Why has it been so difficult to find a back up for Pierce?

[BballTim]

Many an available wing player would be more than willing to come back up Pierce "on this team" for a reasonable deal. But what have we seen for Pierce's back ups?

2008 - James Posey - this was good - we dominate and win a ring
2009 - TAllen ( too small ) Scal ( too slow )
2010 - TAllen ( too small ) Marquis ( really an off guard from a physical stanpoint.
2011 - thus far? Marquis and maybe Larry Hughes?...Really?

  I can see complaining about Tony Allen's lack of offensive production, but the "too small" thing is more theoretical than actual.

Tony Allen's size doesn't hurt him defensively, but it does contribute to him being a poor rebounder at the SF postion. He did a good job of it this year but in the past that has been a problem for him.

  I just quickly glanced at the "dreaded" per48 stats on espn, but he seems pretty comparable to PP over the last 3-4 years in rebounding.

Pierce's rebounding at the SF position has been one of the problems for the Celtics lately.

Tony's numbers are actually worse than Pierce's defensively, but makes up for it by getting more offensive boards. Which makes sense as Tony doesn't space the floor and should be crashing more often without being boxed out.

Tony's rebounding is good for a SG, but bad for a SF.

For rebounding I like to look at rate rather than per/48. Tony's put up a 7.1, 7.3, 10.00 the last three years. Pierce has 8.5, 9.2, 7.9.

  You're right to check the rebounding rate, I just didn't take the time to do it myself. You also have to consider the fact that Tony puts in a lot of time at shooting guard as well, so you wouldn't expect his rebounding numbers to be as high as Paul's.

This is true, but he's still a below average rebounder at the position any way you slice it. As is Pierce at this point. This is really the only area I think his size hurts him.

  I can live with that. But I still disagree with the IP simply labeling TA as "too small" and claiming that Danny didn't have a legitimate backup to Paul when he had TA.

[Surferdad]

I don't understand why people are writing off Marquis Daniels.  "just didn't work out" is not really correct.  He was actually good early in the season, then he got injured.

Now that Ainge is pretty much done with off-season moves, I think folks should give Quis another chance to show what he can do.  He is capable of putting up a 20-point night.  He kind of sneaky offensive player and personally I like him as Pierce's backup.

The ". . . then he got injured" thing is pretty consistent, though, isn't it?

Marquis has never played more than 74 games.  He's missed 20+ games in 6 out of 7 seasons.  Over his career, he's missed 172 out of a potential 574 games, which averages out to 25 missed games per season.

In other words, him being injured is no surprise.  If he makes it through this year playing in every game, it will be unprecedented.  Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to prepare for the possibility (inevitability) that Marquis will be injured, and will miss a serious amount of time.

Due to that, he's not a great option as a primary backup, in my opinion.  I hope that I'm wrong, but history says that I won't be.

Fair enough, but some people treat him like he doesn't even exist and that there's some kind of huge gaping hole on the bench.  That's not right either.  By all acoounts he recovered from his injury and will be ready to go this season.  So my view is that he's the primary backup at SF until (not "unless", okay?  ) he gets injured again.

[PosImpos]

A guy with legit size (6'7''-6'9'', 220-240) who can actually play basketball at a decent level is not going to come cheap.  There really aren't that many guys who fit that description in the league.

Most wing players who have NBA-level talent are smaller.  The guys who have more size are either generally inept or are given bigger contracts because of their potential.

In other words, it's so easy to say "Why hasn't Danny gotten a legit backup?"  The problem is there just aren't very many legit SF backups in the league who can actually do what we'd want - hit open jump shots and play defense.  

Most guys who can do that are either paid more than we can afford (see: Matt Barnes, James Posey), or are super old (see: Michael Finley).

[ScoobyDoo]

Well, I disagree with the statement that a decent back up for Pierce who is 6'7" to 6'9" and 220 to 235 would be hard to find.

Yes, you might have to pay them a bit more but that's the point; if you've brought Ray to pair with Pierce, it just seems like it would be the logical step to target some legit sized wing who would be a good fit for these two and do it asap and try to tie him in long term.

It's the same reason why I'm ecstatic about us re-signing Nate when we did. For the first time, Rondo will have a legit back up "point" guard behind him, from day one, to mesh with.

Matt Barnes signed for two consecutive years at the Vet min in Phoenix and in Orlando. maybe he likes the weather, sure. But if you'd stpped up with $2.5 to $3 mil a year for 3 years, he'd be wearing green.

