Danny using same formula?

[Michael Anthony]

During the regular season, our starters will play approximately 75% of the time, leaving 60 minutes per game to House/Powe/Davis and the unknowns: Giddens/Walker/Miles/TA/O'Bryant/Pruitt.

I am very happy with Perkins/Garnett/Powe/Davis manning the 4/5. IF Giddens, Walker, and Miles are incapable of playing 12 competent minutes per night at small forward, Ray Allen is - openning up time for House/TA/Pruitt at the 2. Maybe Allen is not a small forward, but he is better at it than 75% of the league, especially if he is going against second teamers.

That means we could run a rotation of 8 well known / capable players every night, without pushing any of them over 36 minutes per game.

During the playoffs, our starters will likely play 83% (40 mpg) of the time, leaving 40 minutes to House/Powe/Davis/Giddens/Walker/Miles/TA/O'Bryant/Pruitt. Needless to say, I am very confident going into this season.

[Birdbrain]

By your math our percentage of unknowns seems to have dropped significantly.

People keep repeating false logic like this, and it's silly.  Here's the thing:  just because something worked out last year, doesn't mean it will this year.  I would argue that the "unknown" of Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown had a much more positive track record than that of P.O.B. and Darius "One Knee" Miles.  I would argue that Powe, Perk, House and Rondo had shown a lot more coming into last season than people seem willing to credit them for.  Certainly, all had established that they could play at the NBA level, which is more than much of our bench can say.

Again, though, the main point is that "past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance", especially when you're dealing with much different players with much different track record.  Things could work out, but I'd rather the team had focused on guys with more of a positive track record (in terms of free agents; I'm fine with the rookies.)

Can you elaborate on what FA Danny didn't get that he could have for the money that they had?  Or that signed for what Boston had to offer? Because I'm beginning to believe that some posters are throwing around arm chair QB comments without any facts to actually back them up.

[Roy Hobbs]

By your math our percentage of unknowns seems to have dropped significantly.

People keep repeating false logic like this, and it's silly.  Here's the thing:  just because something worked out last year, doesn't mean it will this year.  I would argue that the "unknown" of Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown had a much more positive track record than that of P.O.B. and Darius "One Knee" Miles.  I would argue that Powe, Perk, House and Rondo had shown a lot more coming into last season than people seem willing to credit them for.  Certainly, all had established that they could play at the NBA level, which is more than much of our bench can say.

Again, though, the main point is that "past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance", especially when you're dealing with much different players with much different track record.  Things could work out, but I'd rather the team had focused on guys with more of a positive track record (in terms of free agents; I'm fine with the rookies.)

Can you elaborate on what FA Danny didn't get that he could have for the money that they had?  Or that signed for what Boston had to offer? Because I'm beginning to believe that some posters are throwing around arm chair QB comments without any facts to actually back them up.

Guys I'd be more comfortable with than O'Blount and One Knee?  Posey, for starters.  Pietrus, Mo Evans, Azubuike, Lue, Kurt Thomas, James Jones, Elson, Ryan Gomes, Bonzi Wells, Devean George, Hayes, Najera, Dooling, Barry, Ross and potentially Kwame Brown and Ricky Davis (although unlikely with those two.)  All will contribute more to NBA rosters next year than either POB or Miles.  I don't care about potential down the line; I'd like to see the team maximize its chances in the short term.

[blake]

It basically boils down to:

Do you think we can win the ship with the current roster?  I think we can if we bring in PJ at the time that OB doesn't prove his ability to be a serviceable backup.  If not what do we need to do to change it?
Really "all" we lost was Posey.  I would say we could make a trade of Scals+upside guy in early Feb to bring in another vet from a team that wants to free up for the Bron sweepstakes.  Scals plus upside guy for a Nocioni type of player would work thus leaving us with a spot to sign PJ (not salary wise, but conceptually).

[nickagneta]

By your math our percentage of unknowns seems to have dropped significantly.

People keep repeating false logic like this, and it's silly.  Here's the thing:  just because something worked out last year, doesn't mean it will this year.  I would argue that the "unknown" of Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown had a much more positive track record than that of P.O.B. and Darius "One Knee" Miles.  I would argue that Powe, Perk, House and Rondo had shown a lot more coming into last season than people seem willing to credit them for.  Certainly, all had established that they could play at the NBA level, which is more than much of our bench can say.

