Where oh where has our bench gone?

[Green Blood]

Our poor starters.

They way things are looking they won't be able to save their energy for the playoffs.

Securing home court throughout will be no easy task in the recently revitalized East.

The bench was the key to banner 17 in my opinion. Their inspired play allowed the starters to stay fresh during the regular season. Their contribution in the playoffs was the difference in pretty much every series.

Now that PJ retired we have no reliable back up for Perk. Sure Baby and Powe aren't scared to bang, but they also fall about half a foot short of the 7 feet you need to defend the average NBA center. And don't even mention this O'Bryant kid. I'll believe he's NBA caliber when I see it. Right now he sounds like has about as much upside as Mark Blount in a non-contract year.

We have two pretty good options backing up Garnett. I like Baby and Powe against almost any second string 4. So, at least one of the big 3 can take a breather without a significant drop off in production occuring at their position.

The three is just abominable. For Pierce to sip on some Gatorade we need to insert Scalabrine, or one of two as of yet unproven rookies. Now Paul will happily play heavy minutes, but if he goes down to injury we will start Scal? And he will be backed up by a 2nd round draft pick? The answers as of now to the aforementioned are probably, and probably. Hopefully Bill Walker will render this debate moot, and place Scal back firmly at the bottom of the depth chart but that remains to be seen.

The two is in just as bad shape as the three at the moment. Assuming we don't resign House or T.A. Ray Allen will be backed up by a first year player. If we resign T.A. I would feel pretty good about the depth chart at the two spot. With the savings from not signing Posey we should be able to ink T.A., and House too for that matter.

The point is precarious. Rondo is Rondo. He is a freak and we are lucky to have him. He did a wonderful job this past season, but he has a lot to work on. Backing him up we currently have just Gabe Pruitt. Pruitt made some noise in the D-League, but he is unproven at this level. Even if we resign House he isn't a point guard. He can bring the ball up sans pressure and he sure can fill it up, but he ain't gonna cut it in the playoffs.

Now we all know that Danny hasn't even gotten started. We could ink both House and T.A. with the money saved on Posey. We could trade either Baby or Powe because they are redundant for the most part. We could sign Jannero Pargo (I find this an interesting possibility). We could and hopefully will do a number of things.

As of now though I would not put anything more than a $20 on us hanging banner 18 a year from now.

Good luck Danny. You, sir, have your work cut out for you.

[crownsy]

Our poor starters.

They way things are looking they won't be able to save their energy for the playoffs.

Securing home court throughout will be no easy task in the recently revitalized East.

The bench was the key to banner 17 in my opinion. Their inspired play allowed the starters to stay fresh during the regular season. Their contribution in the playoffs was the difference in pretty much every series.

Now that PJ retired we have no reliable back up for Perk. Sure Baby and Powe aren't scared to bang, but they also fall about half a foot short of the 7 feet you need to defend the average NBA center. And don't even mention this O'Bryant kid. I'll believe he's NBA caliber when I see it. Right now he sounds like has about as much upside as Mark Blount in a non-contract year.

We have two pretty good options backing up Garnett. I like Baby and Powe against almost any second string 4. So, at least one of the big 3 can take a breather without a significant drop off in production occuring at their position.

The three is just abominable. For Pierce to sip on some Gatorade we need to insert Scalabrine, or one of two as of yet unproven rookies. Now Paul will happily play heavy minutes, but if he goes down to injury we will start Scal? And he will be backed up by a 2nd round draft pick? The answers as of now to the aforementioned are probably, and probably. Hopefully Bill Walker will render this debate moot, and place Scal back firmly at the bottom of the depth chart but that remains to be seen.

The two is in just as bad shape as the three at the moment. Assuming we don't resign House or T.A. Ray Allen will be backed up by a first year player. If we resign T.A. I would feel pretty good about the depth chart at the two spot. With the savings from not signing Posey we should be able to ink T.A., and House too for that matter.

The point is precarious. Rondo is Rondo. He is a freak and we are lucky to have him. He did a wonderful job this past season, but he has a lot to work on. Backing him up we currently have just Gabe Pruitt. Pruitt made some noise in the D-League, but he is unproven at this level. Even if we resign House he isn't a point guard. He can bring the ball up sans pressure and he sure can fill it up, but he ain't gonna cut it in the playoffs.

