My final thread on the trade

[dlpin]

I don't agree, but fine, let's pretend that every single deal was absolutely necessary. The question *still* must be asked how to evaluate the players brought in. I'm quite sure Ainge will ask this question, so I think it's fair for us to as well.

it is not about agreeing. It is about fact. Of the roster that started the season, Marquis, Nate, Shaq, JO, Perkins, Erden and West were down with major injuries. That meant we would have had 8 healthy bodies for at least a month. And at least 2 of those have not even come back yet. So yes, it is a fact that we would need to sign free agents or play an 8 man roster for a month. And to sign those free agents we would need to cut people and keep their salaries on the books or dump them on trades.

It very well might be that no better value was out there. Or it might be possible that we did get value, and the numbers can show it somewhere. You could also argue that the value is in future positioning--I've said I think it's either 2011 or 2016 for this team, but that's a fair point to argue. But the question is much more important than rehashing the "Perk vs Green" debate for the millionth time.

And in that case, it is at worse a wash. Perk has been truly abysmal in these playoffs. Marc Gasol is averaging almost 7 points over his regular season average.

I don't follow. Green sits because Doc wants to play PP more, of course, yes. But how does that explain the fact that Green's numbers when he *is* on the floor not measuring up to Kyle Korver's, or Darrell Arthur's, or Shannon Brown's?

Again, simple: he is going up against Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony. Is it so hard to understand that players will put up worse numbers against better competition?


In any case, as I said, if you evaluate Green that way, you have to evaluate Perk that way.

Have I not been clear? I do not care about Perkins' stats with OKC.

The only reason I posted was to try to get out of the "Perk vs Green" debate that is so tiresome and fruitless. Instead, I want to focus on assessing what value we got, and trying to determine if it was worth the costs. Take Jeff Green's name out of it--if we focus on the numbers and try to put them in context of other similar numbers in the playoffs, maybe we can judge the output of the trade without making it about personalities or emotion.

This makes zero sense. How can you "determine if it was worth the costs" without evaluating the costs? How can you evaluate if we got fair value in return without evaluating what we gave up?

Again, when you're comparing outputs per minute it's totally irrelevant who the guys are playing behind. But sure, it's fair to say that the whole team is underperforming, and it's fair to consider the opponent. But I don't know that it excuses some truly awful turnover and rebounding numbers. Green's averaging more turnovers per minute than Tony Allen did last year...facing those same elite players. And I say again, if you don't think these are fair comparisons, please, by all means, suggest another player! I'm just an armchair guy looking for a new take on an conversation that is done to death by focusing on actual numbers rather than names.

FWIW, looking at Battier's numbers I absolutely would have traded a 1st rounder + more for 3 months--because those 3 months would have given us the best chance of winning a title in the next 5 years.

Again, this makes absolutely no sense.
You talk and talk about the "costs" and the "numbers" but you don't accept it when anyone brings up Perkins numbers!

I mean, Perkins is too much to give up for Green and a first because Green is not doing so well in the playoffs (but doing poorly in the playoffs can't be used against Perkins)? But you would be ok giving up a 1st for a guy who is putting up worse numbers on more minutes?


Let me get this straight:
- the way he has played in the New York series (because he has been fine against Miami) should count against Green in order to evaluate what we got.
- Perkins abysmal performance should not count against him for whatever reason, even though you want to evaluate if we got fair value in return.
- Battier similar performances should not count against him either when we suggest alternatives.


Did I miss anything?

If you want to evaluate Green based solely on the playoffs, you need to do the same for Perkins and the alternatives to Green.

[vinnie]

In his 82 minutes in the Miami series, Jeff Green has definitely shot better, and is 11-21 from the field. He has averaged 8.25 points. I also believe that in a few spurts he has played solid defense on Lebron.

The rest of his stats in those 82 minutes:

7 rebounds -- the guy is 6' 9" and has 7 rebounds total
0 assists -- How is this possible in 82 minutes
5 turnovers
2 blocked shots
2 steals

Clearly everyone has different standards in terms of judging players and clearly I am biased here, but there stats are mediocre at best.

