How many Rings If we got Big Al back 2008

[KG Living Legend]

 Hypothetically if we won the first title and then gave up all the picks we could for BIg AL in 2008. Do we three peat?

 I say Garnett never gets hurt, becuase what got him hurt is when we lost PJ Brown and Posey Garnett played way to much. It would also gaven us a needed rebounder and scorer.

 I think three titles in a row would have happened.

 Garnett
 Jefferson
 Pierce
 Ray Allen
 Rondo

 Perkins, Tony Allen, Big Baby, Eddie House, Leon Powe

 Big Al would have been huge back then.

[YoungOne87]

I think Big Al is very overrated.

Poor defense, low shooting percentage for a center and cant get to the free throw line.

But we had no picks anybody would have wanted at that time anyway...

[Celtics4ever]

Wishful thinking, I would say zero.

[ederson]

The only thing between Celtics and multiple trophies was KG`s health and not his partner under the rim

[Moranis]

Every so often this board has contemplated what would have been better KG or Pau and Al since acquiring Pau probably wouldn't have required Big Al.  I've never really seen it contemplated in this manner, because why would Minnesota trade for Big Al and then trade him back to us.  Just seems weird.

[TheTruth34]

Likely even more impactful - drafting Marc Gasol (over Pruitt) in 2007 or Deandre Jordan (over Giddens) in 2008.  But of course, hindsight is 20/20.

This is not an attempt to be overly critical of Ainge  -> feel very fortunate that the Celtics have one of the best GMs in the game.   Truthfully, the injury to KG wiped out a likely repeat title in 2009.

[nickagneta]

Every so often this board has contemplated what would have been better KG or Pau and Al since acquiring Pau probably wouldn't have required Big Al.  I've never really seen it contemplated in this manner, because why would Minnesota trade for Big Al and then trade him back to us.  Just seems weird.

Agree. Not the most well thought out scenario in the world(I am being kind).

I mean if we used the Brooklyn pick and Marcus Smart to trade for Love would it make any sense whatsoever for Cleveland to trade back Smart for other picks or players?

[BudweiserCeltic]

Every so often this board has contemplated what would have been better KG or Pau and Al since acquiring Pau probably wouldn't have required Big Al.  I've never really seen it contemplated in this manner, because why would Minnesota trade for Big Al and then trade him back to us.  Just seems weird.

Agree. Not the most well thought out scenario in the world(I am being kind).

I mean if we used the Brooklyn pick and Marcus Smart to trade for Love would it make any sense whatsoever for Cleveland to trade back Smart for other picks or players?

Yeah. That said he was traded in the Summer of 2010, so the right scenario I'd think would be if he could've been acquired by the trade deadline of the 2009-2010 season, how many championships would that have netted?

I was big in the idea of pairing KG with Jefferson. They seem like perfect complements to each other, and I'm of the believe that they could've done some damage together.

So moving the timeline a bit from 2008 to 2010, I think we at least might've won that elusive 2nd championship on that same year in 2010.

Then in 2011 we once again would've had a great chance at it. We ran into Miami, but that team was quite exposed in the interior. More than that, Garnett had a [dang] good season that year, and Al Jefferson for all his health issues, played that full season.

The 2011 Finals where the ones which Dallas destroyed Miami, I think our team would've put a much better show against them, I dare say destroy them.

So I think in this hypothetical, I'd say at least 2 championships more were more than attainable.

Then we have 2012, and we put a monster fight in those playoffs as it was, taking the Miami juggernaut to 7 games in the Playoffs. That same year, Jefferson wasn't the healthiest though. He came back for 2nd half of the season and had a monster playoffs against the Spurs. This would've been a difficult playoffs regardless, but I think we could've managed a good fight all the way through the Finals.

After that it gets tricky. Does Allen remain? Is Garnett a shell of himself? Is Pierce a shell of himself? I could see us putting a good fight on 2013, but less assured. Jefferson at least was very healthy that year.

In this scenario, which I don't think it's as absurd as it seems (acquiring Jefferson again considering that Minnesota was ready to move him, it would be a matter of finding the value), I don't think it would've been far-fetched for our team to win at least 2 more championships in that span of time when considering how we performed and how Jefferson performed in those years.

Of course, with different personnel one can't count on chemistry and all that, but I'm confident that such a team would've worked out fairly well.

Edit: Sorry, had to edit the post a bit. The Game Logs in ESPN are a mess with the wrong years attached to them.

[celtics2030]

Let me put it this way


The core of Allen  , Pierce, and Garnett if were younger and primer, they had a chance to win it every year....

They just got together at a later time and ran into some all time greats.

I mean its that simple. Its the normality of the game, younger players get to that point where they take the helm.

But that big 3 if at the height of the careers would have been so scary to the league. I would take Allen Garnett and Piece over any big 3 of the last 20 years or so, not named jordan pippen ___

[Rosco917]

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