Again, though, the main point is that "past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance", especially when you're dealing with much different players with much different track record.  Things could work out, but I'd rather the team had focused on guys with more of a positive track record (in terms of free agents; I'm fine with the rookies.)

Can you elaborate on what FA Danny didn't get that he could have for the money that they had?  Or that signed for what Boston had to offer? Because I'm beginning to believe that some posters are throwing around arm chair QB comments without any facts to actually back them up.

Guys I'd be more comfortable with than O'Blount and One Knee?  Posey, for starters.  Pietrus, Mo Evans, Azubuike, Lue, Kurt Thomas, James Jones, Elson, Ryan Gomes, Bonzi Wells, Devean George, Hayes, Najera, Dooling, Barry, Ross and potentially Kwame Brown and Ricky Davis (although unlikely with those two.)  All will contribute more to NBA rosters next year than either POB or Miles.  I don't care about potential down the line; I'd like to see the team maximize its chances in the short term.

TP Roy for saving me the time to write all those names.

I also prescribe to the idea that the window for championships is small and that I just think player with proven games would have helped this team to be better this year and for the Big Three to get the least amount of minutes to help extend their careers. I just think if Danny's moves fail the Big Three will be playing tons of minutes during the regular season and this could make things tough in the post season and bad in future years.

I just want to say that I still think the Celtics win it all and I'm very positive about this team as a whole. It's just Ainge's off season moves I'm not crazy about.

But as for the team, I love our chances of repeating. The starters are the best starting group in the league, how can you not be stoked about that?!

[BballTim]

By your math our percentage of unknowns seems to have dropped significantly.

People keep repeating false logic like this, and it's silly. 

  The fact that you disagree with a point doesn't make it false logic. Pretending that we had no questions going into last season is silly. Even if you ignore all of the concerns people had about whether Paul and Ray would even be healthy last year the "question marks" on the team (basically, everyone but Paul/Ray/KG and Posey, including the coaching staff) were expected to play a much larger role on the team than anyone is projecting this year's "question marks" to.

Here's the thing:  just because something worked out last year, doesn't mean it will this year.  I would argue that the "unknown" of Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown had a much more positive track record than that of P.O.B. and Darius "One Knee" Miles.

  The fact that I was in the minority arguing that Rondo would play more in the  playoffs than Cassell last spring shows how meaningful those track records were. And it's ridiculous to act like PJ (a year older) wouldn't be a huge question mark for the playoffs. And it's disingenuous to compare Miles to PJ or Cassell, both of whom were brought in with the expectation that they'd contribute to our playoff run. A more accurate comparison would be to Wallace or Manuel (whatever that nbdl guy's name was).

I would argue that Powe, Perk, House and Rondo had shown a lot more coming into last season than people seem willing to credit them for.  Certainly, all had established that they could play at the NBA level, which is more than much of our bench can say.

  You don't have to tell me that Rondo had shown a lot more coming into last season than people seem willing to credit them for. I was one of the people who was arguing that we could win with him as our starting pg. I'd also like to point out that in spite of your claim that last year's question marks were much smaller than this year's question marks, there were more predictions that we wouldn't make it out of the 2nd round (if we were even lucky enough to get that far) as there were that we'd even reach the nba finals. For as long as I've been reading these forums pessimists have ruled the day in the offseason.

Again, though, the main point is that "past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance", especially when you're dealing with much different players with much different track record.  Things could work out, but I'd rather the team had focused on guys with more of a positive track record (in terms of free agents; I'm fine with the rookies.)

  It's still August. Clearly it's not set in stone that POB and Miles will be expected to be a part of our rotation in the playoffs. I don't think having them around is markedly different than Pollard and Brandon Wallace last year.
 

[BballTim]

By your math our percentage of unknowns seems to have dropped significantly.

People keep repeating false logic like this, and it's silly.  Here's the thing:  just because something worked out last year, doesn't mean it will this year.  I would argue that the "unknown" of Sam Cassell and P.J. Brown had a much more positive track record than that of P.O.B. and Darius "One Knee" Miles.  I would argue that Powe, Perk, House and Rondo had shown a lot more coming into last season than people seem willing to credit them for.  Certainly, all had established that they could play at the NBA level, which is more than much of our bench can say.

Again, though, the main point is that "past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance", especially when you're dealing with much different players with much different track record.  Things could work out, but I'd rather the team had focused on guys with more of a positive track record (in terms of free agents; I'm fine with the rookies.)

