Scoop B: The Boston Celtics have considered signing Carmelo Anthony

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

There's injuries every year. Kawhi won a championship due to injuries. As did Giannis. And the Cs lost the championship largely because of the physical toll/injuries they went through to get there contrasted with the Warriors.

[gouki88]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

[Kernewek]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

I think it makes some sense:

If you think that the Celtics wouldn't have beaten a healthy Milwaukee in the playoffs, changing the team to provide you a better chance against Milwaukee this year should do a good job of getting the C's back to the finals.

It's a flight of fantasy, but it does have it's own logic.

[Moranis]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

I've argued that all off-season.  That Boston needed to the approach the off-season like they had lost to the Bucks.  Boston benefitted from Middleton's injury significantly.  Frankly, Boston benefitted from Butler and Herro being injured in the ECF as well, though I think they still might have beaten Miami.  Boston would have lost to Milwaukee if Middleton had been healthy though.  The closeness of that series absolutely yields that conclusion. 

I've also said pretty consistently that the addition of Middleton (and Ingles) is better improvement than the addition of Brogdon and Gallinari (before he was injured) such that I felt Milwaukee should be the favorite and is the best team in the East.  Boston wasn't far behind, pre-Gallo injury, but because of that I really wanted Boston to use the TPE.  I think the addition of one or two more solid rotational level players on the bench could have elevated Boston above Milwaukee.  Now the gap is even greater and it is a lot harder to close the gap with the players reasonably available for what Boston has available to it i.e. the smaller TPE's and vet minimums. 

[celticsclay]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

Yet he has posted this 15 times in the last three months.

Also completely fails to take into account that jrue is 32, Middleton is 31, lopez is 34 and their star off-season acquisition is 35 and recovering from a torn acl. But hey it is any other team besides Boston so everything is rosy.

[Roy H.]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

I've argued that all off-season.  That Boston needed to the approach the off-season like they had lost to the Bucks.  Boston benefitted from Middleton's injury significantly.  Frankly, Boston benefitted from Butler and Herro being injured in the ECF as well, though I think they still might have beaten Miami.  Boston would have lost to Milwaukee if Middleton had been healthy though.  The closeness of that series absolutely yields that conclusion. 

I've also said pretty consistently that the addition of Middleton (and Ingles) is better improvement than the addition of Brogdon and Gallinari (before he was injured) such that I felt Milwaukee should be the favorite and is the best team in the East.  Boston wasn't far behind, pre-Gallo injury, but because of that I really wanted Boston to use the TPE.  I think the addition of one or two more solid rotational level players on the bench could have elevated Boston above Milwaukee.  Now the gap is even greater and it is a lot harder to close the gap with the players reasonably available for what Boston has available to it i.e. the smaller TPE's and vet minimums.

Note:  You also have to fact in the Timelord injury.

Also, it's probably semantics between you and Gouki.  We shouldn't "treat it as they've lost in the East Semis", because we didn't.  You can't ignore what the team accomplished simply because another team had injuries.

But, we probably should treat it like the Bucks have as much, if not more talent than us, and that beating them last year doesn't mean a lot.  They're improved, and we need to improve, as well.

[celticsclay]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

I've argued that all off-season.  That Boston needed to the approach the off-season like they had lost to the Bucks.  Boston benefitted from Middleton's injury significantly.  Frankly, Boston benefitted from Butler and Herro being injured in the ECF as well, though I think they still might have beaten Miami.  Boston would have lost to Milwaukee if Middleton had been healthy though.  The closeness of that series absolutely yields that conclusion. 

I've also said pretty consistently that the addition of Middleton (and Ingles) is better improvement than the addition of Brogdon and Gallinari (before he was injured) such that I felt Milwaukee should be the favorite and is the best team in the East.  Boston wasn't far behind, pre-Gallo injury, but because of that I really wanted Boston to use the TPE.  I think the addition of one or two more solid rotational level players on the bench could have elevated Boston above Milwaukee.  Now the gap is even greater and it is a lot harder to close the gap with the players reasonably available for what Boston has available to it i.e. the smaller TPE's and vet minimums.

Note:  You also have to fact in the Timelord injury.

Also, it's probably semantics between you and Gouki.  We shouldn't "treat it as they've lost in the East Semis", because we didn't.  You can't ignore what the team accomplished simply because another team had injuries.

But, we probably should treat it like the Bucks have as much, if not more talent than us, and that beating them last year doesn't mean a lot.  They're improved, and we need to improve, as well.

Roy I think most of us would admit that it would be possible we would lose to bucks if they had Middleton but we also had a shell of Robert Williams the entire playoffs. The larger issue is presenting an opinion as absolute fact. It is very far from a certainty we would have lost to the bucks if both teams were at full strength. We were the best team in the east by basically all metrics the last 3 months of regular season. Kind of obnoxious to act like that wasn’t the case.

[KG Living Legend]

 The Warriors should act as though they lost to the Celtics.  They benefited significantly with Tatum, Timelord,  and Smarts injuries.  Heck Smart and Timelord are still not 100% as of right now.

[celticsclay]

 The Warriors should act as though they lost to the Celtics.  They benefited significantly with Tatum, Timelord,  and Smarts injuries.  Heck Smart and Timelord are still not 100% as of right now.

This is also a really good point. You can literally look at any single champion from the last 20 years and point our a guy being injured here or there. I have never really seen a fan of a team harp on the fact that one player who is a fringe allstar missed some games meaning the team should of have lost the series. I would get if we like beat the Cavs 5 or 6 years ago because Lebron was out or if we got to play the Bucks without Giannis. But we had our own guys banged out and I do think there is a reasonable chance if Tatum was healthier we could have won that series. against Warriors.

