Celtics has a financial budget restraint due to not owning fleet center and high debt ratio (around 46%) according to Forbe magazine. Last year, they spent around $84.3 millions dollars on players' salary (jump from $67 millions the year before). According to DA, they overspent on the budget last year (i.e. owners made a little or no money last year). So far this year, they spent around $74 millions already on the salary. So had they spent on Posey, they would only sign minimum salary players.
Anyway, we all wish the owners to be Cuban, but Celtics' owners are not Cuban. They want to make money (or at least no lose money) on the team. Of course, fans don't care about that, but we need to realize that Celtics organization is business as well.
Pats (1.2 billions) and Red Sox (816 millions) are not good comparison. Celtics only worth $391 millions dollars.
A Tommy Point on your first post, well done!! An excellent and different way of looking at things and it demonstrates exactly why the Celtics need to exercise caution and financial prudence.
Resigning Posey doesn't do anything more to get this team closer to winning a championship than any other move or group of moves will. His presence is not some special "Go directly to the Finals. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200." card. All his presence does is put confidence in the fans due to the familiarity of what we had and that it is still here.
But a mentor of mine once told me that there is a million ways to make a million dollars. The same result often can be reached by taking different paths.
Danny chose, for reason of his own knowing that his bench player that is 1st or 2nd off the bench, who has a deadly and timely three point shot but otherwise quickly eroding offensive game, a very good defensive game against larger more physical 2s, 3s, and smallish quick 4's, and who produces only about 7.5PPG, 4.5RPG and 1 SPG isn't worth, due to every contract that gets signed from this point on this year $11 million in salary and penalties and at the very least another $19 million over the next 3 years.
Danny stated in an interview that with Posey playing the 4 they were not a successful time. Danny and Doc may have decided that with their half court offensive proficiency playing big is a better option for them. If so Posey's presence would only then been religated to playing behind Pierce which is a significant decrease in minutes. The cost may not have been worth it.
If indeed the team will be playing a more conventional lineup or big lineup next year because the management and coaches feel that is a better game for them than Posey would not be as important in that scheme as possible players Danny may pick up.
Speculation? Absolutely, 100% of it. But if that is what management is looking to do, then thye deemed Posey expendable and too expensive.
Also can we please stop with the "if the Big Three were young stuff then the move would be okay". NBA Champions, with the exception of the 2000 and 2002 Lakers have all been teams with average age being 28 years old or older going all the way back to the early Bulls teams. With the exception of taking the two best basketball players on the planet who neither were older than 29 when they won their third and last championship together and putting them on the same team, NBA Champions are older teams.
It's been pretty much an axiom in the NBA forever. Older experienced teams win championships. You say if they were three years or more younger than signing Posey was the right move. I say if they were 3 years younger they wouldn't have been mature enough to blend their talents and win it all. They wouldn't have been NBA champions. So can we please stop using that saying. They won because they are older and wiser and more experienced.
The team has their older core together and in place and like the Spurs of 2004, they have some very young and promising talent around it that could, because of their presence around the veteran core, move this team forward in the coming years like Parker and Ginobelli did with the Spurs.
With the exception of the Bulls and Lakers every team has been talking about a window of opportunity since the 90's Pistons. That window hasn't closed or isn't any less open because James Posey won't be on the bench collecting $5.6 million paychecks and playing 20 or less MPG over the next 4 years. Others will be brought in and melded into the experienced older core and the youth will grow faster and better because of their proximity to the older core.
I think that with good drafts, smart trades, wise financial planning, mixed with an astute eye for talent and where that talent is heading, and proper player development and integration to the team this team can still win a couple of championships over the next 5-6 years not just 2 years. But if management overreacts and overspends everytime someone's contract expires or someone gets injured, they will never win another championship.
Patience people. Let's wait til opening day or at least until Danny has 14 players signed before labeling a Posey leaving as the reason for the Celtics falling back into some serious decline(overstatement but you get the point)!
Nick, if there were quality options left on the board I'd agree in total with you. But with all due respect, I don't. We have a couple of years left to chase a title, and I frankly don't see us moving toward anything resembling adequate championship-caliber replacements - one player or a combination - for Posey, PJ Brown or, for that matter, Eddie House.
We've already significantly downgraded at the big - I simply cannot fathom how any coach can turn an apathetic, lazy, disinterested player into a championship backup. The ONLY thing I like about O'Bryant is his size - having seen him play in person, there's simply nothing else to like, and I speak from experience - you can't just flip a switch and turn effort on. If money didn't motivate this guy in GS, then what will? I'll be stunned - and happily willing to admit I'm wrong - if O'Bryant ends up as anything but cut. Danny has said he's done signing bigs, and I find that fact more disturbing, frankly, than the Posey situation.
And despite what several post here, there's no easy replacement for Posey, either, unless we get lucky with an MLE to Childress. Quinton Ross can replace the defense, but I've got more offense than he does. Matt Barnes' game isn't at a championship level, and neither is Mo Evans. No rookie's going to fill the bill. People bounce all over the league for a reason.
When the games start next year, we're going to miss PJ Brown. Desperately. Probably more than Posey, actually, who we also will miss.
Danny will put a bench together good enough to beat the Knicks. But it's going to be extremely difficult to put a bench together that can whip the Lakers when Perk is down with a shoulder injury, Pierce's knee is hurting and Rondo's rolled an ankle. We are not off to a good start toward that goal, in my opinion, and I'm curious about the motivation for the bad start.
Topic: Signing Posey gave C's best chance to win a title. It did? (Read 56373 times)