[pearljammer10]

I still don't like the trade, and I think Perk would have stopped a lot of Miami's penetration and would have helped on the boards (which was an issue last night).  That said, I don't really expect anybody to change their minds at this point.

Going forward, I don't really see Jeff Green as much more than a role player; I don't think he's a guy you can build around.  I'm hopeful that the Clippers pick at least yields a good player, although the draft is always a crap shoot.

Sums up my thought.


Last night was a replay of last years game 7.


Replace Wallace with JO

Nate with West

TA with Green


Injured Perk with Injured Shaq.




Wasn't the offseason about adding big bodies so that would never happen again?  What happened?  Short term memory loss?

Couldn't agree with both of these statements more. We added the Oneal boys so we could bash other teams big men and have a huge advantage up front. Why trade our starting center? Since the trade, the team has had a totally different attitude, not in a good way. The big bad Celtics that no one wanted to play haven't been so big and bad after Perk left. He might not be the most talented player in the world by any means, but people greatly greatly underappreciate the value he gave to this team.

Sure we got the better player in the deal, but he plays the SAME position as Pierce, who we have for another 3 years. Green might be great as a third option playing 37 minutes a night and getting the ball all the time but as a role player coming off the bench for 17 minutes? To me thats just wasting his value.

[soap07]

Did anyone hear Ric Bucher say before Game 3 that Perkins told him that he was at most 65% because of the knee he sprained that caused him to miss three-four weeks? Seriously, a 65% Perkins would have helped one iota in this series? And this is the guy that you would want to give a 36 million dollar contract to?

I love Perk. I'll miss him. I do miss him. But he wasn't playing the 4th quarter when he was here at 100% and his injury history, lack of offensive ability and trouble defending mobile centers was not worth the contract he would have demanded.

Green has been a decent backup, no better, no less. But at the very least, there is a Clips' first rounder to look forward to and potentially Green's improvement.

It's possible that neither team did well with this trade, but at least the C's have some chips to play with and OKC is stuck with Perk, bad knees and all.

[soap07]

In his 82 minutes in the Miami series, Jeff Green has definitely shot better, and is 11-21 from the field. He has averaged 8.25 points. I also believe that in a few spurts he has played solid defense on Lebron.

The rest of his stats in those 82 minutes:

7 rebounds -- the guy is 6' 9" and has 7 rebounds total
0 assists -- How is this possible in 82 minutes
5 turnovers
2 blocked shots
2 steals

Clearly everyone has different standards in terms of judging players and clearly I am biased here, but there stats are mediocre at best.

Green hasn't been great, but no one is saying he has been. People are saying that compared to the alternative scenarios, this is the best one.

[greenpride32]

The C's were 4-3 with Perk as a starter this year.  One of those victories was the game Perk reinjured himself in very limited minutes so his contributions were obviously minimal in that game.  You can make the argument their slide already began with Perk.  My point isn't to bash or pin the blame on Perk, but to show he wasn't the be all end all for this team.

Also I see so many comments about the C's holding the top record in the east with Perk on the roster, whether he was actually playing or not (how do you bash Green for playing limited minutes in his new role with C's yet you credit the other guy for NOT playing at all???).  The big 14-16 game winning streak we went on in NOV-DEC was fueled by the big 4 and Shaq (-Rondo for a few games a he was hurt).  With Shaq healthy and starting the C's were a dominant team.  With Perk on the team they were still very good; but Shaq put them over the top and head and shoulders above other teams.

Let's stick to facts and numbers and not some mystical Perktonian auora.  If I'm not mistaken Perkins was born in TX and is human.

[JohnBagleyValueMeal]

I just wrote a long response and lost it when I got logged out.

The gist of it is this:

If you want to argue that the only way we can assess the performance of the new guys is to compare them to Kendrick Perkins statistics in Oklahoma City, then this is not a very interesting conversation.

