Alright, I enjoy thinking about the future of the Celtics.

 

Obviously, I’m enjoying this season immensely. But KG, Pierce, and Ray won’t last forever. Pierce is 32, KG is 33, and Allen is 34. Historically speaking, the odds of all three retaining optimum effectiveness for the next few years is quite small. Obviously the league has been sprinkled with examples of players staying good late in their careers, but by and large the odds of that happening to three players on the same team is fairly small.

This is why I’d like to see the Celtics offer fair, even generous (for the length) contracts to Allen and Pierce that will expire in the 2011/2012. Additionally, I’d prefer to see no MLE or other contracts past that offseason either, with one exception. This is the offseason in which KG’s contract ends, as well as Sheed’s (assuming he doesn’t turn down the 6.7 million at the age of 37). It’s also the first offseason for any realistic shot at cap space. This, combined with the fact that during said offseason Pierce will be 34, KG will be 36 (with straightoutofhighschool wear and tear), and Ray will be 37, make this an optimal Rebuild point.

 

For Ray, this means a 2 year, 18 million dollar deal (9per) or so, essentially meaning that Ray and Rondo make the same percentage of cap space this year(18/2), next year, and the year after(9/11).  

 

For Perk, I’d try to extend him for a maximum of 9 mil/year. A little less than Rondo money. Try to get him for less, but lock down your defensive anchor.  Incidently, Perk will be 27 and Rondo will be 26 this offseason, just entering their primes.

 

For Pierce, it’s a little trickier, more sentimentality to balance with basketball moves. He’ll be 34; let’s say he wants to retire a Celtic a 3 year, 25 million dollar deal. Well, I’d say “Paul, we’ve got one more chance with the Usual 5 plus Sheed. Then we’ve really got to retool. So you want 25 million over the next three years, but we want cap space when KG’s off the books. So how about we give you a one year 22 million dollar deal (Bird Rights!), and you handshake agree to sign for the Vet min (or part of MLE) for the two seasons after. That’s 25 mill over 3 years, just with most of it up front and you retire a Celtic at 37 years old or so.”

 

Hard to see KG staying on at the age of 37 with his mileage. Although if he wants to hang out for the min with the young guys, great (he’s already banked what, 275 mil pre-endorsements?)

 

So if you notice, we have Pierce, KG, Ray, and Sheed all coming off the books and only Rondo and Perk under contract. We then renounce our bird rights on Sheed, Pierce, KG, and whomever else we’d signed (but not passed 2012!) meaning we’d have about 20 million (Or less if Perk takes less or has a more backloaded contract) in contracts with 35 million in cap room, or  close to enough for 2 max free agents!

 

Now, you can use cap space in three ways: facilitate a sign and trade with another team’s free agent (Players want this because they can get an extra year and bigger dollars), take on a contract for a token (or not so token) draft pick if another team wants to go in a different direction, or sign a free agent outright.

For the purposes of this post, I’m not going to consider trades for players under contract, because then literally every NBA player would be in play. I don’t have the time. But I will consider some free agent sign and trades.

So: who are the free agents that offseason? Let’s break down the possible free agents by type (not a fully comprehensive list; I didn’t go through the second rounders, for example, but pretty substantial):

Class 1: Classic, unavoidable free agents:

 

Hinrich

Kidd

Chauncey

Kaman

Ilyasova

Posey

Carter

Nash

Okur

Blatche

Jamison

 

Notes: as you can see, most young players seem to have options attached to their contracts while these older players are the ones with normal contracts. However, one name does pop out: Blatche. He’s still young (23 now, so 25/26 in our target offseason) and is a super athletic and ‘long’ PF really starting to come into his own with more PT (as his per minute production has always been good).

 

 

 

Class 2: If they want to wait

(These guys could become free agents in the 2010/2011 offseason, or they could play a year at high salary and enter free agency then. The upside to NOT playing out that last year is that you get locked into a long term contract sooner because you force a team to extend you/bid on you sooner. You don’t actually make much more in that first year, but your security is increased. Thus most often it’s the very good players that opt out early, while the older, overpaid players (players who’d get less on the open market) tend to play out that final optional year and then hit the market. Regardless, these are the players that could come out earlier, or they could wait a year and come out in 2011/2012)

 

Gerald Wallace

Mo Williams*

Matt Carrol

Carmelo Anthony

Nene

Turiaf

Charlie Bell

David West

Pietrus

Barbosa

Duncan

 

Notes: I could see Wallace, Nene, Williams, and possibly Pietrus, Turiaf, Barbosa and Bell waiting to come out. The rest (Melo and West specifically) would probably hit Free Agency ASAP (at least without some outside influence…more to come). And Duncan will never play for anyone but San Antone.

