Picks 'n Pops: Lonnie Walker's road block, a game-changing shoe, and yearbook photos

Every week I gather some thoughts about the Celtics, the NBA, and beyond and dump them here. Because it's part of the documentary Glen Davis gets to finish before he starts his prison sentence.

- The biggest roadblock to Lonnie Walker IV making an impact with the Celtics will be how cool he is with not playing some games. 

There will be games where he’s really good. There will also be games where his streakiness is super frustrating. When that happens, Joe Mazzulla has the option of sitting him down after a bad stretch and not putting him back in. There will also be games where other guys clearly have it and Mazzulla will ride the hot hand. 

If Walker is cool with that situation, then welcome aboard. If he’s going to have an issue with that, then he can move on. 

He’s talented enough to be a big plus for this team, but he’s not so talented that it’s worth jeopardizing team chemistry. It’s his choice. 

- That said, he seems ready to accept whatever role is coming his way. 

- For those who don’t know, Walker cut his signature dreadlock look off a few years ago for very personal reasons, which he shared on Instagram: 

“The real truth as to why i started doing this early 5th grade, it was a cloaking device for me. During the summer of my 5th grade year I was around more family. Some that names will be left alone I was around more. I was sexually harassed, raped, abused, I even got accustomed to it because being at that age you don’t know what is what. I was a gullible curious kid that didn’t know what the real world was. I had a mindset that my hair was something that I can control. My hair was what I can make and create and be mine. And it gave my confidence.”

He shared his story so he could make a difference for someone else who had gone through something similar. So if any of us were wondering if he is strong enough to handle adversity, I’d answer that he’s handled the worst adversity of his life already. 

- The loss of Matthew and Johnny Gaudreau is gutting. Tragic doesn’t do it justice. 

- Jayson Tatum opened up about his disappointment at the Olympics, telling The Athletic he saw what everyone was saying about him, but “I wasn’t moping around. I didn’t have an attitude. I wasn’t angry at the world.”

Tatum is just too even-keeled to let this stuff bother him too much. As much as people keep saying they want to see obvious fire from Tatum, it’s just not happening unless a ref misses a foul call.

- Cooper Flagg signed with New Balance. 

"The connection with New Balance as a family company and a company with Maine roots means a lot to me," Flagg told ESPN. The connection to Flagg is going to mean more to New Balance. 

I’ve considered NB a fringe player in the basketball space, but this changes everything. If Flagg is everything he’s hyped to be, he can be New Balance’s Michael Jordan. 

LET ME STRESS -- this is not a comparison of Flagg to Jordan as basketball players. PLEASE READ THAT SENTENCE OVER AND OVER AGAIN. 

Nike had no basketball market share before Jordan. The league was all Converse. Nike was a running shoe. 

New Balance has more market share than Nike did, but people still see New Balance as a major player in the running world more than anything. If Flagg comes along and is a rookie sensation, he will do similar things for that company.

Of course, they need a killer design to make it work. The Jordan 1 is an iconic design. NB needs to wow with its first Flagg shoe. This could present a major shift in the industry. 

- THAT WAS NOT A COMPARISON OF FLAGG TO JORDAN AS A BASKETBALL PLAYER. 

- David Ortiz on being a Celtics fan and watching fellow Dominican Al Horford win a championship is cool to hear: 

- In a speech at West Virginia, Mazzulla said he’s trying to figure out the mental hurdle that has kept the last nine champions from getting out of the second round the next season. 

The answer is success. 

I believe your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness and in the Celtics case, winning the championship is their greatest obstacle to winning a second one. 

They spent all last season studying and preparing for a test, and they aced it. Now they know the answers. 

How hard do you work on a test when you know all the answers? Are you putting in the same study time? Are you doing the extra work to make sure you have it all down pat? 

The hardest thing for a champ to do is work exactly as hard the next season. All last season guys were talking about not skipping steps. Now some of those steps can be skipped because they’ve already been done, but is skipping those steps detrimental to the task at hand? 

This is Joe’s challenge. 

- Mazzulla recently visited Patriots practice to hang out with Jerrod Mayo. 

- Shout out to Celtics assistant DJ MacLeay, who went to Latvia to help oversee Kristaps Porzingis’ rehab. 

August is actually a great month to visit Latvia. I’ve never been, but I bet a free trip out to a country on the Baltic Sea at this time of year is actually pretty nice. 

Oh and Porzingis seems to be progressing well with no adverse impact on his timeline for return in late December. 

- Connecticut and Indiana are on track to face each other in the first round of the WNBA playoffs. If you haven't been watching, now will be a great time to see just how special Caitlin Clark really is. 

The Sun have to watch out. Clark has the Fever in a great place. She’s going to run away with Rookie of the Year and if Indiana pulls an upset, her legend will reach another level. 

- Anthony Edwards is a moron for saying Michael Jordan was the only skilled player of his era. Have some respect for the people who laid the groundwork for you to become a billionaire.

It was the skill of the players of Jordan’s era, off the backs of the skill of the Larry Bird and Magic Johnson era, that saved this whole league from ruin. 

Edwards is talented and his brashness is entertaining, but ignorant comments like that should be called out. It’s an incredibly dumb thing to say. 

- Steph Curry just signed a one-year, $62.6-million extension. He might actually become one of the rare NBA lifers in today’s league. I never expect anyone to finish their career in one place anymore. It would actually be kind of cool to see.

- Happy Birthday Robert Parish.

- No seriously, I was not comparing Flagg to Jordan as a basketball player. 

- Whose job is it to get the Larry O’Brien trophy everywhere it’s been this summer? It’s in a new city every day.

- In lieu of my own AI-generated image, I present to you the Celtics AI-generated thread of high school yearbook photos in honor of everyone going back to school. 

Derrick White is my favorite one, but it’s a close call between all of them. 

- Here’s my latest podcast, if you’re bored.