D.A.'s biggest offseason screw up.

[CoachBo]

My distaste for the handling of the last offseason is well documented. If Ainge didn't want to spend the money on the proven, veteran, role player Posey, all I wanted was that he sign proven, veteran, role players. I even suggested following their own advice. Both Ainge and Doc made comments stating that they were a better team when they played a conventional lineup with size and strength in the 4 slot and were not as good when they played Posey at the four. Sign three vetran players, one a big man, one a wing and one a PG was my suggestion. Although we couldn't afford it my suggestions of Kurt Thomas, Roger Mason and Tyronne Lue would have been about what I was talking about.

Instead he did this:

- he sined a first round bust that couldn't run well for more than 15 minutes in his workout and who Don Nelson labeled a lazy player. He was a top ten pick that couldn't make it until his third year with the team that drafted him.

- he signed both rookies wasting a roster spot for a veteran that could have produced this year when sending one of those picks overseas would have been the smart thing to do as neither was obviously ready for contributing to the defense of an NBA title.

- he wasted valuable time trying to see if a near cripple could still play and entertained wasting yet another roster spot on Darius Miles even though he wasn't ready to play and had to serve a ten game suspension.

- he resigned Tony Allen and then compounded that lunacy by giving him a guaranteed 2 year contract even though he is an injury prone player. What happened? He got injured and missed significant time in which the team played as well as when he was on the team. Some could argue the team played better without him. Go figure?!

- He passed on numerous better, proven veterans that could have helped if used in their roles. Anthony Carter, Janero Pargo, Dasagna Diop, Roger Mason, Chris Anderson, Kurt Thomas, Michael Finley, Anthony Johnson, Mikael Pietrus, Dikembe Mutombo, Quinton Ross, Flip Murray, Matt Barnes, etc., etc. All proven vets with no upside. Just proven in what they could give you and important to clubs across the league. And affordable. Sure some for more than the apparent $2.5 million per year, two year cap that the Celtics were seeming stuck with, but still affordable.

- He resigned and wasted yet another roster spot on Sam Cassel who, although he was a good influence on the development of Rondo, didn't play a single minute.

Reviewing, he brought in Cassel, O'Bryant, Giddens, Walker, and Tony Allen and contemplated bringing in Miles and still had Pruitt signed. Basically, 40% of our roster was completely useless in the defense of the NBA title and were failures or developmental players. That is inexcusably bad front office management.

This is an excellent summary deserving of more than one TP, if I could give one.

Clearly, the off-season was predicated on the checkbook, not talent. That is a miscalculation that will play a significant role in the way this season concludes, and it must change if we hope to make a title run next year.

The biggest miscalculation was Posey - not necessarily that he wasn't resigned, although I continue to believe the decision on his contract to be penny-wise and pound-foolish.

The miscalculation was the total disregard for the broad collection of above-average skills he brought to the table: versatility. Defense, energy, outside shooting, physicality, rebounding. To fail to bring in anyone capable of replacing that skillset is a mistake of epic proportions.

It cannot be repeated this summer. We will not contend for a title with this roster.

Although it's clear that Danny messed up in a number of ways last summer and this season, it will never be proven that his mistakes led to a lost 2008-2009 season. Because as much as you may want to disagree, you can't deny that we would be contending for a title right now if we had a healthy KG and Powe. I'm sorry, but you just can't blame an injury to KG on Danny. If Powe and Scal both get hurt, and we're struggling, sure, you can blame it on "lack of preparedness for injuries" all you want. But it didn't matter who we brought in here over the summer - you can't prepare for an injury to a player as important as Keven Garnett.

You can point out Danny's mistakes, and I'll agree with most of what you say about them, but don't act like what's happening now is proof of those mistakes. It's not. KG is hurt, Leon Powe is hurt, and that simply makes it a lot harder for the Celtics to win games.

The injuries, thus, become a convenient alibi for Danny's miserable summer? Uh, no.

Kind of a "Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" argument. This team is still unacceptably thin, and it still has zero quality backing up at the 3 and the 5, forcing the use of a badly undersized player at the 5. We aren't at the skill level of Cleveland and L.A., even assuming no injuries.

