The trade has killed this team

[BballTim]

  Roy, where were those quotes from? Haven't dome much "surfing" yet...

Link.

  Thanks.

[angryguy77]

Here are some of KG's thoughts:

"What people fail to realize is Perk was one of the parts of our team that made us really, really good. Made us tough," Garnett said. "We had built that chemistry and rapport with him. With Perk we had a style of play that worked for us. We're playing without the Big Fella and we're playing without JO. To say we're not playing with the same physical presence, you're right. We don't. Because Perk was a real physical presence. . . . Yes, losing Perk did cost us some physicality but we have enough physical presence on this team that I think we can endure."

Notice you don't see the name "Nenad Krstic" in there.  Hopefully when KG says the exact same thing that fans are talking about he won't be disregarded as a chicken little.

So we disregard the line "were missing the big fella and jo"? And the fact he said "we have enough physical presence..."?

Doesn't sound "chicken little" to me.

First, since Shaq is still in a boot and getting cortisone shots, I'm not convinced that he's going to be a huge difference maker. 

More importantly, though, how can you disregard what KG said about Perk's presence?

KG's quote was political in nature. He says something nice about the former teammate while saying we'll be fine w/o him.

So when he talks about how people "fail to realize" the impact Perk had, he's just being nice and thinks the team is just as good without him?  That's not how I'd read it.   

You're focusing on only one aspect of his quote. He basically says we have what it takes w/o him. It doesn't matter if we're better with Perk, all that matters if we are good enough to complete the mission.
I fail to see how this quote can be taken any other way.

[dtrader]

  Roy, where were those quotes from? Haven't dome much "surfing" yet...

Link.

So, looking at the original article, it says KG joined them, to talk about "building chemistry with the new players, how the Celtics are different without Kendrick Perkins and the team's reaction to being called "soft"...So right off the bat, you can see that KGs answers were in response to a line of questioning SPECIFICALLY about Perkins absence, chemistry with the new players, and toughness.  He did not bring up Perkins absence or changes in toughness himself...the line of questioning brought that up. He did not bring up chemistry issues...that was the questioning.

 Also, it says that he "acknowledged" they weren't as physical without Perkins. That shows that someone else specifically brought that up...ie lead him to it. After that, KG said, "but he thinks it will be different when Shaquille O'Neal and Jermaine O'Neal return." So right there he brought up those names himself. Exactly as I had expected (and previously noted)...he was LED to discuss Perkins absence, and he brought up Shaq+JO himself.

As for chemistry issues..KG goes on to talk about Green and Krystic, saying "We socialize together. We like each other. That is very rare in our league. Here we are a team and we're a team of brothers and we really live that."...Somehow no one felt it was necessary to include that part of his quote when talking about how the trade killed the team LOL.

This just shows how reporters lead players to specifically discuss certain topics, and we as fans can take little snippets and get our opinions twisted without understanding context.  You need to read (and understand) an ENTIRE interview before you can understand the significance of 1 line from it.

[nba is the worst]

And let's not kid ourselves, Perkins hasn't exactly been a shining star in OKC.  He is playing 24 minutes and averaging less then 6 points and just over 7 boards a game since the trade and is one knee bump away from missing the rest of the season.

Here's OKC's starting lineup with Perk:

108.9 points scored/100 possessions, 98.94 points allowed/100 possessions

... and OKC's starting lineup with Krstic:

108.5 points scored/100 possessions, 109.5 points allowed/100 possessions

I don't know, you tell me:  has Perk helped OKC?  They've gone from being a very poor defensive unit to one that plays at a league-leading pace.  (That 98.9 DefRtg would be higher than Chicago's current #1 defense.)

Players contribute more than their stats.  I'm just surprised that so many fans seem to be arguing the opposite.  If we want stats, why don't we trade KG for Zach Randolph, for instance?  

Despite the small sample, that's a big defensive change, with a very small offensive one.

Wow

[j804]

I will say it again it's not so much with how much Perk played but everything else to do with the trades, the chemistry and emotional part of it obviously. As we know we are a team that is huge on bonding with each other off the court. Theres less and less time for this with this shake up and the clock is winding down.

I think we miss who I never see mentioned Marquis' solid defense and the way he lived in the paint, it opened things up none of this spread the floor crap. I think we also miss the little things like the personality of Nate Robinson in the locker room and on the court well he was just durable not something you can say for much of our roster.

[dtrader]

Discussing the recent improvement in OKCs defence without mentioning the way Ibaka's been playing recently just doesn't make sense. His play alone is totally changing games for them right now.

[LooseCannon]

Anyone still arguing for this Green trade would have traded Monta Ellis for Ray Allen last season. Fact. Because trades are fun

I still like the trade and I wouldn't have wanted to trade Ray Allen for Monta Ellis (or Rip Hamilton) last season.  Heck, I was prepared to start a thread about how Ainge should actively look for a sign-and-trade for Perkins during the off-season instead of locking him up in a long contract.  As in, I had the outline in my head of what points I was going to hit.