Can you elaborate on what FA Danny didn't get that he could have for the money that they had?  Or that signed for what Boston had to offer? Because I'm beginning to believe that some posters are throwing around arm chair QB comments without any facts to actually back them up.

Guys I'd be more comfortable with than O'Blount and One Knee?  Posey, for starters.  Pietrus, Mo Evans, Azubuike, Lue, Kurt Thomas, James Jones, Elson, Ryan Gomes, Bonzi Wells, Devean George, Hayes, Najera, Dooling, Barry, Ross and potentially Kwame Brown and Ricky Davis (although unlikely with those two.)  All will contribute more to NBA rosters next year than either POB or Miles.  I don't care about potential down the line; I'd like to see the team maximize its chances in the short term.

TP Roy for saving me the time to write all those names.

I also prescribe to the idea that the window for championships is small and that I just think player with proven games would have helped this team to be better this year and for the Big Three to get the least amount of minutes to help extend their careers. I just think if Danny's moves fail the Big Three will be playing tons of minutes during the regular season and this could make things tough in the post season and bad in future years.

  Last year we were blowing teams out with Pollard out of action and PJ down in La. I don't think replacing Posey with Giddens/Walker/Allen/(possibly Miles) means that the big three will have to play tons of minutes.

[cordobes]

From the fact that we took risks last season doesn't follow we should do the same thing this season. That's silly. This season we didn't need to take risks, just for the sake of it. What's the point?

I don't think this is Ainge using a formula because this is not the roster he idealized. That's why he has been trying to sign some veterans. The reasons he hasn't manage to do it yet:
- budgetary restrictions
and/or
- he mis-calculated the price of the guys he wanted and agents didn't offer him the chance to match offers, therefore missing the flow of the market and missing fallback options.

But I think he's not done yet. I'm pretty sure that it's too risky entering the playoffs with our current bench.

[Vermont Green]

But I think he's not done yet. I'm pretty sure that it's too risky entering the playoffs with our current bench.

I think that is the point many people are not considering.  We can give all of these younger players with question marks a chance but then go and address the biggest problems when we are closer to the playoffs.  I like these guys we have and other than Posey, I don't think any of the other veteran bench guys (I guess that is Sam and PJ) did all that much and will do even less this year if brought back

[BillfromBoston]

During the regular season, our starters will play approximately 75% of the time, leaving 60 minutes per game to House/Powe/Davis and the unknowns: Giddens/Walker/Miles/TA/O'Bryant/Pruitt.

I am very happy with Perkins/Garnett/Powe/Davis manning the 4/5. IF Giddens, Walker, and Miles are incapable of playing 12 competent minutes per night at small forward, Ray Allen is - openning up time for House/TA/Pruitt at the 2. Maybe Allen is not a small forward, but he is better at it than 75% of the league, especially if he is going against second teamers.

That means we could run a rotation of 8 well known / capable players every night, without pushing any of them over 36 minutes per game.

During the playoffs, our starters will likely play 83% (40 mpg) of the time, leaving 40 minutes to House/Powe/Davis/Giddens/Walker/Miles/TA/O'Bryant/Pruitt. Needless to say, I am very confident going into this season.

...exactly....and this is "worst case"

[BillfromBoston]

But I think he's not done yet. I'm pretty sure that it's too risky entering the playoffs with our current bench.

I think that is the point many people are not considering.  We can give all of these younger players with question marks a chance but then go and address the biggest problems when we are closer to the playoffs.  I like these guys we have and other than Posey, I don't think any of the other veteran bench guys (I guess that is Sam and PJ) did all that much and will do even less this year if brought back

...again, nailed it right on the head...Ainge offered minimum deals to the vets for a reason and it wasn't because  he miscalculated their value--if you honestly believe that then you've got a lot to learn about NBA front office management...the team was given the "ok" to spend the MLE money, they chose not to.

Its simple, Ainge recognizes the risk of playing the youth, but he weighed that risk against the value of the veterans on the market--that value was minimum money....he will go into the season with the youth, see what happens, and react accordingly...

Unless you are daft enough to think this team is suddenly a 6-8 seed in the east without Posey, then you should be confident in knowing that Ainge has in fact acknowledged his concern over experience at the 3 and 5...but he's placed a value on that concern and clearly believes there will be options to rectify later if needed...