People have got to stop with the Nenad vs Perk comparisons.

[CelticG1]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lafrera01.html

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/k/krstine01.html



Give me Raef.

Raef was an all-star and was a league leader in blocks, I'd probably take him over both Perk and Krstic

Those days were so far behind him when he was a Celtic it was like they never happened.

Raef wasn't the defender Perk was at any point. How do you think he'd do against D Howard?

I thouhgt you meant in general.

He probably wouldn't do that great against Howard but who knows he would certainly cause match up problems on the other end. And no one stops Howard anyway including Perk. Perk does well on him but you make it sound like he shuts him down.

With Shaq playing 13 minutes on Christmas day and no Perk, Howard scored 6 points against us.

With Perk starting against Howard a month ago Howard had 38.

Howard had Averaged 20 and 10 in the playoffs last year against Perk.

And who cares about Howard?? He is one guy in this league. Apparently we should have never let TA go or even thought about letting him go because he does so well on Kobe..

[Tai]

I agree that we stop the comparisons.


But you aren't doing that.

Lets be real Perk has been owned by just about every player in the league at some point and a lot of them more often than not.

Kaman, Bogut, Bynum, Gasol, Lopez, Howard, Lee have all had there way plenty of times against Perk and those are just off the top of my head.

So just because he was a "team" guy and did the "dirty work" and had a few decent games against  Howard (who previously has been inept in the post anyway) that he is a game changer defensively.

All-stars played well against him?  Did he get owned by DeAndre Jordan?

Ok Perk did well against poorer centers in the league and bad against the better centers that sounds awesome.

I have no idea how he has done against Jordan but he is the exact type of guy that would give Perk trouble an athletic monster that would just jump over him.

I loved Perk on this team but this team made him. Time will tell how he does on another team but I think in our system with the defensive players we had the defensive coaches being in the same system for 8 years certainly made Perk look as good as he could, and I think he just about reached his ceiling.

So I guess Krstic is about to take off? 

I don't even understand what you are talking about

Perk averaged 5 points a game and 6 rebounds....awesome. He is the 12th best center in the league awesome, Krstic is probably the 15th best and is our back up, what is your point?? That Perks defense is slightly better than Krstic's offense?

One center is good and the other isn't.

I don't understand why it's so great that one aspect of the clearly worse center is slightly better.

Krstic isn't good? Really? I can accept thinking Perkins > Krstic overall, but thinking Krstic sucks as far as centers go...I don't know if Krstic threw that chair at someone close to you or something, but you clearly have some hate for him. Infact, you admitted in another topic. So, WHY do you hate him again?

I'm not a big fan of players that play the game because they're tall. I'm also not a fan of players that don't play defense because they might chip a nail. 

That's what I've always gotten from Krstic. Always.

I don't get how Krstic having the offensive game he has means he's only playing cause he's tall. Big men with offensive games like Krstic's don't grow on trees, even if you think they do or don't matter if they can't play D JUST LIKE Perkins.

I also wanna know where you get the idea that he doesn't play defense because he'll chip a nail. Do you have an article of this or do you just consider him a "soft euro" and leave it at that? I always thought he was a just guy with not enough size to adequately guard bigger centers like Howard and Bynum and what not. How did that get translated into "oh he just doesn't want to play defense cause he think he'll chip a nail"?

[Pacijent]

All-stars played well against him?  Did he get owned by DeAndre Jordan?

He did drop 20 on the other end...

And we lost. Great.  Can't wait till Krstic starts scoring 20 on those all-stars that dropped so many points on Perk

Just to make sure.....ARE WE TALKING ABOUT K.Perkins here or Shaq,Ewing or some other great big men......are u kidding me...u talk about Perk like he is the best we ever had....[dang]N

[Bahku]

Much as I dislike the comparisons also, (as Perk and Krstic are very different players alltogether), people are entitled to their opinions, and have every right to compare whoever they want to compare, in any way they wish to do so.

[celtics2]

krstic 20/9 not too shabby. He's been playing well since he got here.

[celtics2]

Krstic is 9/5 and 9th in the League in 22 minutes. And he does it with a smile.

[PosImpos]

EJ, I think we at Celticsblog get that you really liked Perk and were saddened and angered when he was traded.

Now can you please stop attacking the new players and acting as though anybody who says good things about them is maligning Perk and his contributions to the C's?

Krstic is by no means an All-Star.  Neither was Perk, though.  Neither of them is ever going to be an All-Star.  They have fairly opposite strengths as players, but since so far Krstic has basically been slotted into Perk's role, it's fair to compare the two.  It's not absurd to do so.

If we're going to win #18 this year, we're going to do it by getting quality minutes from Nenad Krstic and not Kendrick Perkins.  That's just how it is.  I think there are decent arguments to be made that, all things considered, we're better off that way.

[Celtics4ever]

Nenad is definitely playing better here than he did for OKC.   I think the same will be true of Perk, personally.  Playing with three surefire hall of famers is sure to help someone.

Great post, PosImpos, Tp to you.