And that assumption is flawed, given the age of Garnett, Pierce and Allen. Ainge should be building a bench to absorb a key injury, not building a bench under the assumption he has a contender if healthy. And let's be honest here: Any time someone delivers a few key minutes off this bench, which is rarely, it's surprising enough that it generally warrants a few threads on this board. This bench is a mess, and we weren't going to make a serious title run with it, healthy Garnett or unhealthy Garnett, let alone Powe.

There's nowhere for Ainge and Grousbeck to hide on the issue of last summer. They severely handicapped this team's ability to repeat, beginning in July.

[BillfromBoston]

Sorry, i'm never going to agree with the above sentiment.

KG has never sustained a serious injury in his career and nobody they could have brought in was going to mitigate his absence.

Furthermore, the team won the title handily with the same C/F rotation as last season, with 3 out of 4 improving - Mikki Moore was always slotted to be the 5th wheel and no pickup would have played more than situational minutes.

Also, the wing rotation was fine for most of the year - RAY ALLEN played 12 mpg at SF as Pierce's primary backup, which shifted TA or House into the SG spot. Ray's off/def metrics were outstanding as a SF, so the team wasn't losing ground because he was playing the 3.

This brings us to the bench. Their biggest problem was not having a legit PG to bring it all together. The team was purposely playing an "near all bench" unit to limit the minutes of the starters in order to keep them fresh.

While the bench wasn't successful early, it didn't stop them from having the best record in the NBA, nor did it significantly raise the PT of the starters to danger levels.

Once Marbury was added, the bench started producing much more consistently and the rotation of players became more typical of a steady 8-8 man rotation.

If KG and Powe, (and Scal for that matter) had all been healthy the minutes for everyone would have remained down because KG's absence forces Doc to play Ray and Paul more in order to keep a scoring focal point on the court.

With a healthy GPA, the House/Marbury combo would be getting more consistent minutes because Doc would be able to keep KG on the court with them or any 2 out of 3 of the "Big 3" - KG's absence is affecting Doc's trust/usage of the bench right now, which is subsequently effecting their production - can't produce consistently if you play 8 minutes a game.

Finally - AINGE WANTED TO ADD VETERANS at the 3 key areas everyone has agreed on: C/F, SF, PG - he added 2 out of 3 before the deadline.

Its all well and good to point out the players the team "could have had" yet nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that most of the available players either re-upped for small money with their current teams - Anderson, Finley, Barry, Lue - or looked for more dollars or more years on the contract - Posey, Barnes, Maggette....

Its not like Ainge didn't make offers to other players, but a good deal of his off-season was taken up negotiating with Posey - who was vastly overpaid - and his contingency options were simply not good value relative to their asking price, or were satisfied taking comparable dollars to stay put.

This off-season is going to have a much, much, much better caliber of talent that will warrant higher dollar offers from this organization - clearly certain lessons learned this season will effect decision making as well.

Harping on the "failures" of this past off-season ignores many of the truths of the off-season as well as the principles of team building and cap management - you don't out-bid Phoenix for Matt Barnes for instance - nor do you give Chris Anderson mid-level money coming off a 2 year rehab absence - looks great in hindsight, very foolish beforehand.

Boston had depth, was not equipped to survive an injury to any of the big 3, saw tremendous growth from their core group, had the 3rd best record in the league,  and is in a great position to add quality talent of a high caliber this off-season.

Bottom line: if KG was on this team right now they'd be competing with LA and Cle for the title - to state otherwise flies in the face of their success with KG defensively, and is speculative in order to fit your agenda for vilifying Ainge for his off-season, which was far more calculated risk than unmitigated negligence.

[BballTim]

My distaste for the handling of the last offseason is well documented. If Ainge didn't want to spend the money on the proven, veteran, role player Posey, all I wanted was that he sign proven, veteran, role players. I even suggested following their own advice. Both Ainge and Doc made comments stating that they were a better team when they played a conventional lineup with size and strength in the 4 slot and were not as good when they played Posey at the four. Sign three vetran players, one a big man, one a wing and one a PG was my suggestion. Although we couldn't afford it my suggestions of Kurt Thomas, Roger Mason and Tyronne Lue would have been about what I was talking about.