 

 

 

 

Class 3: Let’s jump out early!

(Opposite of the above class. These guys could get paid through 2012/2013, or they could opt out and hit free agency sooner, in our target year. Same general rules apply as above, so the better, younger players are more likely to become free agents in 2011/2012):

 

Diaw

Mo Williams* (he’s here twice because he has two options/ETOs. He could come out as early as 10/11 or as late as 12/13)

Maxiell

Gomes

Sessions

Chris Paul

Dwight Howard

Jameer Nelson

Brand

Louis Williams

Nocioni

Deron Williams

Arenas

 

Notes: Big names there. As above, I see Mo Williams staying under contract (would he make 9 million a year on the open market still?). Brand, Arenas, and Nocioni too. I could easily see Dwight opting out (Nelson too possibly), but to restructure with their current team as Orlando will probably still be good and have less income tax. But who knows. Gomes, Maxiell, and Sessions are question marks. I could easily see Paul, Deron, and Louis Williams opting out and hitting free agency though.

 

 

 

Class 4: Restricted Free Agents (aka Will someone please overbid?)

(Basically the entire first round 2008 draft class. Again, as a refresher, these guys are free agents so can be offered full contracts, but if the original team matches, the player has to stay. The player can ask the team not to match (some teams may not want to sign a player who doesn’t want to be there for fear of tanking and sulking), OR can tell the team to work out a sign and trade by threatening the original team that he’ll play out his qualifying option year and hit unrestricted free agency, giving the player a no trade clause and allowing the player to leave after one additional year with the team getting nothing in return; that’s the route Ben Gordon/Chicago took. Or you can overpay so that the original team doesn’t want to match).

 

Essentially the 2008 draft class (though some will sign extensions before RFA, a la Rondo):

DJ Augustin

Rose

Anthony Randolph

Eric Gordon

Mayo

Beasley

Love

Brook Lopez

Courtney Lee

Gallinari

Westbrook

DJ White

Speights

Bayless

Fernandez

Batum

Jason Thompson

Donte Greene

George hill

Javal McGee

 

 

 

Class 5: Thanks, but I really didn’t want to stay here!

(These guys take the Ben Gordon route. Either they and management couldn’t ever agree to an extension for whatever reason (like how teams are afraid of bidding for RFAs as opposed to UFAs because it ties up your money for a week of prime free agency and the player is getting lowballed by his team) or the player really didn’t want to stay with that original team and knew the team would match an RFA offer forcing him to stay, so he’s forcing his way out of town. In this case the player plays for the Qualifying Offer of his rookie contract (a decent raise over the previous season), gains a no trade clause, and enters UFA the following offseason. So this situation applies to any member of the 2007 draft class that decides their getting lowballed by their teams or really want to move to a larger market/better team):

 

Horford

Noah

Stuckey

Brandon Wright

Aaron Brooks

Thornton

Conley

Daquaen Cook

Mario Chalmers

Mbah Moute

Corey Brewer

Yi

Julian Wright

Wilson Chandler

Durant

Jeff Green

Thadeus Young

Dudley

Oden

Hawes

Nick Young

 

Notes: Again, some good players here. But rarely do rookies hit UFA. Most sign extensions or RFA contracts. I could see Oden’s situation dragging out due to injury, and same for Brandon Wright. Julian Wright as well because N.O. is a who knows management.  Noah and Horford both play on young teams with good players (expecially Horford), so it’s hard to see them opting out. But the prize of this group is Durant. I think Danny should be constantly in his ear (without leaving a paper or electronic trail) about the crowds and fans in Boston, what the small forward tradition in Boston is all about (hey Durant, how do you like the sound of this list: Havlicek, Bird, Pierce, Durant?). That he deserves to be on a stage steeped in the tradition of winning, not stuck in the middle of nowhere. Basically convincing him to take that QO year and control his own destiny. (As an aside, though specifically landing in Boston is a stretch, I really could see Durant wanting out from OKC. I do believe that, though young, that his teammates are not quite going to reach the ceiling some predict. I think Westbrook is overrated and his type frequently fails to live up to the hype.  I think Jeff Green gets more credit than he deserves. And Harden’s really looked not that great this year and may lack the requisite athleticism to really be something. They’re having a good year, but I think it’s mostly due to Durant himself. What if he’s finding himself in a Lebron type situation?)

