18 Reasons why the Celtics will be even Better this Year

[johnnyrondo]

18 Reasons why the Celtics will be even Better this Year

1) Rondo will make "the leap" in his 3rd year as a point guard
2) Having a year under their belts together
3) Perk being a young veteran now won't get as many calls on him and will be on the court more.
4) Giddens will play like a young Sprewell and makeup for the loss of Posey
5) Tony Allen will be fully recovered and return to his '06-'07 season level
6) With more security House will be even more confident on his jumpers
7) Powe having proven himself on the biggest stage will become one of the league's top big men off the bench
Doc with a championship on his resume will get more out of his young players (players respect winners)
9) BBD will become a matchup nightmare for other teams
10) Ray will be more comfortable in year 2 of being the 3rd option and will remind people why he's the best jump shooter in the league (the 7 threes in Game 6 was the trailer for '08-'09)
11) Pierce and KG will battle it out to be the first Celtic League MVP since Larry. They will push each other.
12) Thibs will come up with even more strategies to fluster Kobe
13) Rondo will have 3 point range
14) POB will emerge as a solid NBA center away from Nellie's system
15) Jaelen House will be a year older and more experienced as our ballboy/secret weapon
16) Scalabrine will have spent the whole Summer working on his corner 3 and shoot 44% from behind the arc
17) Giddens will be forced to do push-ups every time he misses a free throw (think Willy Mays Hays) and will end up shooting 80% by season's end.
18) Doc will challenge the Big Three to be the first Celtics to repeat as champions since the Russell era
 

[ACF]

I like the positive thinking here, johnny.
Tommy Point. And a handful more when
No. 18 is in the books 

[nica_sainz]

well, I agree with you in general but I think that maybe you are too optimistic. specially regarding Giddens, O'Bryant and Scal. anyhow hopefully you are fully right in all what you say.

[JBcat]

I'm surprised there is no mention of Walker or Miles if we are going with the glass half full view.  Hey why not give Pruitt some love too

[Eeyore III]

I'm with the OP through #12.  After that ... 

[Redz]

I'd be willing to guaranty a championship if all 18 come through! 

[JR Giddens]

LOL However at the same I'm tired of all the old foggies(no offense) on here dismissing all the new players on the team because they haven't proved anything yet. I think Tony Allen or JR Giddens can be better than Posey was this past year.

[mobanners]

I like the positive attitude too--but some of these are pretty unlikely.

in my view here are the three best reasons to be positive about our chances to repeat:

-Roster stability is more valuable in basketball than any other sport. Having our 5 starters and 7 of our top 8 players back for another year together is as valuable or more valuable than anything other than a major upgrade at any of these spots.

-In the same vein, holding onto Thibodeau was huge. Im still surprised no front office gave him a Head Coaching gig. Mark my words that he wont be on our bench as an Asst much longer. Doc will continue to be the perfect player's coach on a vet-dominated team, holding their respect and getting a lot out of them--but someone needs to be plotting xs and os on the defensive side and Thib has established himself as a true brainiac in this regard.

-The pressure to dominate the regular season is gone and this particular mix of vets and younguns will be experienced enough, mentally tough enough and physically balanced enough to manage the regular season so as to be well positioned and prepared come playoff season (and it truly is two seasons in an nba year). I wouldnt expect more than 60 wins in the regular season this year--but I see no reason at all that we cant repeat if our top 7 players are all healthy come april.

[johnnyrondo]

I'm surprised there is no mention of Walker or Miles if we are going with the glass half full view.  Hey why not give Pruitt some love too

Haha. Well I'm not always the glass half full type of guy if you've been around for a while. I just wanted to write a positive post coming off my honor of passing the 100 TP plateau (thanks everyone for that!). I figured camp's about to start and many people last Summer predicted we'd be at our best this year and there are many reasons to think that may be true. I chose 18 because...well people should know why.

I think it would be cool if others came up with their 18, or if a little lazy, just added some more. Consider it a challenge

[TitleMaster]

Paul Pierce will be even better this year; he's going to ratchet it up a notch to Oscar Robertson's level of play making (esp during key rebounding episodes) and team defense. He's already proven himself, as a one-on-one defender with Kobe. What Paul is, is a better overall team player than our me-first Kobe.

[CoachBo]

LOL However at the same I'm tired of all the old foggies(no offense) on here dismissing all the new players on the team because they haven't proved anything yet. I think Tony Allen or JR Giddens can be better than Posey was this past year.

Boy, I'd really like to put some money on the other side of that one in Vegas.

Might make up the soaking I've taken in my retirement plan.

[micah kenneth]

It seems obvious that you have never seen Bill Walker play, you seem to think that Giddens is a better player, and he may be a little better defensively but offensively its not close Bill Walker is the man and he's a decent defensive player to.
Walker's game is similar to Paul Pierce without the 3 point range !
That being the case I really like Bill's game, he's definitely a better ball handler than Paul.
I'm not so sure about Darius's game these days but when he was healthy apart from his bad attitude I thought he would be an all star player.
Darius's energy and speed was something very few players could keep up with

[billysan]

TP JohnRon for the inspirational and positive thread.

IMHO Bill Walker will surpass Tony Allen and JR Giddens but probably not this year. He has ability but still needs a little more polish to get there. I am thinking possible Mark Aguirre level offensive skills in a couple of years.

[johnnyrondo]

TP JohnRon for the inspirational and positive thread.

IMHO Bill Walker will surpass Tony Allen and JR Giddens but probably not this year. He has ability but still needs a little more polish to get there. I am thinking possible Mark Aguirre level offensive skills in a couple of years.

That's the spirit billysan! I like the Aguirre comp, especially as a DePaul Alum. TP right back atcha.

[ACF]

LOL However at the same I'm tired of all the old foggies(no offense) on here dismissing all the new players on the team because they haven't proved anything yet. I think Tony Allen or JR Giddens can be better than Posey was this past year.

JR, if you don't mean any offense
by using words like "old foggies".
(A quick note: I'm 32 so I'm not "old"  )
Then don't use those kinds of words.
Anyways... Respect goes both ways.
Some of these "old foggies" might just
be able to teach you a thing or two.
Thanks for listening, kiddo