Instead he did this:

- he sined a first round bust that couldn't run well for more than 15 minutes in his workout and who Don Nelson labeled a lazy player. He was a top ten pick that couldn't make it until his third year with the team that drafted him.

- he signed both rookies wasting a roster spot for a veteran that could have produced this year when sending one of those picks overseas would have been the smart thing to do as neither was obviously ready for contributing to the defense of an NBA title.

- he wasted valuable time trying to see if a near cripple could still play and entertained wasting yet another roster spot on Darius Miles even though he wasn't ready to play and had to serve a ten game suspension.

- he resigned Tony Allen and then compounded that lunacy by giving him a guaranteed 2 year contract even though he is an injury prone player. What happened? He got injured and missed significant time in which the team played as well as when he was on the team. Some could argue the team played better without him. Go figure?!

- He passed on numerous better, proven veterans that could have helped if used in their roles. Anthony Carter, Janero Pargo, Dasagna Diop, Roger Mason, Chris Anderson, Kurt Thomas, Michael Finley, Anthony Johnson, Mikael Pietrus, Dikembe Mutombo, Quinton Ross, Flip Murray, Matt Barnes, etc., etc. All proven vets with no upside. Just proven in what they could give you and important to clubs across the league. And affordable. Sure some for more than the apparent $2.5 million per year, two year cap that the Celtics were seeming stuck with, but still affordable.

- He resigned and wasted yet another roster spot on Sam Cassel who, although he was a good influence on the development of Rondo, didn't play a single minute.

Reviewing, he brought in Cassel, O'Bryant, Giddens, Walker, and Tony Allen and contemplated bringing in Miles and still had Pruitt signed. Basically, 40% of our roster was completely useless in the defense of the NBA title and were failures or developmental players. That is inexcusably bad front office management.

This is an excellent summary deserving of more than one TP, if I could give one.

Clearly, the off-season was predicated on the checkbook, not talent. That is a miscalculation that will play a significant role in the way this season concludes, and it must change if we hope to make a title run next year.

The biggest miscalculation was Posey - not necessarily that he wasn't resigned, although I continue to believe the decision on his contract to be penny-wise and pound-foolish.

The miscalculation was the total disregard for the broad collection of above-average skills he brought to the table: versatility. Defense, energy, outside shooting, physicality, rebounding. To fail to bring in anyone capable of replacing that skillset is a mistake of epic proportions.

It cannot be repeated this summer. We will not contend for a title with this roster.

Although it's clear that Danny messed up in a number of ways last summer and this season, it will never be proven that his mistakes led to a lost 2008-2009 season. Because as much as you may want to disagree, you can't deny that we would be contending for a title right now if we had a healthy KG and Powe. I'm sorry, but you just can't blame an injury to KG on Danny. If Powe and Scal both get hurt, and we're struggling, sure, you can blame it on "lack of preparedness for injuries" all you want. But it didn't matter who we brought in here over the summer - you can't prepare for an injury to a player as important as Keven Garnett.

You can point out Danny's mistakes, and I'll agree with most of what you say about them, but don't act like what's happening now is proof of those mistakes. It's not. KG is hurt, Leon Powe is hurt, and that simply makes it a lot harder for the Celtics to win games.

The injuries, thus, become a convenient alibi for Danny's miserable summer? Uh, no.

Kind of a "Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?" argument. This team is still unacceptably thin, and it still has zero quality backing up at the 3 and the 5, forcing the use of a badly undersized player at the 5. We aren't at the skill level of Cleveland and L.A., even assuming no injuries.

And that assumption is flawed, given the age of Garnett, Pierce and Allen. Ainge should be building a bench to absorb a key injury, not building a bench under the assumption he has a contender if healthy. And let's be honest here: Any time someone delivers a few key minutes off this bench, which is rarely, it's surprising enough that it generally warrants a few threads on this board. This bench is a mess, and we weren't going to make a serious title run with it, healthy Garnett or unhealthy Garnett, let alone Powe.

There's nowhere for Ainge and Grousbeck to hide on the issue of last summer. They severely handicapped this team's ability to repeat, beginning in July.