I always use Matt Barnes because he is exactly the type of slightly above average talent we'd need behind Pierce to make it work. Just a decent legit sized SF stiff to rest Pierce consistently for 12-15 a night like clockwork.

That's the catch to me, we're not looking for a superstar here, just a decent player. You're telling me we can't find that guy who'd like to join this team through a trade or in free agency over four year's time? Really?

Ainge didn't step up to keep Posey ( which there are good arguments for and against ), but Barnes was still avail after Posey went to NO. He ended up signing for the Vet min there...

I'm 100% behind Daniels, he's just a smallish, injury proned small forward who can't shoot much from outside. Paired with Ray or Wafer that's still ok. We still need that bigger, back up small forward in my opinion.

[Fan from VT]

I think Ainge has done a decent job with what he's had.

-2007:
-Forced to give up the farm to get Allen and KG. Thankfully he was able to do so without giving up Rondo and Perk at least. But to do this he was forced to give up Gomes, who would have been the type of backup 3/4 we want now.

-Able to get House and Posey for cheap. Posey was the ideal backup at the time, the aforementioned defensive 3/4. But let's be clear: it was quite well known at the time that, not liking any offers he was getting, he took a well below market value contract for one year so that he could earn the b.s. "winner" label and ride it to his last big payday. Ainge was never going to give Posey that much money; even Posey knew he was going to get overpaid after a successful year. Posey and the Celts used each other and were perfectly happy with the arrangement; both got what they wanted.

2008
-Tried (and failed) twice to get a pierce backup: Giddens and Walker. Of course, even the best drafters are at crapshoot success levels at that stage of the draft.
-As above, there was no way Ainge was going to sign Posey if he got a big offer. Good thing, too, he's been putrid in New Orleans.
-However, this was his poorest offseason. He should have had a contingency in place/gone ahead under the assumption that Posey would be gone.
-Gave Darius Miles a look at the 3/4 role. Didn't work out
-Had to use part of MLE to keep House.

2009
-Going into the season with Giddens and Walker older and no first round draft pick, they opted to use the full MLE on Sheed as Perk and KG both have injury histories and Davis is quite undersized as a C. Hard to argue too much with that.

2010
-Not sure there was much true 3/4 talent out there that was available. I would have liked Rasual Butler, but he opted to stay in LA. Full MLE had to be used for a PF/C with Perk's injury; maybe they would have done differently had they know Shaq would fall into their laps?


Essentially, it's really easy to look back now and say "man, i wish we had locked up a solid 3/4 backup for the past couple years," but really hard to address when you have to rebuild the team for each season at a time, without knowing how things will shake out.

Remember:
-C's have one of the most disproportionately "starter heavy" pay rolls in the league. None of us would be shocked if LA moved Bynum or Odom to make the team better; Ainge would get absolutely skewered if he dared trade one of our starters to deepen the team. Heck, we get skewered for suggesting Davis trades. So when you clean house to make a great starting lineup and are not allowed to trade any of those parts, and to get those parts you a) built a good team so you got bad draft picks, and b)had to trade some of those picks for the starters anyway, you are left with rebuilding the bench through MLE and vet min contracts and bad draft picks. I think we as a fan base fail to acknowledge how difficult that is, as well as drastically overestimating the chances the C's can sign whatever free agent they want for the MLE/Vet min when in reality, the player sees 30 choices of where to sign for that type of money and really doesn't have the Pro-Boston bias that we all do, and instead is thinking about playing time, friends, family, schools, weather, taxes, etc.

[Fan from VT]

Or, on the flipside, it's just as likely that the best player available in '07 was a good SF instead of Davis. Then we'd be having this discussion of "how hard is it to find a suitable backup for Perk/KG?"

[PosImpos]

Matt Barnes signed for two consecutive years at the Vet min in Phoenix and in Orlando. maybe he likes the weather, sure. But if you'd stpped up with $2.5 to $3 mil a year for 3 years, he'd be wearing green.

That's just it, though.  We don't have 2.5-3 million a year to give to Matt Barnes.  We used our MLE on Jermaine.

We're talking about vet. minimum deals or a trade.  Danny has exhausted all trade options, and apparently none of them were palatable.

As I've already explained, no guy who fits your description (a Matt Barnes type) would be available for the vet. minimum.

[Jon]

Partly a size thing too.  Simply put, there are more 6-3 to 6-5 guys (like TA and Marquis) than 6-7 to 6-9 backup wings. 

[BballTim]

Well, I disagree with the statement that a decent back up for Pierce who is 6'7" to 6'9" and 220 to 235 would be hard to find.