If you can acknowledge that you can judge the performance of the new guys by looking at their playoff performances and trying to find equivalents across the NBA (or in recent NBA history), then this conversation could perhaps be useful and not devolve into the same tired old debate, and moving goalposts, and talk of intangibles, etc etc. That's not a worthwhile discussion at this point, IMO.

For whatever it's worth, here are two other comparisons: 2011 Shane Battier and 2010 Tony Allen. I put in Battier to address the concern that I wasn't evaluating his playoff performance (even though I explicitly brought him up?). I added 2010 Tony because he faced similar, and perhaps superior, opposition in his playoff run (Wade, LeBron, and Kobe). I balanced for the difference in minutes (Battier averages 26mpg, Green 19, and Tony 16) by looking at the stats per 36 minutes.

Points per 36: Green 13.8, Allen 11.2, Battier 8.5
Rebounds per 36: Battier 5.4, Green 5, Allen 3.8
Assists per 36: Battier 1.75, Allen 1.6, Green .24
Steals per 36: Allen 2.3, Green 1.2, Battier .8
Blocks per 36: Allen 1.3, Green .97, Battier .81
Turnover per 36: Battier .5, Allen 2.1, Green 2.4
Fouls per 36: Battier 3, Green 4.6, Allen 5.3

Draw your own conclusions, and as always I welcome suggestions of other players we might compare Green's numbers to.

[dlpin]

If you can acknowledge that you can judge the performance of the new guys by looking at their playoff performances and trying to find equivalents across the NBA (or in recent NBA history), then this conversation could perhaps be useful and not devolve into the same tired old debate, and moving goalposts, and talk of intangibles, etc etc. That's not a worthwhile discussion at this point, IMO.

Wait, so we should "can judge the performance of the new guys by looking at their playoff performances and trying to find equivalents across the NBA" but NOT do the same for Perkins? So we should not evaluate what we gave away and just assume that he was super valuable, but we should evaluate what we got? This makes ZERO sense.

For whatever it's worth, here are two other comparisons: 2011 Shane Battier and 2010 Tony Allen. I put in Battier to address the concern that I wasn't evaluating his playoff performance (even though I explicitly brought him up?). I added 2010 Tony because he faced similar, and perhaps superior, opposition in his playoff run (Wade, LeBron, and Kobe). I balanced for the difference in minutes (Battier averages 26mpg, Green 19, and Tony 16) by looking at the stats per 36 minutes.

Points per 36: Green 13.8, Allen 11.2, Battier 8.5
Rebounds per 36: Battier 5.4, Green 5, Allen 3.8
Assists per 36: Battier 1.75, Allen 1.6, Green .24
Steals per 36: Allen 2.3, Green 1.2, Battier .8
Blocks per 36: Allen 1.3, Green .97, Battier .81
Turnover per 36: Battier .5, Allen 2.1, Green 2.4
Fouls per 36: Battier 3, Green 4.6, Allen 5.3

Draw your own conclusions, and as always I welcome suggestions of other players we might compare Green's numbers to.

So we compare Green to Battier, or Allen, or whoever you want. So what? How does that tell us whether the trade was good? It is amazing to me that you don't see how obvious it is that if you want to evaluate the trade you have to evaluate both Perkins and Green. Or do you think we should get someone who puts Lebron numbers after giving up someone who puts up Paul George numbers?

[soap07]

I just wrote a long response and lost it when I got logged out.

The gist of it is this:

If you want to argue that the only way we can assess the performance of the new guys is to compare them to Kendrick Perkins statistics in Oklahoma City, then this is not a very interesting conversation.

If you can acknowledge that you can judge the performance of the new guys by looking at their playoff performances and trying to find equivalents across the NBA (or in recent NBA history), then this conversation could perhaps be useful and not devolve into the same tired old debate, and moving goalposts, and talk of intangibles, etc etc. That's not a worthwhile discussion at this point, IMO.

