the team's "financial rise." Instead, we hear a tale of a racist team in a racist town, taking on the role of the White team in a Black league.

Auerbach is white greed personified, the evil owner forcing players to accept unfair contracts, forcing Black players to take even less, always reserving a few spots on the roster for white players instead of Blacks, perennially searching for the great white hope that will save the franchise.

The writers devote page after page, well over 100 in all, to proving Auerbach is "no genius or philanthropist" but a disloyal, chauvinistic, influence-peddling control freak who is obsessed with winning.

They minimize the importance of the organization's decisions to break the racial barrier--drafting the first Black player and hiring the first Black coach in National Basketball Association (NBA) history--charging that the all-white management of the Celtics has always been more opportunistic than progressive in its policies on race.

And the authors shamelessly employ the volatile topic of race to pose Boston and the Celtics as inextricably linked symbols of bigotry. The Celtics are the white franchise the NBA needs in an increasingly Black league, according to Araton and Bondy, and Irish Boston is the white franchise's most logical home.

Throughout the book, Araton and Bondy all but say the rise to financial power of the Celtics was possible because of a white network of allied interests involving the complicity of NBA commissioner David Stern, The Globe's Ryan and McDonough, part-owner of the Celtics Alan Cohen ("a man clearly obsessed with acquiring money") and, of course, Red Auerbach. As we read, we can hear the voice of JFK director Oliver Stone as he points to the Truth between the lines: Auerbach did not act alone.

It is true that the city of Boston has a legacy of racism and that many have seen the Larry Bird-Dave Cowens Celtics as the White team in a Black league. It may also be true that Auerbach is "no genius or philanthropist." In fact, the issues raised in The Selling of the Green--race, money, even the NBA's supposed alliance with the Celtics--are thought-provoking.

But Araton and Bondy's unsubstantiated potshots at Auerbach and others, along with their overemphasis on race, reveal their "expose" on the Celtics for what it really is: a petty, mean-spirited editorial with a careless regard for the facts.