 

 

 

So there we go.  Naturally, thinking about the above scenarios leads to some fantasy situations:

 

Situation 1: Turns out Westbrook is a tweener and Green maxes out at 6th man; Harden turns out to be too slow to be a real top 3 pick. Durant gets tired of playing in little OKC and decides he wants ot shape his destiny. Plus he knows Ainge likes him and Ainge has a few off the record conversations which get in his head; he realizes that he can form a core with Perk behind him and getting feeds from Rondo while still allowing Boston room for another Max free agent with Pierce coming back for the min. So he takes the QO and signs a max contract in Boston. With the rest of the money, Boston snags either Nene or Blatche at PF and someone like Sessions, Bell, Barbosa, Louis Williams at SG.  Pierce steps back into 6th man/crunchtime SG role; future is bridged.

 

Situation 2: Deron Williams wants out of Utah. He’s got the size to defend 2 guards and the shooting touch to pair with Rondo in an ultimate ballhandling backcourt. He opts out to come to Boston, Pierce stays at SF and the rest of the cap is for a Blatche/Nene/David West type and 6th man role.

 

Situation 3: Everyone knows that the most recent team usa team really bonded at the last Olympics. So Ainge has some off the record conversations with Carmelo and Chris Paul; gets them talking. They see Boston has Rondo and Perk nailed down and Pierce sticking around. They get to talking, and Melo tells Chris he’ll play out his contract and Chris decides to hit free agency a year early (which he most certainly will do anyway).  Anyway, they both hit free agency at the same time and unite in Boston. Who cares if CP3 or Rondo has to defend shooting guards? They’d get enough steals to make up for it, CP3 can space the floor on the offensive end with ease, and a core of Rondo, CP3, Melo and Perk with Pierce in there is pretty awesome. I’m sure Rondo could be dealt (3 years at 35 mil remaining) if they need a true shooting guard.

 

Situation 4: CP3 (Or Deron, but preferably CP3) opt out as expected. Because they duplicate our player, and Utah/NO know they’re losing their best player, they agree to sign CP3/Deron to a max deal and trade him and another goodie for Rondo (since they were going to lose him anyway, why not give up a first rounder for Rondo? That’s a steal, right?). So now we have a core of Perk and either Deron or CP3, with 26 million in space remaining. Enough to round out the roster with another Max agent and another, very good free agent.

Situation 5: What if Orlando starts to stink? Similar to the above situation, but Orlando opts to take back Perk in a Dwight S&T while NO does the same for Rondo; meanwhile either KD or Melo has been sweet talked by Ainge/CP in the handshake deal to play together. So then we’d have traded for Dwight and CP3 and still have enough for Melo/KD. Who cares who the rest of the roster is when the new big three is CP3/Melo/Dwight or CP3/KD/Dwight?

 

 

Obviously these situations are pretty far-fetched. I realize that. However, I also think there’s been some shift in the currents, and all the above players mentioned (Dwight, CP3, Deron, Melo, Durant) are all very tight with each other. If given the chance, I honestly could see them wanting to join together and take the league by storm right when they’re entering their primes. And here’s the thing: Simply by not having any contracts go past 2011/2012, we’d be in a position to allow at least two of those guys to play together for great fans on a team steeped in history, really cementing their legacies. Who’d resist that? Sure, depending on the specific situation there may be some roster duplication, but who cares? Great players can play together (I’m less worried about the backcourt than making Perk play the bench so Howard can start because they can’t play together). Additionally, they could always get traded. I think Rondo could play with either CP3 or Deron in the same backcourt, they’re fast and active enough to make up for one of them giving up some height on defense; offensively, it’s not like too much ability to handle the ball at an elite level is a bad thing.

The most common criticisms this season have been directed towards the play of our bench, or "second unit." I've set out to simply examine, to the best of my abilities, whether or not these criticisms have more than an anecdotal basis.

With the recent playing time of Gabe Pruitt, I think that we can mostly agree that the second unit consists of some combination of:

Pruitt, House, Tony, Powe, Scal and Davis.

 

Let's look at the big picture.

