Thanks for the response, ThePaintedArea.
1) It looks like offense is up everywhere in the NBA. Going with Isaiah Thomas means we are not going to be defined as a Memphis. It takes a balance between offense and defense. I gave up on Memphis once we beat them. They are a menace to score on, but they are very easy to defend.
Maybe we are better at defense than it seems. We lost a lot of players this year early in the season which may have skewed the stats. Since starting 3-4, we have gone 30-14. 30-14! I see I messed up in the opening post saying we were 3-6. My bad. I'll fix that.
I agree our defense is not as strong this year. But I think our offense has improved more than our defense has fallen. We are all Isaiah at this point.
2) Maybe Blake Griffin could have been a perfect fit. But this isn't a video game which allows for trades and GM moves. It seems a bit premature to discuss next year's free agents. If we are going to do that and be cynical, we might as well angle for Cousins when he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
How much is Blake going to cost? Isn't he sort of weak on defense? Isn't he clearly damaged goods or at least his long-term health is in question? Al will eventually reach $30 million. Blake will cost that much or close? What happens then when we have Isaiah and Bradley in need of new contracts? Are we going to have a combined player budget of $150 million?
I guess maybe you could time it so when Horford and Griffin contracts run out, you refill their contracts with other stars. But that was Danny's original strategy with Paul, Ray and KG, and we know how that turned out. We went right back to scrub, league dregs status.
3) We agree. If a position is already filled, why create an awkward logjam?
4 and 5) I speak of risk in regards to the laws of physics. We could trade for those guys, but it would be too expensive. There would be no guarantee of it working. This would become Cousins' team. He would cost so much more than KG did. When we traded nearly everything for Kevin, we really had nothing to lose except for maybe Al Jefferson.
Maybe Butler isn't as much of a diva who's never won anything, but he acted like it recently with broken down Wade who used to be a top player.
I think the Celtics' motto is the team is the superstar. If we add on Butler, Cousins, Blake, players like that, our budget space will take a hit and we will become no better than Miami or Cleveland trying to buy titles. It worked out for those teams, but maybe because of Lebron being the best and able to will a lot of that.
I want ten years of competition, not an all-in that may or may not work, like Brooklyn tried. Cleveland is riding high right now, but I could see them returning to the bottom of the standings within a year or two, especially if Lebron decides to find himself another franchise to ruin in exchange for fleeting success.
6) Clamoring for Hayward would be no different than if back in the day people wanted to trade for Jeter or A-Roid and swap out Nomar. We were all set at shortstop. If I was a GM, I'd work with what I have and try to build on it, not stockpile the team with redundant players. Like Phoenix with three point guards or Philly with three centers.
7) The point differential has me worried the most. It seemed a couple points higher last year. But I am hoping Ainge gets us a center or Amir and Al Horford find the fountain of youth. Amir looked young yesterday. He's turning 30 in May. He has a lot of wear and tear from coming into the league early, but he seemed fine yesterday, and no way is he only six foot nine. He looks taller than Horford, although Al tends to crouch more with Amir tending to stand upright.
I don't want Danny to do anything rash. I don't want him trading for a big name. The grass is not greener. We are the green. We have the greenest grass by definition. You don't want to use a bazooka to shoot down a mosquito. That to me would be making a big trade. We signed Horford. We didn't have to give up anything for him.
Poll
Topic: The next 15 games will decide the season (Read 1426 times)