More photos » David Zalubowski - AP

It looks like the end of the road for Boston's Big Three. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

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That question may sound a little ridiculous considering that Boston is only two seasons removed from their 17th NBA title and currently sit third in the East with a 40-22 record, good for the seventh best winning percentage in the league.  Clearly Boston is still one of the NBA's better teams, but if you've spent any time watching them this season it's obvious that their championship window has slammed shut.

The team has struggled against the elite teams around the league most recently getting smoked by the Cavaliers by a score of 108-88 at home, a game which included a fourth quarter 35-14 beatdown in which the Celtics looked like a D-III squad playing Kansas.  They followed that up with the low point of the season losing a game at home to the league's most futile team, the New Jersey Nets.

The signs of decline have been there all season with Garnett looking like a shadow of the player he was and Ray Allen struggling to find the range that made him one of the league's most feared sharpshooters during his career.  Pierce has been the most consistent performer out of the "Big Three", but has struggled with injuries, much like KG, all season long.

Allen's contract expires this summer, Pierce has a player option for $21 million he is sure to exercise for next season after which his contract expires and Garnett's contract expires the following year.  With Allen's performance in perpetual decline at this point it seems unlikely the Celtics would look to re-sign him this summer.  

The team's MVP this season has without a doubt been Rajon Rondo.  The 23-year old point guard has become the Celtics' floor leader and is averaging 14.1 points, 9.8 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game.  All that's stopping Rondo from taking the leap into the league's top echelon of point guards alongside Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Steve Nash is his perimeter shooting.  With time on his side I'd expect him to take that step this summer.  

However Rondo's emergence as the team's leader coinciding with the decline of the Celtics' aging star trio makes it even more pertinent that the Celtics resolve the uncertainty surrounding the future of the team sooner rather than later.

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More photos » Matt York - AP

Boston failed to cash in on Ray Allen's expiring contract and that may cost them in the postseason. (AP Photo/Matt York)

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If you've watched the Celtics this year, particulary over the last couple of months you will have come to the realization that they are not going to win a championship with the way their team is currently constituted.  When you have a team built around three stars who's respective ages are 32, 33 and 34 and all are on the downturn of their career, this is expected. 

Kevin Garnett has lost his explosion and it looks like he will be dealing with nagging knee injuries for the rest of his career.  Paul Pierce can longer carry the burden of being the primary playmaker and scorer for a championship contending team.  Ray Allen has lost his shooting touch, something that happens to jump shooters as they fail to get the same lift and elevation in their shot at the latter end of their career as they did previously.  

Of these three Ray Allen had the most value at the trade deadline with his contract expiring after this season.  There were rumors all week that the Celtics were looking to ship Allen out, but nothing came to fruition and instead the Celtics only move was a trade with the Knicks for Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry.  In return the Celtics shipped out Eddie House, J.R. Giddens and Bill Walker.  

Needless to say few people are expecting this move to lift the Celtics back into championship contention.  Maybe more disconcerting is the lack of support this trade has received among Celtics players and head coach Doc Rivers.  

If I were a Celtics fan I'd be worried about a seeming lack of communication between the front office and the rest of the team in the context of this trade.  Clearly the Celtics players were fond of House who was a team leader and had a propensity for making big shots and none of them feel as if Nate Robinson was enough of an upgrade, if at all, to warrant making such a deal.  

Back to Ray Allen's expiring contract.  It strikes me as odd that the Celtics couldn't find any takers for him at the deadline, especially after seeing the what the Sacramento Kings received in return for sending Kevin Martin to the Rockets and Sergio Rodriguez to the Knicks.  For these two players the Kings received Carl Landry, Joey Dorsey hand cash considerations.

You can't tell me that if Celtics' GM Danny Ainge called up and offered Sacramento Jesus Shuttleworth's expiring contract in return for Kevin Martin and Andres Nocioni that the Kings don't make that trade.  They get rid of two lengthy and expensive contracts that they were looking to dump anyways and they get a 30 game rental of an All-Star sharpshooter, admittedly on his last legs, to space the floor for Tyreke Evans.  

For the Celtics this trade would have brought them Martin who has a career 60.0% true shooting percentage to replace Allen and provided them another experienced veteran in Nocioni who can spell Pierce and Garnett off the bench.  Granted this trade would put them virtually over the cap until at the earliest the 2011-2012 season, but you can't convince me that trade would make them contenders for another title this year.  

