Jon,
Let me first say that I respect you b-ball IQ tremendously, but I strongly disagree with you when you say that "trading Ray for pieces is a good idea, those pieces certainly aren't better."
Did you realize that Blake had a 15.17 Efficiency Rating in the playoffs?? Did you know that Przybilla had a 12.83 E.R. in the playoffs? We are not even counting the wildcard that is Webster, who should be a solid back up SF to shorten PP's minutes.
BTW, Ray Allen, that is SOOOOOO valuable and irreplaceable, was a 15.5 E.R. in the playoffs. He had ONE great game and a LOT of subpar games.
Smitty77
Small sample size. Przybilla is a very solid Center, but he has had injury concerns throughout his career, and will never be more than solid. Same thing with Blake. He is a role player, and a very replacable part.
Those pieces are not enough to give up a player as good as Ray Allen (and the cash they would save by getting him off the cap next year, over having other guys on it), unless they are accompanied by a player who can step in and be more than just another role player.
This is why stats lie.
Ray had a bad playoffs this year. He was injured and coming off a series where he played way too many minutes. I expect him to rebound next year if Doc commits to playing him and Pierce fewer minutes.
That aside, as Chris said, both Pryzbilla and Blake really aren't that valuable to the Celtics for two reasons:
1) It's possible we can get good backups for Perkins and Rondo on the free agent market. If we can do that, why would we want to do a deal in which 2/3 of the deal goes to satisfying those requirements?
2) Like I said before, it'd be one thing if we had glaring holes in our starting lineup, but the simple fact of the matter is that we have 5 elite starters. Thus, we don't have a lot of holes to fill.
Simply put, the trade proposed by Moranis upgrades us in the backup center department and the backup PG department, while sacrificing (at least short term) talent at the starting SG spot. Here's the problem. That's a downgrade of talent for 35-40 mpg at the SG position. While you could argue that it's an upgrade at the backup 1 and 5 spots, how much does that really matter? Blake will be lucky to see 10 mpg behind Rondo; so, how much does it matter that he might be a little better than House or Marbury? Pryzbilla would be a nice backup who could play the 4/5, but still, he wouldn't sniff the floor in the fourth quarter of a playoff (downgrading the quality of the best team we can put on the court at once) and any value he has in the trade pretty much goes out the window if the C's can persuade someone like Wallace or McDyess to come here without giving anyone up.
And that's why I hate deals where you trade stars for pieces. Usually, in such deals, a couple of the pieces that make the deal "worth it" could probably be obtained via the free agent market without giving anything up. You can't say the same thing about a star.
Blake is 6'3" meaning he could play SG against most teams (for example both starting SG's in the ECF are in that general size range in Delonte West and Courtney Lee). Thus, the C's could easily start Rondo and Blake in the back court. And while Blake isn't as good as Allen, his PER and shooting numbers weren't that much worse than Allen's and Blake is still on the upswing while Allen is on the downswing (not to mention Blake can actually play PG adding to his versatility). Next year I expect the gap to be smaller between them. Against teams with bigger SG's you start Webster or the F.A. (Grant Hill) next to Pierce and Rondo.
If the C's made the trade and signed Rasheed or McDyess with the MLE, I would expect the playoff minutes to look something like this in the playoffs:
PG - Rondo 40, Blake 8
SG - Blake 25, Webster 15, House 8
SF - Pierce 40, Webster 8
PF - Garnett 40, Wallace 8
C - Perkins 25, Pryzbilla 15, Wallace 8
Total minutes
Pierce - 40
Rondo - 40
Garnett - 40
Blake - 33
Perkins - 25
Webster - 23
Wallace - 16
Pryzbilla - 15
House - 8
Personally, I think that team is far more likely to win a championship than the status quo.
But this isn't little league. Everyone doesn't have to play. I think Perkins clearly proved this year that he's capable of playing more than 25 mpg in the playoffs. Up that to at least 30 mpg (and I'd think by next year it'd be closer to 35) and you really only have 20-25 mpg a the backup 4/5. Wallace/McDyess would be more than capable of doing that by himself. And I think we could live with Scalabrine or someone else picking up the odd 5 minutes that might be needed in cases of foul trouble.
So Pryzbilla basically has no value to this team if they sign McDyess or Wallace unless someone gets injured, in which case we're probably screwed anyway.
So the deal really comes down to Blake and Webster for Allen.
Webster is certainly a downgrade over Allen for all his minutes on the court. Furthermore, Blake's main value, as a ball handler/play maker is minimized by the fact that Rondo is probably going to play close to 40 mpg next year. Thus, he's really only an upgrade over Eddie House for a whopping 8-10 mpg. While you're suggestion to play him at the 2 is interesting, it'd never work, as not only is he only 6-3, he's only 172 lbs, and would get manhandled by opposing 2s, thus negatively affecting our defense.
Again, going back to what I've been saying, if there weren't interesting FA possibilities out there, it might be a different story. And while I'd grant you that this is a long shot, if we signed Wallace/McDyess, Hill, and kept Marbury, one could argue that those three are actually better than the three we'd receive in the trade and we wouldn't have to give up Ray Allen.
I just don't see the point in trading a key to our championship team when a bunch of those pieces could be picked up on the FA market.
As for Smitty's argument, all I can say Smitty is what I've said to you dating all the way back to Alessandro's old Celtics Board: stats lie.
I think your Posey stat proved that pretty clearly. Anyone who has ever watched him play knows he's worth more than his stats say. Same with Ray. Of the Big Three, he's the one who has been asked to change and adjust his game the most. Furthermore, you can't put a value on two things: 1) his ability to have a big game and 2) and most importantly, how opposing defenses treat him. As Chris noted earlier, opposing defenses focus on him, making things easier for everyone else. No one in the trade posed by Moranis can do that.
I really think we need to keep Ray another year. If I was Ainge, I might consider asking him to re-sign for 1 year at the same money. That way we keep his very valuable expiring contract for another year and we can have this conversation next summer.
Topic: R. Allen for Pryzbilla, Blake, and Webster (Read 30720 times)