-In '07-'08, the most frequently seen lineup was

1. Rondo, Ray, Pierce, Garnett, Perkins. +388

 

-In '08-'09, the most frequently seen lineup has been

1. Rondo, Ray, Pierce, Garnett Perkins. +168

This makes sense. These are the starters, nothing has changed in the starting lineup; they play together most frequently.

Look a little closer: In terms of playing time, the next most frequently used lineups were/are:

-'07-'08:

2. Rondo-T.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins +74

3.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Garnett +15

4. House-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins +16

 

-'08-'09:

2. House-T.Allen-Pierce-Powe-Davis +24

3. House-T.Allen-R.Allen-Powe-Davis +13

4. House-T.Allen-Powe-Scalabrine-Davis -8

 

What's interesting here is that the data confirms an observation I made in the most recent Game Thread from Friday: In '07-'08, Doc's use of "Bench" meant mixing in bench players with AT LEAST 2 starters (in the above cases, just one bench player with 4 starters!), whereas this season, lineups 2 and 3 in frequency have just one starter, and the 4th most frequent lineup has NO STARTERS (I would like to note that for lineup 4 82games.com seems to have the lineup incorrect; I assume that Scal plays SF and Powe the PF position). In other words, unlike last season, this season Doc really is sending in nearly a full "second unit."

 

FYI, here are the rest of the lineups used this year and last, in order of most time on the floor together:

-'07-'08:

5.House-T.Allen-Posey-Powe-Davis -3

6.House-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Garnett +8

7.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Davis +9

8.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Powe +23 9.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Davis +4 10.House-T.Allen-R.Allen-Posey-Davis +33

11.House-T.Allen-R.Allen-Posey-Powe +19

12.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Scalabrine-Perkins +17

13.T.Allen-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins +20

14.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Perkins -18

15.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Pollard +31

16.Rondo-Pierce-Posey-Garnett-Perkins +7

17.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Garnett +25

18.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Davis +8

19.Cassell-T.Allen-Posey-Brown-Davis +6

20.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Powe -14

-'08-'09

5.House-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Perkins +15

6.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Powe-Garnett +30

7.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Davis +15

8.Rondo-T.Allen-R.Allen-Garnett-Perkins -5

9.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Scalabrine-Perkins +12

10.House-Pruitt-T.Allen-Powe-Davis +6

 

Again, let's look closer. In this current season, only two lineups used by the Celtics have been outscored by opponents, as indicated by the +/- number to the right of the lineup. This is an absolute number, so it is not adjusted for playing time.* But it does give us some ideas. For example, during the '08-'09 season, the lineup of House, Tony, Pierce, Powe and Davis has scored 24 more points than it has allowed. That's a success in my book, as it means a lead was increased while four starters were sitting. The two lineups that have been outscored over the course of this season are:

4. House-T.Allen-Powe-Scalabrine-Davis -8

8.Rondo-T.Allen-R.Allen-Garnett-Perkins -5

The previous season, there were only 3 units that were outplayed while on the court:

5.House-T.Allen-Posey-Powe-Davis -3

14.Rondo-R.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Perkins -18

20.House-T.Allen-Pierce-Posey-Powe -14

What this seems to show is that despite what a lot of us have observed, over the course of this season our bench has done a reasonable job of sustaining or even building leads. Perhaps because they are clearly not as good as our starters they seem to be doing worse than they actually are. Or perhaps the bench has periods of losing leads quickly, as many observe, but at other times slowly can build leads so that over the course of the season they have overall outperformed their opponents but we are left remembering the times they blew leads quickly while not acknowledging building a one or two point lead. I don't know for sure, but it seems like the problems with our bench are overblown.

When you also consider that the 6 bench players mentioned earn a collective 13.57 million compared to 65.95 mil for the 5 starters, the discrepancy is easy to understand. We can't expect a "second unit" of 4-5 bench players at a time to play as well as the starters do. It just can't happen.

 

Additionally, as someone who is on record with agreeing that Posey was not worth the 4 year contract he received from New Orleans, I would like to point out that Posey was involved on all of last season's outplayed units, as well as the feature bench player on the most frequent "all bench" unit, which was the 5th most common lineup used by the Celtics last year and was out-dueled over the course of the season. Put another way, in '07-'08, the top 4 most frequently used lineups had AT LEAST 4 starters. The first "mostly-sub" lineup was the 5th lineup of all bench players, presumably anchored by Posey, and that lineup was outscored over the course of the season; Posey was not quite the bench savior/leader off the bench we believe he was. I do not think he would make this season's "all-bench" lineups significantly better.

