Surgery for Rob (out 8-12 weeks)

[Moranis]

In about two weeks, we went from being declared the deepest team in the league to being desperate for quality bench players.

who declared Boston the deepest team in the league?  certainly no one that knows anything about basketball.  Not with a team of only 10 quality players and 5 worthless spots on the bench.

ESPN did - check their 30-team analysis article from a couple of weeks ago, before our guys started dropping like flies.

They didn't say it, they said it was arguable, but it was also a throw away comment without any real thought behind it.  I don't for a second believe that anyone that actually looked at a team that has 5 of its 15 spots either not filled or filled with players that haven't ever played a meaningful minute in the league would be the deepest team in the league.  The only thing arguable would be the top 10.  Boston arguably had the deepest top 1-10 in the league before the injuries mounted up, and that is just arguable.

[Roy H.]

In about two weeks, we went from being declared the deepest team in the league to being desperate for quality bench players.

who declared Boston the deepest team in the league?  certainly no one that knows anything about basketball.  Not with a team of only 10 quality players and 5 worthless spots on the bench.

ESPN did - check their 30-team analysis article from a couple of weeks ago, before our guys started dropping like flies.

They didn't say it, they said it was arguable, but it was also a throw away comment without any real thought behind it.  I don't for a second believe that anyone that actually looked at a team that has 5 of its 15 spots either not filled or filled with players that haven't ever played a meaningful minute in the league would be the deepest team in the league.  The only thing arguable would be the top 10.  Boston arguably had the deepest top 1-10 in the league before the injuries mounted up, and that is just arguable.

I'm curious, where would you rank our depth if Brad woke up out of his Flea Market Finds mode, and brought in a couple of real veterans?  Say, Carmelo and Cousins (or Whiteside or D12)?

He won't, and with a 34 year old coach who was third on the depth chart last season, maybe that's fair.  But, would that be sufficient depth in your mind?  (And yes, we should have used the TPE.  No argument there.)

[Vermont Green]

I don't know if we were absolutely the deepest team prior to the Gallinari and RWill injuries but I agree with ESPN that we were "arguably" the deepest (it is somewhat subjective at best) and certainly deep enough to make another long play off run.  But now we aren't.

I think if we were to add Whiteside or Cousins, we would be deep enough again, at least once RWill is back.  Until RWill is back, we are deep enough to get by (a lot will depend on Vonleh).

Smart       White          Pritchard
Brown       Brogdon      Thomas(?)
Tatum       Hauser        Jackson(?)
Horford     GWill           Vonleh
RWill        Whiteside     Kornet

To me the soft spot is back up SF.  That is a stretch for Hauser but he can really shoot.  Pritchard may end up playing more than Hauser so this isn't necessarily a problem, at least not until someone gets hurt.

If the benchmark is for a team to be deep enough to lose 2 of their top 4 bigs (1 starter and 1 core bench) and not suffer from it, that seems like a pretty unrealistically high bar.  We were plenty deep before the injuries, "arguably" the deepest team in the league.  Not sure how you can be critical of an off season where we added 2 stellar bench pieces (Brogdon and Gallinari) to one of the best core rotations in the league.

[Moranis]

In about two weeks, we went from being declared the deepest team in the league to being desperate for quality bench players.

who declared Boston the deepest team in the league?  certainly no one that knows anything about basketball.  Not with a team of only 10 quality players and 5 worthless spots on the bench.

ESPN did - check their 30-team analysis article from a couple of weeks ago, before our guys started dropping like flies.

They didn't say it, they said it was arguable, but it was also a throw away comment without any real thought behind it.  I don't for a second believe that anyone that actually looked at a team that has 5 of its 15 spots either not filled or filled with players that haven't ever played a meaningful minute in the league would be the deepest team in the league.  The only thing arguable would be the top 10.  Boston arguably had the deepest top 1-10 in the league before the injuries mounted up, and that is just arguable.

