Danny Deserves the Benefit of the Doubt

[CoachBo]

The idea that Green is a poor defender is nonsense. He is a product of a system that doesn't play any.

His feet are fine. He will flourish in Boston's defensive system.

That's a possibility, but Ibaka is not a poor defender, Sefolosha is not a poor defender,Westbrook is not a poor defender..and they're all in the same system.

Saying they don't play defense in that system doesn't make a ton of sense.

Totally disagree. There isn't a good on-ball defender on that team, and Scott Brooks doesn't teach it. At all. Out here, they're our local TV team and they simply are not a good defensive basketball team. OKC is a below average defensive team.

Westbrook could play Celtic defense if a coach demanded it. Don't like either one of the other two as players, on either end.

Brooks is a defensive coach. The Thunder played pretty good defense last season. Whatever happened they aren't playing at the same level this year. Seems teams have figured them out more and attacking more. Perk will only help against that.

Again, totally disagree. Brooks doesn't begin to touch the number of concepts and complexity the Celtics teach defensively. And they're not in the discussion about the great or adequate defensive teams in the NBA. It's a two-man system, and an offense-less center with bad wheels is going to have little or no impact on that at this point.

20th of 30 in points allowed, on the bad side of 100, isn't championship basketball, and with their youth and quickness, Green included, it's absolutely inexcusable.

Really surprised too, Roy, that you're skimming over the injury and financial issues that have significantly devalued Perkins.

If he were healthy and realistic in his salary demands, this trade probably doesn't get made. But he's neither. As far as I'm concerned, Perkins traded himself and Danny did a great job selling high - very high.

[wdleehi]

I give him the benefit of the doubt.




I just don't like the trade.  Perk had proven to be a good defender against the likes of Howard and Gasol.  

[Celtics4ever]

I agree too many panic fans who over value our own players.  Perk was our best defensive big man no doubt about it.   I think we will add some bodies.  I am willingly to see how the buy outs pan out for us.

[footey]

TP OP Nice job, feel better.

[footey]

Love Perk but he is not the best player in this trade.

I disagree.  Perk has proven himself as a starter on a championship team.  Green might put up better numbers, but Perk was a perfect cog in our machine.  Also, if you knock his rebounding, I feel bad for when you see Krstic.

Also, I think you're vastly overrating Green.  He's a decent player, but he can't "defend anybody in the NBA".  He's a pretty good defender at SF, and a poor one at PF.  He's nowhere near as good as Lamar Odom.  Rather, he's a good but not great player.

I think Perk is pretty clearly the most important player here, which is why OKC gave up two players, a potential lottery pick, and took on salary for him.

Are you saying this based on KD article or your own observations? I was unaware that he was not a good defender against 3's until I read that article.

[Mike-Dub]

Love Perk but he is not the best player in this trade.

I disagree.  Perk has proven himself as a starter on a championship team.  Green might put up better numbers, but Perk was a perfect cog in our machine.  Also, if you knock his rebounding, I feel bad for when you see Krstic.

Also, I think you're vastly overrating Green.  He's a decent player, but he can't "defend anybody in the NBA".  He's a pretty good defender at SF, and a poor one at PF.  He's nowhere near as good as Lamar Odom.  Rather, he's a good but not great player.

I think Perk is pretty clearly the most important player here, which is why OKC gave up two players, a potential lottery pick, and took on salary for him.

Agree with you on all accounts with this one Roy.  Normally I would never question Danny, but we lost our starting center and a solid backup big when bigs aren't the easiest things to get in this league.

[footey]

From everything I've read so far. The OKC fans are just happy to be rid of Green. Getting Perk back is just the plus. I just feel we could've and should've gotten more for Perk.

As of right now this trade is just horrible. But I fully expect Danny to pull something off that will make these moves start to make sense. So in that way I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. 

With two bad knees and an expiring contract, don't know how you could expect more.

[CoachBo]

People over here have a tendency to go to pieces whenever Danny moves one of his beloved draft picks.

You should have seen this place the night Danny traded for Ray Allen - or Kevin Garnett. I think we've seen pretty clearly by now exactly what that emotion was - hysteria.

Dwyer's article on Green is just way out in left field. There isn't a shred of that analysis I agree with.

And I listened all afternoon to OKC sports radio here. Their NBA team thinks Presti got pantsed here. They can't believe they have up one of their three young cornerstones for a bad-legged center who can't shoot.

[footey]

I agree too many panic fans who over value our own players.  Perk was our best defensive big man no doubt about it.   I think we will add some bodies.  I am willingly to see how the buy outs pan out for us.

Excluding KG

[soap07]

The idea that Green is a poor defender is nonsense. He is a product of a system that doesn't play any.

His feet are fine. He will flourish in Boston's defensive system.

That's a possibility, but Ibaka is not a poor defender, Sefolosha is not a poor defender,Westbrook is not a poor defender..and they're all in the same system.

Saying they don't play defense in that system doesn't make a ton of sense.

Totally disagree. There isn't a good on-ball defender on that team, and Scott Brooks doesn't teach it. At all. Out here, they're our local TV team and they simply are not a good defensive basketball team. OKC is a below average defensive team.