  You're saying that injuries haven't affected our depth? Just put KG on the court. Davis gets 20-25 minutes a game. Since he's always in with KG or Perk we don't have size issues in the front court. The calls for Joe Smith would be few and far between and calls for Andersen would be laughed off the board. Paul and Ray would be playing fewer minutes because we could always have two of KG, Ray, Paul and Rondo on the court. Our bench production would be better with Davis a part of it. We'd have most likely swept the Bulls so instead of a 7 game series with 7-8 overtime periods we would have been waiting for the Orlando-Philly series to end.

  And if you believe that, even when healthy, we aren't at the skill level of Cleveland and L.A., then it's ridiculous to expect Danny to have enough strength on his bench to absorb the loss of KG. Which contender could lose a player at his level and still contend? The fact of the matter is, though, until the injuries struck late in the season we were as good as any team in the league. Could he have had a better bench? Probably. But the people who are attacking Danny for his offseason are the same people who were predicting problems last summer that never happened until the injuries struck.

[JSD]

Sorry, i'm never going to agree with the above sentiment.

KG has never sustained a serious injury in his career and nobody they could have brought in was going to mitigate his absence.

Furthermore, the team won the title handily with the same C/F rotation as last season, with 3 out of 4 improving - Mikki Moore was always slotted to be the 5th wheel and no pickup would have played more than situational minutes.

Also, the wing rotation was fine for most of the year - RAY ALLEN played 12 mpg at SF as Pierce's primary backup, which shifted TA or House into the SG spot. Ray's off/def metrics were outstanding as a SF, so the team wasn't losing ground because he was playing the 3.

This brings us to the bench. Their biggest problem was not having a legit PG to bring it all together. The team was purposely playing an "near all bench" unit to limit the minutes of the starters in order to keep them fresh.

While the bench wasn't successful early, it didn't stop them from having the best record in the NBA, nor did it significantly raise the PT of the starters to danger levels.

Once Marbury was added, the bench started producing much more consistently and the rotation of players became more typical of a steady 8-8 man rotation.

If KG and Powe, (and Scal for that matter) had all been healthy the minutes for everyone would have remained down because KG's absence forces Doc to play Ray and Paul more in order to keep a scoring focal point on the court.

With a healthy GPA, the House/Marbury combo would be getting more consistent minutes because Doc would be able to keep KG on the court with them or any 2 out of 3 of the "Big 3" - KG's absence is affecting Doc's trust/usage of the bench right now, which is subsequently effecting their production - can't produce consistently if you play 8 minutes a game.

Finally - AINGE WANTED TO ADD VETERANS at the 3 key areas everyone has agreed on: C/F, SF, PG - he added 2 out of 3 before the deadline.

Its all well and good to point out the players the team "could have had" yet nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that most of the available players either re-upped for small money with their current teams - Anderson, Finley, Barry, Lue - or looked for more dollars or more years on the contract - Posey, Barnes, Maggette....

Its not like Ainge didn't make offers to other players, but a good deal of his off-season was taken up negotiating with Posey - who was vastly overpaid - and his contingency options were simply not good value relative to their asking price, or were satisfied taking comparable dollars to stay put.

This off-season is going to have a much, much, much better caliber of talent that will warrant higher dollar offers from this organization - clearly certain lessons learned this season will effect decision making as well.

Harping on the "failures" of this past off-season ignores many of the truths of the off-season as well as the principles of team building and cap management - you don't out-bid Phoenix for Matt Barnes for instance - nor do you give Chris Anderson mid-level money coming off a 2 year rehab absence - looks great in hindsight, very foolish beforehand.

Boston had depth, was not equipped to survive an injury to any of the big 3, saw tremendous growth from their core group, had the 3rd best record in the league,  and is in a great position to add quality talent of a high caliber this off-season.

Bottom line: if KG was on this team right now they'd be competing with LA and Cle for the title - to state otherwise flies in the face of their success with KG defensively, and is speculative in order to fit your agenda for vilifying Ainge for his off-season, which was far more calculated risk than unmitigated negligence.

Tp, I agree with your some of your points, however your forgetting the contribution of PJ BRown and his importance last season. Brown's veteran presence was huge in the playoffs particularly against the Cavs. One could argue that that Ainge should have anticipated a more adequate replacement that offseason and not banked on buyouts.

[BballTim]

Sorry, i'm never going to agree with the above sentiment.