I'm curious, where would you rank our depth if Brad woke up out of his Flea Market Finds mode, and brought in a couple of real veterans?  Say, Carmelo and Cousins (or Whiteside or D12)?

He won't, and with a 34 year old coach who was third on the depth chart last season, maybe that's fair.  But, would that be sufficient depth in your mind?  (And yes, we should have used the TPE.  No argument there.)

It would certainly help if Howard and Anthony were on the team because they have been meaningful role players on good teams over the last couple of seasons.  You need those type of guys i.e. the guys that can play solidly at 10 mpg, but can also start and play 25+ minutes when needed and not kill the team.  It really is unacceptable that Boston hasn't brought in some quality vets for the bench and instead is looking at reclamation projects.  A team allegedly competing for the title can't have 5 reclamation projects on the roster.

[Phantom255x]

Now you wonder if it was worth letting that TPE just expire.

The saying in baseball for the playoffs is often, "you can never have enough pitching". Well for the NBA I think that's kind of true in the sense that you can never have enough options on the team especially in the postseason. Golden State showed this in the Finals where we struggled mightily with bench production after Game 1. Now we're missing Gallinari for a season, Timelord for a while and I still think we're a player short even with Brogdon added.

[MarcusSmartFanClub]

At this point, I don’t want to bring in anyone that could upset the chemistry in the slightest. Tatum and Brown should be the leaders, and Horford is the elder statesman. They need more players that will take a back seat and provide quality minutes while hustling. This doesn’t sound like Carmelo Anthony.

[MarcusSmartFanClub]

Now you wonder if it was worth letting that TPE just expire.

The saying in baseball for the playoffs is often, "you can never have enough pitching". Well for the NBA I think that's kind of true in the sense that you can never have enough options on the team especially in the postseason. Golden State showed this in the Finals where we struggled mightily with bench production after Game 1. Now we're missing Gallinari for a season, Timelord for a while and I still think we're a player short even with Brogdon added.

I think the Celtics can add veteran role players during the year if they’re competing for first in the east.

[Roy H.]

Jared Weiss: I haven’t heard anything indicating there would be an earlier time frame than the 2-3 months. I just saw him walking around the other day. He’s got a single crutch on the side where the knee (surgery) is. He’s basically using it as a big cane essentially to support his walking. He’s walking pretty gingerly. It’s not like he’s full on limping, but he doesn’t look like he’s putting all of his weight on his knee the way he normally would, and he’s not doing full strides like he normally would. I think he’s definitely got a ways to go before getting back out there, and I’d presume they’re going to go on the more conservative time of this time frame because he’s already come back a few different times in his career, and the results haven’t been good. They’ve got to take as much time as they can because if he goes down again for this injury, you’ve got to worry about his career at that point.

[jambr380]

Jared Weiss: I haven’t heard anything indicating there would be an earlier time frame than the 2-3 months. I just saw him walking around the other day. He’s got a single crutch on the side where the knee (surgery) is. He’s basically using it as a big cane essentially to support his walking. He’s walking pretty gingerly. It’s not like he’s full on limping, but he doesn’t look like he’s putting all of his weight on his knee the way he normally would, and he’s not doing full strides like he normally would. I think he’s definitely got a ways to go before getting back out there, and I’d presume they’re going to go on the more conservative time of this time frame because he’s already come back a few different times in his career, and the results haven’t been good. They’ve got to take as much time as they can because if he goes down again for this injury, you’ve got to worry about his career at that point.

Appreciate the update, but think Weiss is being a bit dramatic. We were told Rob was going to be out 2-3 months and that is still the plan. How he is currently walking (so soon after his surgery) or what might happen to Rob's career if he gets hurt again isn't really relevant to the original prognosis.

[SHAQATTACK]

Painful to even read .  He was so important, when he was healthy the team turned into a steam roller.

Warriors were fortunate he was crippled up.