[fadeawayswish17]

The green being up and down at this point in the season is only a concern if this is a young team. We are not a young team and we know when to handle business when it counts. The 1st seed makes no diff, we can spank any EC rival in 7 games. I want us to make our mistakes now because we can't make them in the playoffs. Doc needs to start cutting minutes Asap and get our boys rested. The bench needs to bond. It may mean we need to loose a few games but better now than latter. Your all gonna look back at this and say ...what the hell was I really worried for. Think about how far we have come where we can be worried with a  50 and 21 record 

[Moranis]

And let's not kid ourselves, Perkins hasn't exactly been a shining star in OKC.  He is playing 24 minutes and averaging less then 6 points and just over 7 boards a game since the trade and is one knee bump away from missing the rest of the season.

Here's OKC's starting lineup with Perk:

108.9 points scored/100 possessions, 98.94 points allowed/100 possessions

... and OKC's starting lineup with Krstic:

108.5 points scored/100 possessions, 109.5 points allowed/100 possessions

I don't know, you tell me:  has Perk helped OKC?  They've gone from being a very poor defensive unit to one that plays at a league-leading pace.  (That 98.9 DefRtg would be higher than Chicago's current #1 defense.)

Players contribute more than their stats.  I'm just surprised that so many fans seem to be arguing the opposite.  If we want stats, why don't we trade KG for Zach Randolph, for instance?  

I'm sure that difference has nothing to do with the fact that OKC has played Washington, Miami, Charlotte, Toronto, Utah, and Minnesota, it was all Perkins not the fact that OKC has played pretty much garbage teams (Miami being the exception).

[Drucci]

Where (or what makes you think it exists) have you noticed the "decreased chemistry"?

On the court.  Also, pre-trade you didn't hear the coach calling guys "soft", and rarely did he call them "selfish".

And the team's identy has not changed at all. After the trade there were legitimate concerns about our defense but I never read posts saying Green and Krstic would make us a worse offensive team which is the case now mainly because of a lack of focus and execution in my opinion.

Our defense has gone from #1 to about #5 during this stretch.  We have no interior presence.  That's a pretty big change in team identity, to me.  Again, our coach is calling the team soft and selfish.  That certainly wasn't our pre-trade identity.

I didn't know about our drop in defensive efficiency, obviously it's not good but not that bad either, I chalk it to the lack of focus and big men to clog the paint (Krstic, for all his qualities, doesn't provide that).

As for Doc's quotes I wouldn't read too much into it, frankly. Sure he didn't call his team soft or selfish last year but why would he have done that since he was basically the one who told the team to "tank" until the playoffs and just get healthy? He couldn't blame them for a strategy he was a full part of.

I think that this year he is mad at his team for "coasting" again because it's not what he told them to do. He is like us in that regard : he said they don't care about the #1 seed but it's not true and he is angry at the team for coasting again while the #1 seed was still in play.

That's how I view it, though.

[soap07]

It seems as if the point that the C's were the number one defensive team before Perkins returned is being completely ignored. Were they playing harder before Perkins came back?  Was the chemistry disrupted then? Were they thinking "Yeah, let's be the number one defensive team, but the only way to maintain this is if Perkins comes back. We can't possibly do this without him."

I love that someone brought up Anthony Parker as a viable SF option for a back up. Paul would pretty much play 48 minutes a game in the playoffs.

The Big 3 (4) have been in the league long enough where they should be grown-ups about this.

[BballTim]

It seems as if the point that the C's were the number one defensive team before Perkins returned is being completely ignored. Were they playing harder before Perkins came back?  Was the chemistry disrupted then? Were they thinking "Yeah, let's be the number one defensive team, but the only way to maintain this is if Perkins comes back. We can't possibly do this without him."

I love that someone brought up Anthony Parker as a viable SF option for a back up. Paul would pretty much play 48 minutes a game in the playoffs.

The Big 3 (4) have been in the league long enough where they should be grown-ups about this.

  Pretty sure the defense was #2 before Perk came back, Chicago was #1.

  And it's not just the trade, it's also the FA signings and getting West back from injury. Doc's integrating a lot of new guys into the lineup and it's bound to throw off our rhythm.

[Marcus13]

Wow ; crazy to see that even the players are speaking out on it now.

Season is running out and we aren't even making progress towards turning this around

[Redz]

[Roy H.]

It seems as if the point that the C's were the number one defensive team before Perkins returned is being completely ignored.

That team had a healthy Shaquille O'Neal.  The current team has a benched Shaquille O'Neal getting cortisone shots and in a boot.

I love that someone brought up Anthony Parker as a viable SF option for a back up. Paul would pretty much play 48 minutes a game in the playoffs.

Yeah, Anthony Parker could never be a backup on a good team.  He only started 81 games on an excellent Cleveland team last year.  As a backup, though, he'd surely be an abject disaster, and certainly couldn't match Marquis Daniels' contributions.