[Donoghus]

 The Warriors should act as though they lost to the Celtics.  They benefited significantly with Tatum, Timelord,  and Smarts injuries.  Heck Smart and Timelord are still not 100% as of right now.

Somehow, I think being rational here will prevail and the Warriors are sleeping quite comfortably at night.

[Moranis]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

I've argued that all off-season.  That Boston needed to the approach the off-season like they had lost to the Bucks.  Boston benefitted from Middleton's injury significantly.  Frankly, Boston benefitted from Butler and Herro being injured in the ECF as well, though I think they still might have beaten Miami.  Boston would have lost to Milwaukee if Middleton had been healthy though.  The closeness of that series absolutely yields that conclusion. 

I've also said pretty consistently that the addition of Middleton (and Ingles) is better improvement than the addition of Brogdon and Gallinari (before he was injured) such that I felt Milwaukee should be the favorite and is the best team in the East.  Boston wasn't far behind, pre-Gallo injury, but because of that I really wanted Boston to use the TPE.  I think the addition of one or two more solid rotational level players on the bench could have elevated Boston above Milwaukee.  Now the gap is even greater and it is a lot harder to close the gap with the players reasonably available for what Boston has available to it i.e. the smaller TPE's and vet minimums.

Note:  You also have to fact in the Timelord injury.

Also, it's probably semantics between you and Gouki.  We shouldn't "treat it as they've lost in the East Semis", because we didn't.  You can't ignore what the team accomplished simply because another team had injuries.

But, we probably should treat it like the Bucks have as much, if not more talent than us, and that beating them last year doesn't mean a lot.  They're improved, and we need to improve, as well.

Boston was 3-1 in the 4 games Timelord was out, went 1-2 to start the series with him.  Once he left, Boston actually was a lot better.  Now some of that may have been his hobbled self was actually a detriment in the first 3 games, but it also has to be accounted for how much better Boston played without him.  He was also, at best the 5th best player on the C's last year.  No where near the same level of impact of Middleton, who is obviously better than Rob, but also far more important to the Bucks success.  Brown being out would have been comparable to Middleton.  Giannis just wore down in games and the series as he was being relied upon for so much of the offense, both creating for himself and others.  They would have been a much different team with Middleton and given how close they were without him, they would have beaten Boston and probably repeated as champion.

[gouki88]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

I think it makes some sense:

If you think that the Celtics wouldn't have beaten a healthy Milwaukee in the playoffs, changing the team to provide you a better chance against Milwaukee this year should do a good job of getting the C's back to the finals.

It's a flight of fantasy, but it does have it's own logic.

I don't think we should engage in any fantastical hypotheticals about what might have happened last season (we being the actual players and staff). We beat Milwaukee (without Middleton, but similarly with a banged up TL). We also beat Miami.

We are the reigning Eastern champs. We did not fluke that. Engaging in thoughts of "we really should have been knocked out earlier" is loser behaviour.

[kraidstar]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

I think it makes some sense:

If you think that the Celtics wouldn't have beaten a healthy Milwaukee in the playoffs, changing the team to provide you a better chance against Milwaukee this year should do a good job of getting the C's back to the finals.

It's a flight of fantasy, but it does have it's own logic.

I don't think we should engage in any fantastical hypotheticals about what might have happened last season (we being the actual players and staff). We beat Milwaukee (without Middleton, but similarly with a banged up TL). We also beat Miami.

We are the reigning Eastern champs. We did not fluke that. Engaging in thoughts of "we really should have been knocked out earlier" is loser behaviour.

Agree 100%. The vaunted Warriors exploited our injuries and took the title and don't have to question the legitimacy of it.

It's sad our own fans are holding us to a different standard 

[Ed Monix]

The Boston Celtics are "not expected to have interest" in signing veteran forward Carmelo Anthony ahead of training camp, according to MassLive's Brian Robb, who added:

"That's not to say the team is done shaping the roster ahead of the preseason but Anthony isn't a priority at this point at names that could be brought in. Boston likes a lot of their internal replacement options from what I’ve heard and want to give those names the first crack at minutes."

[celticsclay]

Brogdan isn’t the final piece

Does he help, yes, but to say Boston has upgraded there bench depth to win a championship is ridiculous

They still need a legit Shooter and a 5

I would be open to trading and signing for more depth

To think this Team is going to play in a championship series again as constituted is delusional

Folks have to remember the Celtics benefited from Middleton sitting out in the Bucks series last season. As such, the C's should/need to treat it as they've lost in the East Semis.

This makes literally no sense.

I think it makes some sense:

If you think that the Celtics wouldn't have beaten a healthy Milwaukee in the playoffs, changing the team to provide you a better chance against Milwaukee this year should do a good job of getting the C's back to the finals.

It's a flight of fantasy, but it does have it's own logic.

I don't think we should engage in any fantastical hypotheticals about what might have happened last season (we being the actual players and staff). We beat Milwaukee (without Middleton, but similarly with a banged up TL). We also beat Miami.

We are the reigning Eastern champs. We did not fluke that. Engaging in thoughts of "we really should have been knocked out earlier" is loser behaviour.

Agree 100%. The vaunted Warriors exploited our injuries and took the title and don't have to question the legitimacy of it.

It's sad our own fans are holding us to a different standard

I agree with you both strongly. Verity strange negative fantasy land that discredits our team.