Celtics Acquire Jim Paxson

1988
Jim Paxson is Acquired for Jerry Sichting

There are some things about Jim Paxson that will never change, no matter what color uniform he wears or where they happen.

That much was obvious last week when, during a third-quarter fast break against the Detroit Pistons, the Boston Celtic guard -- it still sounds funny, doesn't it? -- looked right, faked left and blew past Vinnie Johnson for a scoop layup. He left Johnson clawing at a shadow.

The Boston Garden fans, who still are getting used to him, applauded wildly. A Portland Trail Blazer spectator, having seen the same thing game after game for eight straight seasons, might have shifted in his seat a little and looked to see when Clyde Drexler was coming back into the game.

Later on, after the mob of New England reporters had moved from his to Kevin McHale's locker, Paxson said the response of the Boston fans was one part of his new life that he absolutely loved.

``I know I replaced a guy (Jerry Sichting) who was very popular here,'' he said. ``But it seems as if I was accepted very quickly.''

Acceptance is the main thing that Paxson worried about when the Blazers traded him, his $875,000 salary and his all-time Portland record 10,003 points to the Celtics for Sichting and ``future considerations'' on Feb. 23.

Sure, he had asked the Blazers to trade him in the middle of last season. But this isn't exactly San Antonio. These are the Boston Celtics, the flagship franchise of the National Basketball Association where the magic carpet is made of oak parquet and championships aren't expected, they're assumed.

If Paxson had been able to read the minds of the Celtic franchise, he wouldn't have worried. The Celtics looked at him as the potential key to hanging another NBA championship banner in the Garden rafters.

In a nutshell, the thinking in Boston is that Paxson could give the team some things that Sichting couldn't. For instance:

*An instant bench. The last time the Celtics won the NBA title, in 1986, Bill Walton jumped off the bench to do all the right things at all the right times. Until the trade this season, the first guard off the bench was Dirk Minnifield; the first forward was Fred Roberts. As one Boston writer put it, the difference between the Celtics' fifth-best player and sixth-best player was ``bigger than any team in the NBA.''

*Some immediate relief for guards Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge. Johnson is skilled, but he's also 33, and the games of 40-plus minutes were wearing him out. Johnson had to sit out a recent game at Washington with a sore shooting shoulder. So Paxson started that one, then started again against the Pistons.

It was a workmanlike game from a workmanlike player. Paxson played 23 minutes, hit five of nine field goal attempts and scored 10 points. If he hadn't jammed his wrist running into a pick by John Salley late in the third quarter, he might have played more. But the Celtics were cruising and Coach K.C. Jones felt comfortable finishing the game with Minnifield and Johnson.

Jones even refers to Paxson as ``a starter'' as a credit to Paxson's skills.

``Jim is a starter,'' Jones said, ``a starter off the bench. When we go to him, nothing is lost in the way we play. He's a great shooter, he moves without the ball and he can do a little of everything.

``He's able to shoot the ball from the outside well enough that teams can't double down inside on us. That's something we've needed.''

Larry Bird, who had been taking his size outside and away from the rebounding wars more and more before the trade, thinks much the same way.

``It's an addition we needed pretty badly,'' he said. ``He does just about everything, and you can't ask for more than that, can you? He's made us a lot better -- with the kind of talent we have, he fits in perfectly.''

Ainge, speaking for the guards, made it unanimous. ``It's been great,'' he said. ``He gives us so much coming off the bench. Jim puts pressure on the other team with his cuts and his shot, and he can post little guards down low.

``Now DJ and I don't have as much pressure on us anymore to play all those minutes.''

So the ayes have it, and the numbers back them up.

Since he left Portland, Paxson's playing time has increased only slightly.h the Celtics, he averaged 19.2 minutes a game (up 3.7 from Portland) and is contributing just about what the Celtics expected from him.

His 49.2-percent shooting -- up substantially from his 40.2 percent with the Blazers -- has allowed him to improve his scoring average from 6.1 points a game to 8.7. He has accumulated the little things that first-line reserves are supposed to do -- played 10 minutes or more 27 times and scored 10 or more points 13 times.

The most telling number, though, may be found in the NBA standings. Since Paxson became eligible to play -- he couldn't play against the Blazers Feb. 24 because Sichting hadn't had his physical yet -- the Celtics have a 20-8 record -- a percentage of .714 and had their longest winning streak of the season at eight games. On the day they got him, they had a 39-17 record -- a percentage of .696.

The difference isn't much, but the timing is perfect. The Celtics open the NBA playoffs Friday against the New York Knicks.

Paxson has been effective. But is he satisfied with the way his career has turned out? The answer came after Boston beat Detroit. He was asked if the playoff tension in Boston was somehow different from what he experienced in Portland.

Pause.

``Around here,'' he said finally, ``they say nobody gets excited until the division. Heck, I've never even played in a division final.

``This has been a really good situation for me,'' Paxson said. ``In Portland, I had 8 1/2 years and it was great. I'm really happy for the time I spent there.

``I never had a problem coming off the bench -- I've been coming off the bench since my seventh year in the league. I just wasn't a point guard. But I still have a lot of friends there.''

As disappointed as he was at having last summer's trade to Cleveland scotched when Keith Lee failed his Blazer physical, Paxson is happy that it worked out the way it did.

``This (wanting to be traded) is just a career move,'' he said. ``In the Cleveland trade, I looked at all the positive things that could come of it. Now that I'm here, I'm looking at the positive things that have come from this. I guess it worked out in the long run.

``There was a stretch during the last part of March when I wasn't playing well, and I was down about that. But I'm over that now. I'm ready to do the things they want me to do, and I have the confidence that I can do them.

``It's a combination of things. I'm playing more now, and each game I know more about the other players. We're starting to know what each other's game is like on the floor.''

True, but he does confess to some homesickness. At the moment, Paxson is living in a Boston hotel. When the season is over, he will head back to his Lake Oswego home.

Paxson wanted to know about what's going on in Portland -- what the weather was like, how the team is getting along, who won the state high school championship, things that would interest a full-time resident of Portland.

Boston is, after all, just another stop in Jim Paxson's career. Home in the NBA is where you hang your sneakers.