 

So, most important from this quick research?

-Doc is more committed to playing more subs together at the same time this year than last year.

-All-sub lineups did just as poorly last season as this season (or this seasons all-sub lineups have done just as well as last season)

-The bench has not been as bad as it seems this season

 

 

* For those that are curious, here's the teams +/- by unit adjusted on a per-minute basis:

08-'09

Unit/  "+/-" per Minute

1 0.291

2 0.247

3 0.194

4 -0.216

5 0.455

6 0.909

7 0.517

8 -0.238

9 0.632

10 0.333

07-'08

Unit/ "+/-" per Minute

1 0.369

2 0.465

3 0.105

4 0.162

5 -0.033

6 0.093

7 0.117

8 0.303

9 0.057

10 0.559

11 0.322

12 0.333

13 0.476

14 -0.429

15 0.795

16 0.184

17 0.658

18 0.242

19 0.188

20 -0.452

The purpose of this post is less to defend Hollinger (he is, after all, the one in discussion who is gainfully employed as a full time sportswriter...I don't think he needs any defending from myself)  than to attempt to correct some gross misconceptions observed on Celticsblog. The motivation is not so much due to how much or little I enjoy Hollinger's writing and ideas personally, but is rather due to a desire to continue the tradition of intelligent discussion on Celticsblog, rather than baseless babble.

As a caveat, Hollinger himself acknowledges the shortcomings of all of his rankings and statistics; no one thinks they are perfect.

And as one final, probably useless caveat (since too many people read what they want to read and not what is actually written) I do not think that Hollinger or his rankings are perfect or the be-all end-all. I think they are a valuable and often misunderstood and underrated part of basketball analysis. Nothing more, nothing less.


1. "All wins are equal"

This is simply not true. Yes, the BCS college system moved away from margin of victory in it's determining of school rankings. However, they did not make this change to create more accurate rankings, they did this because the public thought it was unsportsmanlike to watch Texas beat Northeastern South Dakota Tech by 70 points to help their BCS ranking. To appease the public and help remove the motivation for endlessly running up the score, the BCS removed margin of victory; however, were they able to still include margin of victory in addition to their other markers, they'd have a more accurate ranking.

The fact is, not all wins are equal. A blowout is more indicative of a superior team than a close fought victory. This is not only true logically (a truly great team does not need many games to hinge on one or two posessions down the stretch; a truly great team should have most games well in hand with time to spare) but has been proven time and time again by people researching the long-term overall relationship between margin of victory and win-loss record.


2. "He Put Them Too Low"

I don't know how many times this needs to be explained by posters here or Hollinger himself, but believe it or not, Hollinger has no rooting interest in placing teams high or low. Not only that, but he has no ability to place teams in any specific spot. Instead, what Hollinger has done is he has created a computer program incorporating data from all teams over the past 35 years or so that says: "Team A has 13-8 record with a 3.2 avg. margin of victory against opponents with a .549 winning percentage. In all other analyzed years, the average team with those statistics has finished at such-and-such a record with such-and-such playoff success, so maybe, logically, it would be most likely to expect a similar result from this team this year." Once Hollinger has written his prediction formula based only upon past results and data and not upon scouting or opinion, he has no ability to move teams up or down as he sees fit.


3. Specific Situations vs. Overall Odds

It seems like there is a huge misunderstanding of statistics around here. Statistics become more accurate with more data over a greater sample size and less accurate in more specific situations over less time and a smaller sample size. Thus Hollinger's rankings, while more accurate than most prognostications, can seem to be off-base when talking about a certain season, can be very awry when only looking at your favorite team, and can be completely askew when it comes down to 2 teams in one seven-game series. However, if Hollinger's predictions are wrong about your favorite team or a few playoff series go against his predictions, THIS DOES NOT MEAN HIS ANALYSIS IS INVALID! It simply means that these specific situations bucked their predicted trends. Which leads to...


