Suddenly 82games.com is not a credible source for information. Interesting theory. When you don't like the results of a report or proof, discredit the source, no matter how reliable or how little or non existant the proof thereof. You must be a lawyer in real life cordobes.
Show me that 82games.com is consistently wrong in their statistics and I will readjust my thinking. Until then the whole 82games.com is an inaccurate source for data doesn't register in my book.
I never said that Danny wasn't interested in signing Posey. I said that he admitted the team played worse when Posey played the 4. I said the team's poor performance with Posey playing the 4 might have been a reason why Danny thought Posey was expendable.
Another might have been the amount of years Posey wanted. I don't know. But Danny did feel Posey expendable, because he let him go. It is, after all, real easy in negotiations to offer something you know is going to be turned down for the sake of apprearances later on. That could be just as likely what happened as your interpretation that Danny really wanted him here.
I posted what I did to show that there's more to creating the 2008-09 Celtics, a team that during the regular season has to win enough to get to the postseason and then win enough to win the championship, than just plugging in names. You have to see what you have, what you can expect from what you have, decide how you want to best utilize what you have and then find players that move that plan forward.
You counter that by instantly saying what I am doing is misleading because of playoff matchups and how last years playoff matchups worked and so we must copy that format or only use that strategy to win and that throwing 25 million at Posey would have accoplished that? I am still at a loss to understand your point other than wanting to discredit what I brought forth to the discussion. I think breaking things down as to what you might expect to be missing and then how you might want to proceed is useful.
Somehow I am not surprised by your admission that if asked last year if some of the seemingly, extremely unlikely results I listed would happen, you wouldn't have been surprised back then by it. Because you just might have been one of the few on the planet who would have.
Lastly, if your entire point was that we are going to miss Posey because he played the 2 for a bit in the playoffs and that he supposedly played the 2 often this year(even if there is no evidence of this except in your own view of watching last year's regular season games, because statitcians didn't see it your way), why are you bringing it up in a thread discussing how to fill in holes on the bench. It seems to me that discussion belongs in another thread discussing Posey specifically, a thread that perhaps I ignored addressing just such a point in because I thought it had little merit even there.
I'm not a lawyer, thank God. And be sure that I'm not trying to hit or denigrate what you write; I enjoy reading your posts very much and you make lots of fair points and use very respectable arguments.
Now, I'm not saying that 82games is not a reliable source of information. It's my favourite stats site, by the way. What I was trying to say is that one can't take their by-position stats by face value - and it's not like they're doing something wrong; and have to be very careful using them to reach conclusions about the roles that players fill in any given team. And there's nothing "sudden" about my position: it's not the first time I express this stand, far from it, including in this forum.
Let me explain and then come back at me with your precise disagreements:
First, they allocate the player floor time stats by (a supposed) offensive positioning. This becomes very clear consulting the the stats of defensive specialist swingmen, like Bowen or Ross, that basically guard the opponent best scorer in the wings every night, no matter if it's the SG or the SF.
Second, and this argument is a little more complicated to make: basketball is not the same game it was 30 years ago. The 5 classic positions are not that important anymore. This is especially true for swingmen: modern offensive sets, mainly those related to motion-offenses, use a lot the concept of interchangeable wingers. Let's see Boston. For example, Doc used a lot a derivative of Walberg's AASAA offense, especially with smaller line-ups and Rondo as the pg. In that case, the wingers play very symmetrically, although Pierce was the primary receiver of the first dribble attack. Most of the other offensive sets shared a basic concept: a strongside winger (generally Pierce) and an off-the-ball one (generally Ray). When Posey was on the floor with Allen, Ray was assigned to Pierce's role and therefore Posey was playing as the "SG". The 82games stats don't reflect these nuances, because it would be humanly impossible to do so (for a free-access site; professional teams do it, of course).
This thread is about filling gaps. When a coach thinks about the gaps he needs to fill in his team, his mindset is not formatted in terms of positions, rather in terms of roles within the system. The role we want to replace, assuming we're set at the frontcourt, can, in a very simplistic way, be resumed to two main attributes - guarding the opponent best winger: this is a must, because when your starting swingmen are two of the best offensive players in the game, you don't want to have them always taking the hardest defensive assignment when the 3rd wheel is on the floor unless as an exception to the rule, because you want to save their legs (and fouls) to the offense as much as possible; - play as the weakside winger, because, once again, you already have two guys who are exceptionally good with the ball. So the optimal solution is someone who can guard at an above average level (not exceptionally, because there aren't many Bowens in the league) the 2 wing positions and possess a reliable long-range spot-up that provides spacing. All the other things are extra (speaking about Posey, hitting good screens, or the entry post passes, for example; another player can bring another secondary skillset - better handle, the ability to penetrate on recovering defenders, etc). This was the reason I thought that Maggette wouldn't be such a good addition.
This is why I don't like BC idea, for example, of having a backourt rotation of a combo-guard and a SF. We'd need a combo guard who can defend pgs and sgs (a rare commodity), a SF with dependable defense and both of them must have range on their shot (because Rondo can't). This can be hard to find with our limited assets in this very weak free-agent market, though certainly not impossible.
Oh, about Ainge's decision.. I believe one thing is undeniable and we can both agree on this: Ainge thought (and, in my view, correctly) that this team would be better next season keeping Posey than it will be using the MLE to recruit any combo of the available options.
Topic: Celtics Depth Chart: Fill In the Gaping Holes (Read 20566 times)