KG has never sustained a serious injury in his career and nobody they could have brought in was going to mitigate his absence.

Furthermore, the team won the title handily with the same C/F rotation as last season, with 3 out of 4 improving - Mikki Moore was always slotted to be the 5th wheel and no pickup would have played more than situational minutes.

Also, the wing rotation was fine for most of the year - RAY ALLEN played 12 mpg at SF as Pierce's primary backup, which shifted TA or House into the SG spot. Ray's off/def metrics were outstanding as a SF, so the team wasn't losing ground because he was playing the 3.

This brings us to the bench. Their biggest problem was not having a legit PG to bring it all together. The team was purposely playing an "near all bench" unit to limit the minutes of the starters in order to keep them fresh.

While the bench wasn't successful early, it didn't stop them from having the best record in the NBA, nor did it significantly raise the PT of the starters to danger levels.

Once Marbury was added, the bench started producing much more consistently and the rotation of players became more typical of a steady 8-8 man rotation.

If KG and Powe, (and Scal for that matter) had all been healthy the minutes for everyone would have remained down because KG's absence forces Doc to play Ray and Paul more in order to keep a scoring focal point on the court.

With a healthy GPA, the House/Marbury combo would be getting more consistent minutes because Doc would be able to keep KG on the court with them or any 2 out of 3 of the "Big 3" - KG's absence is affecting Doc's trust/usage of the bench right now, which is subsequently effecting their production - can't produce consistently if you play 8 minutes a game.

Finally - AINGE WANTED TO ADD VETERANS at the 3 key areas everyone has agreed on: C/F, SF, PG - he added 2 out of 3 before the deadline.

Its all well and good to point out the players the team "could have had" yet nobody wants to acknowledge the fact that most of the available players either re-upped for small money with their current teams - Anderson, Finley, Barry, Lue - or looked for more dollars or more years on the contract - Posey, Barnes, Maggette....

Its not like Ainge didn't make offers to other players, but a good deal of his off-season was taken up negotiating with Posey - who was vastly overpaid - and his contingency options were simply not good value relative to their asking price, or were satisfied taking comparable dollars to stay put.

This off-season is going to have a much, much, much better caliber of talent that will warrant higher dollar offers from this organization - clearly certain lessons learned this season will effect decision making as well.

Harping on the "failures" of this past off-season ignores many of the truths of the off-season as well as the principles of team building and cap management - you don't out-bid Phoenix for Matt Barnes for instance - nor do you give Chris Anderson mid-level money coming off a 2 year rehab absence - looks great in hindsight, very foolish beforehand.

Boston had depth, was not equipped to survive an injury to any of the big 3, saw tremendous growth from their core group, had the 3rd best record in the league,  and is in a great position to add quality talent of a high caliber this off-season.

Bottom line: if KG was on this team right now they'd be competing with LA and Cle for the title - to state otherwise flies in the face of their success with KG defensively, and is speculative in order to fit your agenda for vilifying Ainge for his off-season, which was far more calculated risk than unmitigated negligence.

Tp, I agree with your some of your points, however your forgetting the contribution of PJ BRown and his importance last season. Brown's veteran presents was huge in the playoffs particularly against the Cavs. One could argue that that Ainge should have anticipated a more adequate replacement that offseason and not banked on buyouts.

  One could also argue that if KG were starting then BBD would be a more than adequate replacement for PJ.

[nickagneta]

While I have always agreed that if KG was never hurt we still had a chance to win the title, I also believe that chance was much less than the year before because of the lack of quality depth on the bench.

I'm sorry but KG, Paul and Ray are not machines. You can not build a club with the thought that they will remain 100% healthy every year, especially in KG's case, where he had been in the league forever and never had missed significant time in a season in his whole career. That NEVER happens! Players don't play the minutes he does and over the course of 15 years never get injured. Ray and Paul have already had significant injuries in their careers.

And the worst thing a GM can do to a contending team is fill it full of players that will be worthless come playoff time. Yet that is what he did. 6 of 15 players he had on this roster to start the year were worthless come three weeks ago.

And no where did anyone say to give multiple years to Anderson or full MLE money to Barnes. But both signed for the minimum and giving one of them the POB deal seems a lot smarter investment not only in hindsight but at that time as well.