Instead the Celtics seem resigned to at best an appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals though this seems more and more unlikely every time I watch them play.  As Cleveland moved to acquire Antawn Jamison at the deadline, the Celtics virtually stood pat and if they fall short this year it will be because they failed to make use of their assets when they had the opportunity.  

More photos » Julie Jacobson - AP

David Lee's just not a winner. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

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Yesterday the Knicks blew a 15 point, fourth quarter lead to the Sacramento Kings at home and proceeded to lose in overtime.  All in all it was a devastating and pathetic loss to a team that entered the game with a 3-22 road record so far this season

After the game I was looking through Knicks blogs and fan pages, wallowing in the misery of another wasted season when I came upon a thread about how David Lee was just not a winner.  In sports I've never found there to be a more useless way to describe a player than when they are labeled as either winners or losers.

Jamal Crawford on the Atlanta Hawks is a leading candidate to win the Sixth Man of the Year Award.  Before his stint with Atlanta Crawford was labelled as a loser because he had never been on a winning team.  Was it his fault his teams sucked?  

The Chicago Bulls drafted Crawford in 2000 a period of time when the Bulls were consistently among the league's worst teams under Tim Floyd.  Then in 2004 Isiah Thomas orchestrated a trade for Jamal Crawford to come to the Knicks.  He remained with the Knicks for four seasons during which time they became the laughingstock of the league.  That might have been his fault or maybe it was because Isiah Thomas had no idea how to construct a team properly.  He was traded to the Warriors, another of the league's cellar dwellers, last season in a salary dump move.  

Then finally this summer he was traded to Atlanta, a team that was coming off of back-to-back playoff appearances and got a chance to play around guys like Joe Johnson, Al Horford, Josh Smith, Mike Bibby and Marvin Williams. Now Crawford has transformed into a winner and as a member of an Eastern Conference contender.  I guess he just learned how to win this summer in his ninth NBA season.

Kevin Garnett was such a loser when he was on the Minnesota Timberwolves.  He just figured out how to win when joined Boston.  I doubt playing with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen helped him at all.

It's amazing how many winners happen to be on championship teams.  Remember how much of a winner Adam Morrison was on the Lakers last year during their championship run?  What would Kobe have done without him?

How about Brian Scalabrine on the Celtics' championship team two seasons ago?  He just knows how to win unlike David Lee.  No wonder the Knicks suck.  We just need to get a bunch of winners.

Just in time for the Super Bowl we were handed this report from some friends at Taylor PR about their client, the popular Q&A search engine Ask.com, which showcases the Top 10 searches that "sports fans" have been running about each of the teams' starting QB's in the days leading up to the game. Nothing too surprising, but the questions seem to be pretty general and more lifestyle focused - meaning its more of the casual fan and not as much of the die hards, which seems logical as its that draw of the masses that makes the Super Bowl the biggest game of the year.

Top Questions about Peyton Manning on Ask.com

1.  Is Peyton Manning married?

2.  How much does Peyton Manning get paid?

3.  How old is Peyton Manning?

4.  Does Peyton Manning have children?

5.  Where did Peyton Manning go to college?

6.  Where was Peyton Manning born?

7.  Is Peyton Manning a Christian?

8.  Is Peyton Manning gay?

9.  What is Peyton Manning’s phone number?

10.  What makes Peyton Manning sexy?

Top Questions about Drew Brees on Ask.com

1.  How did Drew Brees get the scar on his face?

2.  Is Drew Brees married?

3.  How old is Drew Brees?

4.  What does Drew Brees say in the huddle before each game?

5.  Where did Drew Brees go to college?

6.  How tall is Drew Brees?

7.  Where did Drew Brees grow up?

8.  Is Drew Brees Catholic?

9.  How much does Drew Brees weigh?

10.  What round was Drew Brees drafted in?

And for that last one, the answer is the Second Round, 32 picks behind the #1 overall selection Michael Vick… Another great example of a GM not quite getting it right!

Just change the formula.

As the baseball season inches closer and rosters begin to be finalized, that means we're starting to see standings projections trickle in. One of the most well known systems, PECOTA, brought to us by the renowned Baseball Prospectus, was released earlier this week with some interesting results.