Westbrook could play Celtic defense if a coach demanded it. Don't like either one of the other two as players, on either end.

Brooks is a defensive coach. The Thunder played pretty good defense last season. Whatever happened they aren't playing at the same level this year. Seems teams have figured them out more and attacking more. Perk will only help against that.

Again, totally disagree. Brooks doesn't begin to touch the number of concepts and complexity the Celtics teach defensively. And they're not in the discussion about the great or adequate defensive teams in the NBA. It's a two-man system, and an offense-less center with bad wheels is going to have little or no impact on that at this point.

20th of 30 in points allowed, on the bad side of 100, isn't championship basketball, and with their youth and quickness, Green included, it's absolutely inexcusable.

Really surprised too, Roy, that you're skimming over the injury and financial issues that have significantly devalued Perkins.

If he were healthy and realistic in his salary demands, this trade probably doesn't get made. But he's neither. As far as I'm concerned, Perkins traded himself and Danny did a great job selling high - very high.

For what it's worth, Green has a career 12.9 PER. Perkins is at 12.9 as well. Perkins has a career .105 WS/48 while Green is at .068. Green's rebounding rate is 9.5 - Perkins' is 16.4.

I think Green is a marginally better player and he certainly fills a need. I just wish we had more healthy big men to make up for the loss of Perk.

[soap07]

Love Perk but he is not the best player in this trade.

I disagree.  Perk has proven himself as a starter on a championship team.  Green might put up better numbers, but Perk was a perfect cog in our machine.  Also, if you knock his rebounding, I feel bad for when you see Krstic.

Also, I think you're vastly overrating Green.  He's a decent player, but he can't "defend anybody in the NBA".  He's a pretty good defender at SF, and a poor one at PF.  He's nowhere near as good as Lamar Odom.  Rather, he's a good but not great player.

I think Perk is pretty clearly the most important player here, which is why OKC gave up two players, a potential lottery pick, and took on salary for him.

Agree with you on all accounts with this one Roy.  Normally I would never question Danny, but we lost our starting center and a solid backup big when bigs aren't the easiest things to get in this league.

Well, the Celtics showed that they can play without Perkins just fine, if not better. If the C's sign Murphy, that's instantly an upgrade over Erden.

[footey]

People over here have a tendency to go to pieces whenever Danny moves one of his beloved draft picks.

You should have seen this place the night Danny traded for Ray Allen - or Kevin Garnett. I think we've seen pretty clearly by now exactly what that emotion was - hysteria.

Dwyer's article on Green is just way out in left field. There isn't a shred of that analysis I agree with.

Funny, I hated the Ray Allen trade until the KG trade went down. Then I got it. I thought Yi was going to be a stud. What a joke.  Now we've come full circle, getting back the two major components from the Ray Allen trade: Delonte West and the number 5 pick (Green). And Ray is playing better than ever.

[CoachBo]

There could be absolutely no stat on this earth more insignificant to this trade than PER.

Green is going to be asked to play minutes at the 3 and 4 for Pierce and Garnett. PER is absolutely, totally irrelevant and not even remotely adequate as a measure of how well he fills that role.

[Jon]

People over here have a tendency to go to pieces whenever Danny moves one of his beloved draft picks.

You should have seen this place the night Danny traded for Ray Allen - or Kevin Garnett. I think we've seen pretty clearly by now exactly what that emotion was - hysteria.

Dwyer's article on Green is just way out in left field. There isn't a shred of that analysis I agree with.

And I listened all afternoon to OKC sports radio here. Their NBA team thinks Presti got pantsed here. They can't believe they have up one of their three young cornerstones for a bad-legged center who can't shoot.

TP, while I'm not quite as confident as you Bo (though I'm feeling reasonably good), people do tend to go off the deep end at times.  Aside from the Ray/KG trades, let's also not forget last year, where people were writing off the team and saying it was impossible for players to "turn it on" in the playoffs, which of course proved false.  

The irony of course with the Ray trade is that we now have both of the two major pieces (Green and West) back in Green.  

[Kuberski33]

Perk looked a lot better than I expected when he came back and the past few games the team had hit a gear defensively that was good enough to win a title.

However, the Daniels loss was HUGE because the road to the title likely goes through Miami and if you have PP and Ray worrying about defending, your offense is lacking in a big way.  Plus the bench has been horrible lately.  

If Daniels didn't return, I thought it would be very difficult for the C's to win it all, even with the best record.  

Question is whether they'd have been better off waiting for a buyout guy to replace Quis or doing what they did.  

I don't at all like losing Perk.  But you have to look long term especially if Perk wasn't resigning here.  With Green, a mid level 1st rounder (Clips) and a pick at the top of the 2nd round (Cavs) those are 3 key components for keeping this team relevant.

Also no one is considering the possibility that this just became an AWESOME offensive team that can still defend.

Bottom line I'm not thrilled about it.  Hate giving up Perk who was an important guy defensively.  Right now this is a lousy rebounding team.  But I can see how economics and long range thinking may have impacted this and lets see who Danny picks up next week.