The Big 3 the Big Leprechaun and the young vets

[fairweatherfan06]

There's been a lot of talk about this team needing to get younger and more athletic.  And with the Big 3 and the possible signing of Shaq we certainly have a lot of miles on the odometer.  But pat that if you look at it we're actually a pretty young squad.

The Young Vets are my name for our roster full of rather young players with good playing/playoff experience

Jermaine is 31 years old this year, however he actually is relatively young in minutes played because of his lack of PT his first 3 years in the league and then with his lack of PT because of injuries, his (now repaired) legs should have quite a bit left.  He's been deep in the playoffs with Pacers.

Marquis still on the right side of 30 has good playoff experience with the Mavs and a little with us

After that:

 Perk (when he returns) and Rondo: battle tested whose reps speak for themselves.

You got BBD who is battle tested with us (and watching him Dougie looks like he's been really hitting the gym this summer) a better athlete than advertised.

Von Wafer: Young and athletic and playoff experience with the Rockets

Nate: Playoff experience amounts to us but also young and athletic

Rookies: Haragondy (a player not the physical specimen but good college credentials)  Bradley, Erden...wow young and Athletic.

I'll leave out Sheed for now, but I'd bet whatever his contract gets will be somebody who is younger and more athletic than Sheed (yeah not so hard) but my point is I think the we're not young or athletic complaint about this team needs to be shelved.

[Celtics4ever]

Jermaine has had several significant injuries.  I hope your right but I think he could have durability issues.  Ditto for Daniels.

[GreenEnvy]

I don't care about the guys ages that much really. Sure it's great to have one eye on the present and one on the future, but the NOW is what matters most.

Titles don't grow on trees. We went 22 years without one. But we did get one with this group, and it's well within the realm of possibility that, if healthy, we could be working on a three-peat.

Tell me about the teams that have been built through youth and are actually successful. The Thunder are first to come to mind, but they struck gold in the lottery, which is rare. They had the mistake made ahead of them, so there was no Marvin Williams (Greg Oden in this case) on the table for them to mull over.

Chicago did well in the draft, but they too won the lottery, which is unlikely. They were also bad-terrible for the better part of a decade. They have won exactly one playoff series in the last 12 seasons and still had to spend like madmen on backup plans this offseason.

The truth is, this Celtics team is set up to win NOW. Experienced vets (even if they are in their 30's) will help this team for the next couple years achieve their ultimate goal. In the meantime, drafting players with high upside like Bradley is the best way to go. Is he ready now? No, but he could be an impact player in a few seasons. Harangody can be serviceable maybe, BBD proved his value, Perk is a quality starting center, and Rondo is Rondo.