Now we all know that Danny hasn't even gotten started. We could ink both House and T.A. with the money saved on Posey. We could trade either Baby or Powe because they are redundant for the most part. We could sign Jannero Pargo (I find this an interesting possibility). We could and hopefully will do a number of things.

As of now though I would not put anything more than a $20 on us hanging banner 18 a year from now.

Good luck Danny. You, sir, have your work cut out for you.

i'd be more concened if it wasen't for the fact that 10 months ago these threads were coming up about our old bench. how'd that turn out?

[RockinRyA]

Our poor starters.

They way things are looking they won't be able to save their energy for the playoffs.

Securing home court throughout will be no easy task in the recently revitalized East.

The bench was the key to banner 17 in my opinion. Their inspired play allowed the starters to stay fresh during the regular season. Their contribution in the playoffs was the difference in pretty much every series.

Now that PJ retired we have no reliable back up for Perk. Sure Baby and Powe aren't scared to bang, but they also fall about half a foot short of the 7 feet you need to defend the average NBA center. And don't even mention this O'Bryant kid. I'll believe he's NBA caliber when I see it. Right now he sounds like has about as much upside as Mark Blount in a non-contract year.

We have two pretty good options backing up Garnett. I like Baby and Powe against almost any second string 4. So, at least one of the big 3 can take a breather without a significant drop off in production occuring at their position.

The three is just abominable. For Pierce to sip on some Gatorade we need to insert Scalabrine, or one of two as of yet unproven rookies. Now Paul will happily play heavy minutes, but if he goes down to injury we will start Scal? And he will be backed up by a 2nd round draft pick? The answers as of now to the aforementioned are probably, and probably. Hopefully Bill Walker will render this debate moot, and place Scal back firmly at the bottom of the depth chart but that remains to be seen.

The two is in just as bad shape as the three at the moment. Assuming we don't resign House or T.A. Ray Allen will be backed up by a first year player. If we resign T.A. I would feel pretty good about the depth chart at the two spot. With the savings from not signing Posey we should be able to ink T.A., and House too for that matter.

The point is precarious. Rondo is Rondo. He is a freak and we are lucky to have him. He did a wonderful job this past season, but he has a lot to work on. Backing him up we currently have just Gabe Pruitt. Pruitt made some noise in the D-League, but he is unproven at this level. Even if we resign House he isn't a point guard. He can bring the ball up sans pressure and he sure can fill it up, but he ain't gonna cut it in the playoffs.

Now we all know that Danny hasn't even gotten started. We could ink both House and T.A. with the money saved on Posey. We could trade either Baby or Powe because they are redundant for the most part. We could sign Jannero Pargo (I find this an interesting possibility). We could and hopefully will do a number of things.

As of now though I would not put anything more than a $20 on us hanging banner 18 a year from now.

Good luck Danny. You, sir, have your work cut out for you.

i'd be more concened if it wasen't for the fact that 10 months ago these threads were coming up about our old bench. how'd that turn out?

exactly

[BballTim]

The bench was the key to banner 17 in my opinion. Their inspired play allowed the starters to stay fresh during the regular season. Their contribution in the playoffs was the difference in pretty much every series.

  The key to winning banner 17 was having the best starting 5 in the game. The bench was decent, not great but not awful.

[wdleehi]

If this is the bench for opening night, then I will be worried.


As long as there are players out there that the Celtics can get, I am not going to worry.

[Jeff]

that's funny, I hadn't even thought of it that way before

here's our Championship bench (in order of importance - up for debate of course)

Posey
House
PJ Brown
Powe
Big Baby
Cassell
Tony Allen
Scalabrine
Pollard
Pruitt

here's what's left so far

Powe
Big Baby
Scalabrine
Pruitt

of course, you can now add O'Bryant and maybe Giddens and Walker

still, pretty thin huh?

Bob Ryan's panic article should be coming any day!

[Evantime34]

If this is the bench for opening night, then I will be worried.


As long as there are players out there that the Celtics can get, I am not going to worry.

To expand on what was said I won't even be that worried if we don't end up with a great bench by season open. There will be buyouts and player dumps at the deadline, we'll be fine.

[klg05]

that's funny, I hadn't even thought of it that way before

here's our Championship bench (in order of importance - up for debate of course)

Posey
House
PJ Brown
Powe
Big Baby
Cassell
Tony Allen
Scalabrine
Pollard
Pruitt

here's what's left so far

Powe
Big Baby
Scalabrine
Pruitt

of course, you can now add O'Bryant and maybe Giddens and Walker

still, pretty thin huh?