Yes, Danny did waste his time with the Posey negotiations which is why I have said even before those negotiations began to forget Posey and go elsewhere building a bench with three competent and trustworthy veterans that would fit the style this team plays best at, which Danny and Doc both admitted was a half court game with a normal power forward with size and length and not the small ball lineup of Posey at the 4.

Obviously, KG and Leon's injury is the reason this team will not go forward for a championship if they don't. But could they have gone forward without them if Danny from the get go had handled the off season much differently, I think they might have had a shot. Say what you want for Danny's mid season additions this year but I personally think they have been abject failures. He added a guy that hadn't played in a year and a half and now shows signs of confidence problems and a gut that is defensively inept and who is also hesitant to shoot and is not a good rebounder.

Having quality veteran help that would have been here all year, from the beginning might have made the Celtics still able to win 62 games after losing KG, and Leon AND not forced Doc to have to play Ray and Paul into the ground in order to win those 62 games making them more effective, especially Paul, now in the playoffs.

[Bankshot]

The biggest mistake the offseason is not signing a competent backup 3.

[Chris]

The biggest mistake the offseason is not signing a competent backup 3.

Agreed. 

I actually did not have a problem with how this team was put together in every way except the fact that they were relying on Tony Allen as the only backup wing with any experience (other than perhaps Scal, but he is more suited as a 4).

They got by at PG just fine, and the Davis/Powe/Scal combo up front is very good against most teams...and there simply were not many better big men available.

But they really needed to bring in another wing.  Even when healthy, Allen should not be a primary backup, and you simply can't count on his health. 

In general, I still think Danny did a decent job of putting this team together, even if he could have done a better job.  He put a team together that was a championship contender if they were healthy. 

[BballTim]

While I have always agreed that if KG was never hurt we still had a chance to win the title, I also believe that chance was much less than the year before because of the lack of quality depth on the bench.

  I (still) disagree with this. Last year our backup bigs were about 33 minutes of PJ, Leon and a little of BBD. This year those minutes would have been 10-12 minutes of Perk and the rest to a much improved Davis. Our backup pg was 16 minutes of Sam or Eddie. That's now about 8 minutes of Rondo and  8 minutes of Marbury/Eddie. We're obviously worse at backup wing but Rondo and Perk are better so our starting unit's better. I see Cleveland and LA being better than last year but I don't see us being worse. If anything we'd be better than last year.

I'm sorry but KG, Paul and Ray are not machines. You can not build a club with the thought that they will remain 100% healthy every year, especially in KG's case, where he had been in the league forever and never had missed significant time in a season in his whole career. That NEVER happens! Players don't play the minutes he does and over the course of 15 years never get injured. Ray and Paul have already had significant injuries in their careers.

  When's the last time a team lost a player like Ray, Paul or KG and won the title? There were better options than what we ended up with available, but it was still mainly flotsam. I don't see the argument that with KG and Leon our chances of repeating are much lower than they were last year, yet we could still win the title without them with a few different bench players.

Yes, Danny did waste his time with the Posey negotiations which is why I have said even before those negotiations began to forget Posey and go elsewhere building a bench with three competent and trustworthy veterans that would fit the style this team plays best at, which Danny and Doc both admitted was a half court game with a normal power forward with size and length and not the small ball lineup of Posey at the 4.

  I don't necessarily disagree with this, but if NO hadn't offered a 4th year he'd still be here. It was kind of [dang]ed if you do and [dang]ed if you don't. And what if NO had signed him for 3 years because we weren't pursuing him? The number of posts attacking Ainge this your would be double what it was if not triple.

[D Dub]

While I have always agreed that if KG was never hurt we still had a chance to win the title, I also believe that chance was much less than the year before because of the lack of quality depth on the bench.

  I (still) disagree with this. Last year our backup bigs were about 33 minutes of PJ, Leon and a little of BBD. This year those minutes would have been 10-12 minutes of Perk and the rest to a much improved Davis. Our backup pg was 16 minutes of Sam or Eddie. That's now about 8 minutes of Rondo and  8 minutes of Marbury/Eddie. We're obviously worse at backup wing but Rondo and Perk are better so our starting unit's better. I see Cleveland and LA being better than last year but I don't see us being worse. If anything we'd be better than last year.

