Wages of Wins on Celtics Problems

[snively]

The stat analysis site featured the C's today.

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/what-is-wrong-with-the-boston-celtics

The stats point the finger-bone of accusation at Ray and the bench (surprising KG hasn't shown tremendous declines in the stat):

Once you get past Williams and T. Allen, the remaining players on the bench have combined to produce -0.7 wins.  Last year’s numbers suggest that some of these bench players should be better.  Had the bench players not named T. Allen and Williams maintained what they did last year, the Celtics would have received about 4.9 wins from this collection of players.  And most of this production would have come from Eddie House and Rasheed Wallace, two players – on the wrong side of 30 — who have declined relative to last year.

Wallace and House are not the only players who are offering less.  The player who has posted the biggest drop-off is R.  Allen.  Again, R. Allen is on the wrong side of 30.  And so far Allen has offered 3.4 fewer wins this year than his production last year would suggest.  In fact, if R. Allen, Wallace, and House had maintained what they did last year, the Celtics would currently be on pace to win 68 games.

The obvious causes of the stat declines are plummeting shooting %s.  This suggests that one of the greatest shortfalls of this team is not so much rebounding and declining athleticism, but the inability of our 3 primary shooters to consistently put the ball in the hole.  I'd argue that if the shots started to fall, the rebounding/quickness problems would largely be covered up.

Are these declining shooting %s the result of aging and irreversible?

The big question is whether or not these players can briefly return to form in the playoffs.  If they can, Boston may still be able to win a title in 2010.