When I first started watching the Celtics in 04-05, I thought I understood what Danny was trying to build, so I was hopeful, but as the years passed, it didn't appear that he really had any clue as to what he was doing, both through the draft and especially with trades. Still, after he had assembled a championship team that was DEEP and had the right combination of players, I thought that at last he knew what he was doing, and that he wasn't going to make the same mistakes that had occurred when he was a player, namely in terms of those teams rarely having a bench, but then he drafted Giddens, and then compounded his mistake by letting Posey - our glue-guy, our Michael Cooper - go, and once that happened I knew that we weren't going to repeat. In 2009 he attempted to rectify the situation, but he still came up short, imo, especially when there were so many inexpensive moves that could have been made to further bolster our bench, and he only got worse from there, imo, robbing the Fantastic Four of at least one more title. I honestly think that everything started to go wrong on the night of the 2008 draft. Ugh.
How can anyone complain about letting Posey go? Dude signed a four year deal. He was decent for the first year, awful for the next two, then so bad in the fourth year that Indiana cut him and no team bothered picking him up even though he couldve been had for vet minimum. Dude was spent, and Ainge and company knew it. The Celtics were already in luxury tax territory, and piling on that awful Posey contract would've made it worse.
I'll never understand why the owners who fit the bill of a payroll close to $70-80 million, or whatever the exact figure is/was, complain about a 'luxury tax.' Really, guys? How much money do you make, again? I'm not saying that the Celtics should become the Yankees in terms of payroll, but trying to 'do it on the cheap' never works. Look at Miami last year - they released Mike Miller, and a couple of other key guys from their 12-13 squad iirc, because their owner didn't want to pay the luxury tax, and look what happened. They tried to replace Miller with Michael Beasley
- how did that work out for them, lol? You don't think that his three point shooting and defense would have helped in the Finals - because I do. Not having him wasn't the sole reason why they lost, but you have to admit that he could have been a big help. It just doesn't make sense to me - you're trying to three-peat, and now you're going to be cheap? You only get one chance at making history like that, especially with Wade's knees
, so, imo, you go for it, because, if you were their owner, in 10-20 years, what would you regret more - losing a bit of cash, or losing a title? Right. Tickets to these games are astronomically expensive, but you don't want to pay a luxury tax? Come on.
In our case, it's not just that Ainge didn't re-sign Posey - it's that he also failed to find suitable guys to replace our 6th man, leaving us with Tony Allen
. I think you might be forgetting just how versatile Posey was, defensively. He could guard positions 2-4, especially when the power forward of your opponent is Rashard Lewis, Antawn Jamison, or Lamar Odom, and there was no one else with that type of ability that we could have gotten, because the only other guy with similar attributes was Tayshaun Prince, and we had nothing to offer the Pistons. Posey was our glue guy, a leader in the clubhouse and on the floor, a big game player, and hit so many big shots for us throughout the playoffs. Go back and look at the clip of our record 24 point comeback in game 4 against the Lakers - he's the guy who hit those crucial threes. I just thought, and still feel, that it was an epic blunder by Ainge to let him walk. So you overpay for one extra year - who cares? Something might have turned up, like David West being available for a sign-and-trade, and Posey's contract would have been a match, but even if it didn't, it's only one more year, anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1-50cf-ZJo