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.
Nick, with all due respect, I have lots of problems with this analysis. I think you are assuming some wrong premisses. For example, this stats-based statement - Posey played 24 MPG last year about 13 MPG at PF and 11 MPG at SF - is simply inaccurate. Let me play Socrates a little bit here: in your scenario, who's Ray's backup? Walker, who plays more like a PF than a SF? Barnes, who's already slow for a SF?
http://www.82games.com/0708/07BOS8C.HTM
82games.com says Posey played 26% of all the PF minutes for the team last year. 26% of 48 minutes is 12.5 minutes so I rounded it up. I didn't exactly pull out the calculator to do the math at the time.
http://www.82games.com/0708/07BOS11C.HTM
82games.com has Garnett playing 13% of all the center minutes for the Celtics last year. That's about 6.4 minutes a game he played center. If he doesn't have to do that then those 6.4 minutes replace 6.4 minutes of Posey's 12.5 he played at the PF position. Give the rest of those minutes to Powe/Davis. That would in my estimation at least come to a break even in total performance for those minutes.
That leaves the 11-12 minutes of Posey's time that needs to be replaced at SF. Give Walker 4-5 minutes and then a vet minumum type like Barnes/Wells/Ross to pick up the slack.
Socrates, what the hell does Ray's backup have to do with replacing Posey's minutes if I have none of Posey's minutes being backed up by a SG?
So, who the heck was Ray's backup during the playoffs? House never played at the 2, Tony Allen played garbage time plus.. what? 10 minutes? Of course, Pierce can play the 2. But in that case, he'd only be able to play 28 minutes at the 3, his strongest position - what a waste - and in that case, your reasoning that "just 10-12 minutes [would be left] 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" is completely wrong. You'd need Walker or Barnes or Wells to play 20 minutes at the 3. And Walker is, well, the 47th draft pick for a reason; Barnes is a sure bet to be burnt by most SFs in the league and he doesn't fit at all the weakside winger role in our team (he is not a threat from the 3pt line; he can't provide rest to the starters on the defense - can you imagine him guarding Prince or Rip?) and Wells... let's just say that Byron Scott was right when he decided to cut his minutes drastically in the playoffs decisive games.
I'm fully aware of what 82games&all stats say. My point is that they don't give an insightful perception of the dynamics of the team. In fact, during the playoffs, when Posey was rotating in the wing, he was always playing at the "2" on the offensive side (filling Ray Allen's primarily role, even when he was playing along Ray) and guarding the opponent's best wing on the defensive side.
I'm not worried about the regular season at all. What I want to address is the shortened rotation, 8-9 men, for the playoffs.
a combo of Thomas and Barnes/Wells/Ross and DWest/Dooling Well, there are six combos there. And I believe some of them aren't very realistic. For example, West will be making $2.7M next season, playing as a starter. What are we offering to make him give up that to be a backup here and, perhaps, more importantly, to force Cleveland to lose their starting point-guard? Enough to still add the other two pieces? What if Thomas doesn't come, what will be your theory then? And would you, as a coach, play Rondo and Ross simultaneously? Define a precise combo
With Posey this team played a lot of small ball. Many times to the detriment of the team. Maybe getting away from that with a traditional center combo at the center position, keeping KG at his natural and preferred position all of the time with Powe/Davis as his backup and using some combos behind the rest of the starters that fit naturally in those positions will benefit the team as a whole.How would the team be benefited by having less flexibility? I cannot agree with this. And your assumption that Perkins and Thomas would fill the entire minutes at the 5 is very risky. Perkins is not going to be a 35 mpg player (stamina, fouls) and Thomas can't be trusted to play 15/20 mpg in every playoff series. He's a good player, but he's 6'9''. Do you know why Popovich cut his playing time to 9mpg versus the Lakers? I'm pretty sure Pop would rather have PJ than Thomas during that series.
Edit: Eddie House could be that combo guard as well. Maybe even a better choice than either Dooling or West.
Agree, but in that case you're saying that a Thomas+Barnes/Wells/Ross combo is better than a Brown+Posey one. I vehemently disagree. And it will be the same problem again: House is only a combo guard offensively. He can't guard 2s like Joe Johnson, Rip or Kobe. That's why Doc only used him as a point. Then, you'd need someone to guard 2s because Ray isn't playing 48mpg. Barnes can't do it, so he's out of the equation if we keep House. Etc. Etc.