Despite the headlines this off-season generally focussed on debating whether the Yankees or Red Sox had the better off-season, PECOTA projected that the AL East would end up in the hands of the... Tampa Bay Rays. Yankees and Red Sox fans of course rejected this possibility, pointing out that it was the least accurate of all projection systems last year, and ignoring that the the system successfully projected the Rays success from two seasons ago.

Today, magically, the PECOTA standings were updated, to correct what they called an "error" in the system that has been used for years.Now, as you can see here, the Yankees and Red Sox suddenly appear atop the division, sitting one game ahead of the Rays. 

Was there actually a math error, or was this actually an attempt to please fans in the cities that likely provide most of their readership? I mean, some of their other surprising projections like Oakland winning the AL West remain. If they overhauled the projections enough to create that big of a jump for two teams in the AL East, wouldn't that change affect the rest of their projections too? But on the other side... does anyone care enough about these projections to go to these measures to make them work out in a more plausible way?

I'm not sure, and to be honest, thinking this much about it is making me feel like even more of a baseball nerd than usual. Either way though, if the Rays do win the division, I bet the Baseball Prospectus people will be kicking themselves pretty hard. So, go Rays?

More photos » Lori Shepler - AP

"Man everything has been so great since I came to LA, how am I gonna mess it up. Think Ron, think!"

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Dear Ron,

Things had been going pretty well in Los Angeles since you arrived - quite frankly we are surprised it took you this long to cause a distraction.  We just have one question:

How in the F did you trip and get a concussion and hurt your elbow so bad that you needed stiches?  I dont want to hear about tripping over a box - I want to hear the goddamn truth.  

Chuck Burton - AP

MJ: "Damn You got with her too?" TW: (Sheepishly) "yeah" White Dude: (Thinking to himself) "these f-ing guys"

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Dear Tiger,

You've had a tough couple of weeks bro - it must suck having the world all up in your business, especially since you've been such a private son of a bitch. BTW I heard you just broke the record for most consecutive days on the cover of the New York Post.  Who'd you knock off...none other than MF-ing 9/11!  Well since the last two or so weeks have been your own personal 9/11 I figured I submit to you a list of questions that we are all are dying to hear the answers to.  Get back to me soon, get it all out on the table, fuck Oprah.

1.  We're at 16 how many more are there gonna be?

2.  Which one was the hottest? That Rachel Uchitel was banging, but that Jamie Grubbs looks wild..

3.  No black chicks huh?  You couldn't throw one in there?  Do you really hate black people like they say?

4.  Does Ambien really make it that much crazier?

5.  Why weren't you more discreet?

6.  Is Elin a flat backer?

7.  Were you high,drunk, or pilled the fuck out at the time of the crash?

8. Was Elin beating your ass before you jumped in the car?  Is that why you hightailed it out of there?

9.  Have you and Mike Weir (Weirzy) ever had a threesome?

10.  Ballpark, how much are you gonna lose in the divorce?

11.  How much would you have paid for all this never to have happened?  Seriously 200 mil?  Be honest.

12.  What do you consider to be your best win?  I'd say the '97 Masters

13.  Most black guy's don't give chicks head, your thoughts on the matter?

14.  What was up with that one bitch from the waffle house?  She was nasty.

15.  Where'd you get hooked up the best in Vegas?

16.  Did Barkley and Jordan know you were so pussy crazed?

17.  You've used the same Scotty Cameron putter since the 2000 U.S. Open, right?

18.  Who'd you rather - Natalie Gulbis or Paula Creamer?

19.  Are you coming back for the '10 Masters?

20.  Why in the fuck did you get married?

More photos » David J. Phillip - AP

"Damn Spike I know I am F-ed, what would you do?"

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Tiger's day's of listening to his dick are seemingly over.  Now TIger actually has to pay attention to the advice that his people who are paid millions of dollars per year give him.  We at Project Franchise don't really see any way to make this situation any better any time soon.  However we are counting on our community members to be good decision makers.  If you were in charge of rehabilitating Tiger's image what would your plan be? Please submit your best action plan and we will post the smartest/funniest/most creative on our front page.  We are interested in hearing what the Project Franchise Community thinks because in time you will be helping make real decisions that actually matter.