Bob Ryan's panic article should be coming any day!

Ooh, that is scary!  You don't realize how bad it is until you see it in print like that.  Hopefully, Danny will bring back Eddie House and maybe Tony Allen.  Let's remember that neither P.J. or Sam were there until March.  I love Leon.  And Baby seems to be working very hard this summer to stay in shape.  Hopefully they will both be better next year.  And I know some people think Gabe Pruitt can be a decent back-up for Rondo.  Eddie would be a better back-up for Ray, I think.  Now if we just had Posey to back up Paul.....Oh, that's right!  He won't be walking through that door!  That sucks!

[rondofan1255]

Of course the roster looks bad right now. The status of E. House is still uncertain; same goes for Tony Allen.

However, Danny is not going to fret because of how it looks now; the media has been his harsh and often-wrong critic literally his whole managing career. Let's patiently wait and see what happens before pressing the panic button.

Patience is the key (sounds redundant albeit).

Posey was overrated and underrated in some aspects, and I guess I can say that fans developed a bond between key bench players like him, to overgauge his value. Also, we won the championship, so of course we HOPE that things stay the same.

[td450]

Let's say we sign Tony Allen, which is very realistic. With a little luck, the range of defensive roles provided by Posey could be covered by committee. Between Tony, Giddens and Leon/Big Baby, the full range is covered defensively. Giddens is the only question mark, and he certainly has the physical tools to be a strong defender.

As far as poise and toughness is concerned, the team won it all, and that brings with it a lot of experience and confidence up and down the roster. I think they will need less of that than last year.

The shooting is an issue, but otherwise, these guys are going to give more offensively to the second unit than Posey. 

We have a very appealing situation and some money to draw someone in later. I'm not worried, and I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with one of the league's best benches. Some of the younger guys are likely to get better.

[Montrossity]

Of the bench players who actually played minutes over the course of the main part of the season last year, we only have lost Posey with the chance of losing Allen and House.  There is a lot of time left to resign those two and get a replacement for Posey, and you can be sure that players such as Pruitt will be primed for playing a larger part in the team this time around.

To panic at this point in time is premature and silly.  Relax and see where the offseason takes us.  Plus, there is always that end of the year period where contenders pick up all sorts of buy out players and semi-retired guys to fill out the bench.

[steelbos]

We got along most of last season with Powe and Davis playing minutes during the regular season, and this year should be just fine for the regular season. The guy to keep an eye on at deadline is Mourning, as he has stated that he will be ready to go in 6 months. He could be the veteran C we need for the playoffs, if not, try to get PJ to play for another half season again. Who is to say that O'Bryant can't play defense? Isn't that what we need at backup C? Our frontcourt is just fine at this point, it is the backcourt, swing possitions that we need depth.

[hwangjini_1]

the main subtractions from the bench are posey and brown.

both were helpful for sure. but neither were superstars that defy replacement.

GUARDS: i believe allen and house will return. combine this with pruitt and the 2 rookies and there is depth at guard. it has more question marks than i like, but with that mix in place, ainge will be able to pick up another vetern (ala cassel) as the season moves along.

SF: again, allen can place along with the rookies in some matchups. but this area will need addressing by ainge and may be the biggest weakness of the bench right now. but it seems that sf is also the position that is easiest to get talent at in the nba. who ever follows posey will not be posey, but they might bring something to the team that is as helpful.

for example, even a fair one-on-one defender can look good in the celtics schemes. maybe someone such as barnes would bring much better shooting and point production than posey did. so all is not lost here. ainge can bring a nice bench player in before the season.

CENTER: here it is harder to get a good back up. POB? i hope he pans out, but i need convincing that he is a "new man". powe and BB will be fine against most benches. but if perk is hurt, then trouble will appear. this should be ainges top priority i think.

so, the bench is not miserable or doomed. one or two moves by ainge and it could be a real strength.

[jdub1660]

[/quote]
To expand on what was said I won't even be that worried if we don't end up with a great bench by season open. There will be buyouts and player dumps at the deadline, we'll be fine.
[/quote]

Perfectly said. Maybe we could just workout who's out there and see if they'll fit, but also wait till the deadline starts coming up. Players will be available. Expect Antoine Walker to get bought out, along with Starbury, and whoever else their respective teams don't want for the future.

[Edgar]

: Where oh where has our bench gone?

New Orleans
or
Retirement House