Yes, you might have to pay them a bit more but that's the point; if you've brought Ray to pair with Pierce, it just seems like it would be the logical step to target some legit sized wing who would be a good fit for these two and do it asap and try to tie him in long term.

It's the same reason why I'm ecstatic about us re-signing Nate when we did. For the first time, Rondo will have a legit back up "point" guard behind him, from day one, to mesh with.

Matt Barnes signed for two consecutive years at the Vet min in Phoenix and in Orlando. maybe he likes the weather, sure. But if you'd stpped up with $2.5 to $3 mil a year for 3 years, he'd be wearing green.

I always use Matt Barnes because he is exactly the type of slightly above average talent we'd need behind Pierce to make it work. Just a decent legit sized SF stiff to rest Pierce consistently for 12-15 a night like clockwork.

That's the catch to me, we're not looking for a superstar here, just a decent player. You're telling me we can't find that guy who'd like to join this team through a trade or in free agency over four year's time? Really?

Ainge didn't step up to keep Posey ( which there are good arguments for and against ), but Barnes was still avail after Posey went to NO. He ended up signing for the Vet min there...

I'm 100% behind Daniels, he's just a smallish, injury proned small forward who can't shoot much from outside. Paired with Ray or Wafer that's still ok. We still need that bigger, back up small forward in my opinion.

  You're assuming that not only would Barnes come here despite his preference for warmer climates, but that he'd just as soon play 10 minutes a game behind Pierce as start and play 25-30 minutes a game.

[More Banners]

I think the use of the MLE had a lot to do with it.  This is the 4th straight year that the MLE is used on a player that isn't part of a long term plan, just for one or two seasons' title runs.  I think if Sheed was coming back and could start, this year's MLE would've gone to a wing/6th man/future starter, but Perk's injury totally screwed that.  So we got JO, who will help us contend, but only for 2 years...

Not that I disagree with the strategy of going for it; I agree 100%, but the MLE is a pretty potent way to get talent, but it also is how some of the worse contracts in the league came about, especially after a trade kicker or two (i.e. Blount et. al.).  Danny is pretty afraid of creating a bad contract, which is his flaw (of few--he's great at picking in the draft and minimum contracts, and gathered a top-notch combo of superstars, but securing the in-between parts long-term has been his weaker area).  He's done great with what he's had, but hasn't had the luck of stumbling into a long-term solution through the draft or some lucky LLE or minimum guys that get sucked in for two years.

[More Banners]

Partly a size thing too.  Simply put, there are more 6-3 to 6-5 guys (like TA and Marquis) than 6-7 to 6-9 backup wings. 

And all the 6-7 to 6-9 guys that Danny signs are Power Forwards...

[Meadowlark_Scal]

Ta's rebounding shouldn't be much of an issue..he WAS out covering the fastest, most athletic and talented guys in the LEAGUE....so what about his shooting, his rebounding....It was his real first year BACK, and he was great. (2nd year, but the first year is recovery) Too bad we won't see the rest of his development, like i said b4...he could practice running the point, can get better at ball handling...but no one really learns to be a defender like that...remember his block on gasol.....? Wasn't he covering kobe at the same time..you won't get D and O out of pp or ray anymore..not on the better guys. That is why TA in with one of them and rondo was a great play..we would have had PERFECT D...with TA....a lot of good size and shot blockers inside, and TA for the outside, along with nate and rondo ( at diff times, maybe both sometimes) I still cannot believe we let him go for a 1 year diff of opinion..now we are stuck with MD...who showed NOTHING, consistantly....!  MD never turned the ball over....because he never went after it...never drove...he showed me nothing, I would have dropped him and signed TA asap...especially with Wade and Lebron now coming at you..don't forget Chicago too.......Missing TA will be our short coming this year. Unless one of these guys can step up....!  A backup for pp...is usually a starter for other teams..we had too many holes to fill this year....

[Bankshot]

I'm still sick about losing TA.

[Meadowlark_Scal]

I'm still sick about losing TA.

TP there..me too...! Big loss and the guy was just getting better, I mean, he had a great year, and was sure to get even better..! Solid D, was what we needed from him, his offense would keep getting better...but now it will, for Memphis..! With the inside D, and his outside..man, we would have locked it down....

[Meadowlark_Scal]

What i find funny about TA's critics is that they pull out this microscope, and dissect him, but they only use that microscope on TA....if he was better at shooting, better at ball handling...well, he'd be a 10 mill player, easily...then what would we do....