Detroit has a better starting lineup than Boston in part because they have the best player on either team (without Tatum). And before anyone cries foul, Cade was 3rd Team All NBA last year and finished 7th in MVP voting as a rising 23 year old 4th year player. He is going to better this year.
Also not sure why Ausar Thompson isn"t starting at SF since he did last year in his 2nd year.
Cade, Ivey, Thompson, Harris, Duren. With Hardaway instead of Ivey starting last year, that team won 44 games. They should win more than that this year given everyone but Harris is still on the upswing. And with Strasser, Robinson, LeVert, Stewart, Holland, and Reed on the bench, they might be a sleeper to come out of the East if Cade takes the next step up and the other young guys have their natural progression.
They are pretty clearly still one piece away. They don't have a Jaylen Brown-Jaylin Williams 2nd banana. I don't think Ivey is that guy.
I like their team and how they are building, but calling them a sleeper is a big-time stretch.
Ivey is an excellent shooter and certainly has 20 ppg potential, though may be best suited as a 3rd scorer and not 2nd. I really like Duren down low, but obviously is not a shooter at all. If he can develop a mid range shot, it will really unlock something for them, but even if not he doesnt miss in close. I think Thompson is the guy that can make some big strides though. If he can get his scoring up to even like 15 pog, it will help a lot. So Cade in the upper 20's, Ivey around 20, and then Thompson, Harris, and Duren in the 12-15 range is enough scoring from the starting unit. They have some solid shooters (Robinson, LeVert) on the bench and Holland who turned 20 last week. Outside of Harris, Robinson, and LeVert the team is basically all still on rookie contracts and they have a lot of very high draft picks on those rookie contracts. I think they will be a lot better this year and they won 44 games last year and pushed the Knicks hard. Honestly they should have gone for someone like Holiday. He'd have given them a steady hand, but even without that, I think 50 wins and home court in round 1 is very doable for them. Do that next year in a conference without any dominate teams and who knows what they can do (like the 4th seeded Pacers last year).
For being as negative as you are toward the Celtic roster, you are pretty gracious toward a very middling Pistons roster.
Again, I like what the Pistons are doing, but to call them a dark horse is a bit much.
The Celtics roster is garbage after Brown, White, Simons, PP, and Hauser, and those guys are all smalls. It is poorly constructed and lacks depth. It also isn't young. I mean Simons is the youngest one of that group at 26, but he is entering year 8. He'd be the 4th oldest Piston as only Harris, Robinson, and LeVert are older than him. Pistons are young with a lot of high level draft picks. They won 44 games last year. They are on the up swing, Boston is not. Now sure if Boston had a healthy Tatum and still had KP and Jrue (Kornet and Horford wouldn't be bad either), this upcoming season would be a lot different. Boston would rightfully be the favorite in the East (even after losing to the Knicks), but Tatum blew out his achilles and everything changed. Boston isn't the favorite, dumped Jrue and KP, watched Kornet and Horford leave, and have no big men worth a crap on the roster. The top 5 guys though are good enough to keep Boston from truly bottoming out, which is absolutely what they should do this season. They need that uber high draft pick to get back to contending.
Topic: without PREDICTING injuries where do you rank Celtics out of east?s 15 Squads ? (Read 2360 times)