[clover]

Krstic was also only a quarter of the trade for Perk, along with Green, a good first round pick--and their doing us the favor of taking Nate off our hands.

I'd say Stitch is worth more than 1/4 of Perk, by far.

[jdz101]

Its amazing how people are still clinging to this 300lb big with bad knee problems who wasn't that great anyway and isn't even playing on our team.

[wdleehi]

Its amazing how people are still clinging to this 300lb big with bad knee problems who wasn't that great anyway and isn't even playing on our team.

Because most know he is better then you are describing. 

[jdz101]

Because most know he is better then you are describing. 

Give me some sort of proof of that being the case after he returned from injury, statistically or otherwise. Our worst run this year was after he returned.

[wdleehi]

Because most know he is better then you are describing. 

Give me some sort of proof of that being the case after he returned from injury, statistically or otherwise. Our worst run this year was after he returned.

Because two of the three games lost during the time he was starting came against two of the title contenders (LA and Dallas), it is Perks fault.  It is also a really big sample, right. 


I don't know, the way the  Celtics are playing right now isn't exactly great.  Looks like they are lucky to be in a one of the low points of play, that all NBA team have, when the schedule is easier. 


Is Perk playing at the level he was the years before?  No.  Was he helping the team?  Yes. 



The trade happened.  Until one of the Oneal's return, this team is soft in the middle.  Luck for Celtics, they don't run into a contender until March 31st.

[Casperian]

Nenad Krstic still lifts his eyes to the sky when he thinks about the bombs.


He was a teenager when war came to his Serbian homeland. Ethnic disputes, long a problem in what was once known as Yugoslavia, had again turned ugly, bloody and deadly. International forces stepped in, and shells rained down.

"Every single day,” the Thunder center said, "you heard the sirens.”

They wailed every day for 75 days.

"You’d try to hide,” he said, "but then ... you stop caring. You can’t really care anymore. You become a little bit crazy about everything.”

He paused, seeing who knows what in his mind’s eye.

"It’s hard.”

The Krstic family lived in a one-bedroom apartment, Nenad and his sister sharing the bedroom and his parents sleeping in the living room.
His parents had stable jobs — his dad worked in construction, his mom in nursing — but they made only $5 or $10 a week. That was the average salary in Serbia.

"It was hard times, not just for me but for everybody,” Krstic said. "It was wartime. It was survival.”

"I remember my first day of bombing,” Krstic said in the way most people talk about their first trip to the dentist. "I was in a shelter. My mom, my sister, my grandparents ... I remember I got sick.
"I remember those memories.”

He paused.

"They’re not really nice.”

A long-standing disagreement in the country had turned violent. Albanians in Kosovo, a long-disputed territory, had declared their independence, and Serbians had come in to squelch the movement. The result was bloody.

NATO stepped in on March 24, 1999. The international forces unleashed a large-scale military operation to stop the conflict. They bombed for the better part of three months.

"You’d just wait for the bombs,” Krstic said.

"He had a very frustrating year,” Cornstein, his agent, said. "He was really recovering most of the year, and the little that he played at the end of the year was ... ”

His voice trailed off, words about that difficult time still hard to find.

"It took him a long time to get back.”

NBA teams were showing little interest in Krstic after the season, and when Cornstein fielded a two-year, $18 million offer from little-known Triumph Lyubertsy in the Russian Super League, they decided to give it a go.

It was a gamble, but the payoff was big. Only a few months into the season, the Thunder called with an offer sheet and a three-year, $16 million deal. Krstic took the pay cut and returned to the NBA.

The support of those closest to him was critical — always has been — but in the end, he had to take the steps on the journey. He had to endure.

As has always been the case, he had to withstand the bombshells.

"You just try to get through it,” Krstic said, talking about his most recent injury but in the process, describing his life. "I think I will always get through it.”

http://newsok.com/waiting-for-the-bombs-to-fall-before-reaching-the-nba-nenad-krstic-survived-a-war/article/3436004

[Roy H.]

Fans can't realistically expect Krstic to be as good as Perk was.  That was my entire point in the "overrated" thread.  Fans can't just look at good offense, and ignore defense and rebounding (particularly defensive rebounding).  It never made sense that a vocal minority was claiming that Krstic was as good or better than Perk; he isn't, and that's an example of the overrating that was occurring.

At the same time, it's not fair to ask Krstic to live up to the unrealistic expectations of some.  He doesn't deserve to be bashed because he isn't as good as Perk, and Danny doesn't deserve to be bashed because Krstic isn't a Perk replacement, either.  Nobody should have thought he would be.  Krstic is a backup center who was included in the Perk trade; the real "prize" was Jeff Green.  When we look back at this trade, whether it's right now or after the season, we need to assess how all the pieces played, not just Krstic.

All that said, last night was just an exaggerated view at who Krstic the player is:  he's good on offense (but not regularly as good as he showed last night), he's pretty bad on defense (but not regularly as bad as he showed last night), and he's a terrible defensive rebounder (last night's 3 defensive boards in 38 minutes is probably a bit below his norm, although not all that far off).