Giddens, Walker, and O'Bryant are young chips that Danny wants to develop.
This is my big problem with losing Posey. We are going to contend next year, and we have a lot of young guys rostered right now that are absolutely NOT ready to contribute to a title run. We have no idea what we're going to get from:
O'Blount
Giddens
Walker
Pruitt
We really needed a guy like Posey who is a proven commodity off the bench.
Is Kurt Thomas a proven guy off the bench? If the Celtics signed him, KG would only ever have to play PF instead of so much time at C. Powe and Davis could relieve him for the remainder of the PF minutes. That leaves Pierce playing his 36 -38 MPG at SF which leaves just 10-12 minutes per game of Posey's 24 MPG left to fill. Bill Walker as a rookie or a cheap fillin like Barnes or Wells can fill in the rest.
Posey played 24 MPG last year about 13 MPG at PF and 11 MPG at SF. So in essence you are filling in Posey's minutes with a combo of 13 minutes of KG, Powe, and Davis all who no longer have to play center and 11 minutes of Walker and a free agent.
So Posey's bench presence is replaced almost exclusively by proven bench people or KG with the possible exception of the few minutes Walker picks up.
To properly replace Posey the Celtics do not have to get a Posey replication.