4. What Is Statistically Significant?

Over long periods of time, shockingly small rates of success are statistically significant. All sports prognosticaters are wrong, and are wrong a lot of the time. Though some may have very good years, and very bad years, I'd be willing to bet that most prognosticaters are correct in their predictions about half the time over the course of their careers. Of course such talking heads love to ignore when they are wrong and endlessly point out when they are right to make it seem like they are right more often than not...but they are not. Take a look at Las Vegas. Over the course of history, I bet that the underdogs have covered very close to 50% of the time; that's how Vegas makes it's money. If you could be right even just 55-60% of the time, over a long period of time you'd make a lot of money. That's all we are talking about here, that's all Hollinger has to hit to be a well above average sports prognosticater. And that's over the course of the entire league, not just the Celtics. He doesn't need to be right about every team to be significantly better than average!


5. The Past Matters...Just Not How We Think It Should.

The past only matters in terms of determining and refining the formulas used to analyze current results, not in determining which team is better than others for the current year. Each year of data added makes predicting future seasons more accurate. It's very tempting and easy to say "well, Team B won it all last year, so they're the best team this year!" There are so many problems with such a statement, it's almost overwhelming. First, logically, how could this be true? At some point it would have to end, as Russell & Cous aren't winning titles anymore, sorry  to say. Additionally, when's the last time there was a repeat champion? It's been a while. Look at how bad Miami was the year after it's title and even worse the subsequent year; look at the dropoff Chicago had after exploding into the playoffs. So here's the question: when were those two teams bad again? By the logic of a lot of people on this board, Miami was the title favorite in '06-'07 until they were out of the playoffs, but this is not true; it was clear quite early that they were a much worse team than the year before. The same is true for Chicago; very early on it was evident that they needed to be re-evaluated and not judged on the past season's success.


6. "Our SOS is lower because we keep beating teams"

I don't really know what to say to this except that Hollinger clearly states that the strength of schedule of Team A is determined by finding the winning percentage of  all of Team A's opponents against all of their opponents except for against Team A. In other words, Team A cannot impact it's own strength of schedule.


7. Data Based on Past Results as a Predictor of the Future.

I really can't stress enough that Hollinger's predictions are not what he thinks will happen, it's an analysis of what has happened so far in relation to the history of the NBA. A team being ranked #1 does not mean that team is necessarily "better" than the #2 team, but that the #1 team has simply played better so far. However, analysis has shown that using such tools as predictors often yields more accurate predictions than predictions based upon other criteria; this is why Hollinger uses his method of analyzing results that are in the book to attempt to predict future outcomes.

8. The Current Cleveland Example

There are three teams playing phenomenally right now: Cleveland, LA, and Boston. Thus far, Cleveland has posted the most impressive results. I'm ok with that, and it has very little bearing on the actual outcome of a playoff series this year between the Cavs and Celts. Last year the Cavs outscored us in their series and we were able (fairly lucky) to win...the Cavs and Lebron are a very very scary playoff team. What Hollinger said in his PERdiem is basically that in any other year, a team playing as well as Cleveland has so far this season usually ends up winning the title. However, that is not the case this year because LA and Boston are also playing extremely well. But Cleveland has been a little more impressive thus far.  I'm not sure I see much wrong with that statement, as it's based upon the season so far and a lot can change. Besides, it's not exactly surprising. Lebron is pretty clearly the most unstoppable player in the NBA, and everyone has said that he needs to be surrounded by shooters and one scorer to help alleviate the pressure, and now he has that with Williams and a full season with West and Wally.


9. Above All, I Love the Celtics

And maybe tonight's +9 victory over the Jazz boosts us up a bit more.

I'll add more if/when I think of them.

 

Editor's Note: Ladies and Gentlemen, we have our first FanPost promoted to the front page!  This is a great example of what the FanPosts should be used for.  In other words, something longer than a paragraph or two.  Nice job Fan from VT! - Jeff

"Rondo needs a bump in minutes!"

"Pruitt’s ready for a mini-leap!"

"TA is finally healthy!"

"The Big Three still need there minutes!"

"House can play some 1 and some 2 but he needs to play!"

"Walker was a draft steal, coaches won’t be able to keep him off the floor!"

"O’bryant’s actually got some skills, he just needs some time!"

How many times have you witnessed or even uttered any of the above statements? All such ideas sound great in the offseason or taken in a vacuum, but what will happen once the season starts? And sure, we’d love to give Rondo, House, Pruitt, TA, and Walker all minutes, but someone has to play center, and someone has to sit. How will it shake out? I played around and wrote out one prediction for a possible division of minutes for the season laid out by position on the floor. Obviously, game to game circumstances would change some things. Some notes follow below. This is barring injury, of course.

Continue reading this post »