I'm sorry but KG, Paul and Ray are not machines. You can not build a club with the thought that they will remain 100% healthy every year, especially in KG's case, where he had been in the league forever and never had missed significant time in a season in his whole career. That NEVER happens! Players don't play the minutes he does and over the course of 15 years never get injured. Ray and Paul have already had significant injuries in their careers.

  When's the last time a team lost a player like Ray, Paul or KG and won the title? There were better options than what we ended up with available, but it was still mainly flotsam. I don't see the argument that with KG and Leon our chances of repeating are much lower than they were last year, yet we could still win the title without them with a few different bench players.

Yes, Danny did waste his time with the Posey negotiations which is why I have said even before those negotiations began to forget Posey and go elsewhere building a bench with three competent and trustworthy veterans that would fit the style this team plays best at, which Danny and Doc both admitted was a half court game with a normal power forward with size and length and not the small ball lineup of Posey at the 4.

  I don't necessarily disagree with this, but if NO hadn't offered a 4th year he'd still be here. It was kind of [dang]ed if you do and [dang]ed if you don't. And what if NO had signed him for 3 years because we weren't pursuing him? The number of posts attacking Ainge this your would be double what it was if not triple.

I gotta give Tim a TP here.  There has been a lot of extreme views on this subject and this is one of the best takes I have seen.

That fact is that Ainge neither struck out nor hit a home run this past offseason, as Tim articulates above.

[Lucky17]

If we had landed Anderson, Mason and Johnson and didn't sign Allen and Eddie and Cassel we would not have needed our mid-season addition of a big man because of Anderson and would have Anderson now instead of Moore. We would not have needed Marbury at mid-season either and would now have an integrated Johnson backing up Rondo. We also would have had a guaranteed wing rotation of Mason, Allen and Pierce that would have resulted in less minutes for both Allen and Pierce with fewer drop offs in production. Also, Danny could have sent Walker overseas and signed a SF. The point was if he had done it that way all the things we lack now and lacked at the mid season point wouldn't have been necessary. Also, no Tony Allen is addition by subtraction.

So, we've spent our resources on Anderson, Mason, and Johnson. We still have no SF (not even Allen), or resources to acquire one, aside from a minimum deal. Johnson's a decent backup point guard who can't shoot from the outside, and Mason is an undersized 2 who can. Overall, is that a significantly improved roster over House, Allen, Marbury, and Moore, for the additional money?

I love Ray Allen and think he would be great for this team next year and maybe another year after that. But he wouldn't be worth the money and/or years we would have to give him thereafter to get him for the 2010-2011 season. That being true he won't get more in return than he will this off season after he had the season he did and with a huge expiring contract that coincides with the big 2010 free agent off season.

Remember what Danny has been quoted about how Boston and Jan Volk made a mistake in keeping the original Big Three and how he would have trade one or two or all to have kept Boston competitive. It's the same scenario now and if he lets Ray expire and can't re-sign him, he is still over the cap that year and now without any money to replace him. Ray will be signing his last big contract and it's a contract that could really hurt this team long term.

Better to deal him to improve the team now and for a period of time longer than what Ray alone could have provided. Howard just turned 28 and we would own his Bird rights and both players are signed through the 2011 season. If the C's wanted to change big time that would be a better season as Pierce, Terry, and Howard would all expire with over $45 million coming off the books.

I believe Volk made those comments on the original Big Three within the context of their games were declining/health was deteriorating. This isn't the case with Ray Allen. He'd be the best player involved in any conceivable deal. [Josh Howard is injury prone and lacks focus; he'd be a downgrade from Ray Allen, in my estimation.] By dealing Ray, you may get better in the long term, but not the short term, and isn't that what this whole discussion is about?

I believe the Celtics would have Ray's Bird Rights when his contract expires, so it's possible he could be resigned regardless of our cap situation. I also think that if the team remains competitive at that time, he would resign at a reasonable contract to remain with the team.

[celticmaestro]

Birdman and Posey should have come back, yes, but let's not start bashing Danny. The biggest mistake was signing that halfwitted idiot O'Blount.