For whatever it's worth, here are two other comparisons: 2011 Shane Battier and 2010 Tony Allen. I put in Battier to address the concern that I wasn't evaluating his playoff performance (even though I explicitly brought him up?). I added 2010 Tony because he faced similar, and perhaps superior, opposition in his playoff run (Wade, LeBron, and Kobe). I balanced for the difference in minutes (Battier averages 26mpg, Green 19, and Tony 16) by looking at the stats per 36 minutes.

Points per 36: Green 13.8, Allen 11.2, Battier 8.5
Rebounds per 36: Battier 5.4, Green 5, Allen 3.8
Assists per 36: Battier 1.75, Allen 1.6, Green .24
Steals per 36: Allen 2.3, Green 1.2, Battier .8
Blocks per 36: Allen 1.3, Green .97, Battier .81
Turnover per 36: Battier .5, Allen 2.1, Green 2.4
Fouls per 36: Battier 3, Green 4.6, Allen 5.3

Draw your own conclusions, and as always I welcome suggestions of other players we might compare Green's numbers to.

Would it be a fair position to take that Green hasn't played all that well but that he is still a better alternative than what we faced before the trade? I think you're preaching to the choir a bit with your numbers (although very well researched and informative, so thanks for that). I don't see how anyone can rationally say that Green has lived up to expectations here but I also don't see how anyone can rationally say that Perk on one knee and looking at a large contract extension is a better situation, which is why you have to compare the two.

[LB3533]

Green has been good for us.

It's too bad other parts of our team have not.

[vinnie]

Green has been good for us.

It's too bad other parts of our team have not.

How has Jeff Geen been good for this team? What has he done, other than at times given Pierce a rest? I continue to be baffled by this "green has been good for us" argument.

On another note, did anyone hear Bucher on WEEI this morning? He basically said that the trade weakened the Celtics' chances to win the championship this year and that Danny definitely did not have to sell management on the trade because it was a money saver. He did add that the trade was done for the future. He also added that the veterans on the team were not happy about the trade because they knew it weakened them for this year. I know, all the trade supporters are going to tell me that Bucher is just another guy who knows nothing about the Boston situation, but I thought what he said was interesting.

[boscel33]

call me a kool-aid drinker, but i still support the trade.

perkins has not done much for the thunder in the playoffs, playing in nine games averaging 4.6 ppg and 7.2 rpg.  jemaine o'neal has played eight games with a 6.2 ppg and 4.5 rpg.

it's not the trade that has killed this team, it's their play as a team.

where has krstic gone?  how can he go from a starter to such a role player in the playoffs.  this one falls a little onto doc's shoulders.

[MBunge]

On another note, did anyone hear Bucher on WEEI this morning? He basically said that the trade weakened the Celtics' chances to win the championship this year and that Danny definitely did not have to sell management on the trade because it was a money saver. He did add that the trade was done for the future. He also added that the veterans on the team were not happy about the trade because they knew it weakened them for this year.

Kendrick Perkins played a whopping 12 games for Boston this year.  This was one of the best teams in the league witout Perkins stepping a foot on the court.  It was one of the best teams in the league without Shaq playing.  It was one of the best teams in the league without Jermaine playing. This was one of the best teams in the league with Semih Erden starting at center.

If Boston doesn't win a championship this year, the reasons for it will start with Rondo playing like absolute crap for that stretch where they lost the chance at homecourt advantage in the playoffs, Big Baby becoming not just worthless but actually harmful to the team when he was on the court, the fact that KG and Ray have each had one good game and 3 poor games against Miami and that this veteran team that has been together for several years still makes way too many stupid turnovers.  The absence of Perk comes in far behind all of that.

Mike

[housecall]

Usually a championship team has a few games won in the playoffs with their bench coming up big,hasn't happened so far on this team.Usually you see a role player come up big in a few games to boost the starters,example:last night in the Bulls vs Hawks game the Bulls backup pf came thru in crunch time for them.He gave them the necessary energy and some timely pts when they needed it,something that hasn't happened on this team yet.Between the players who already existed on the bench and the trade guys the bench hasn't given us much.

[vinnie]

Usually a championship team has a few games won in the playoffs with their bench coming up big,hasn't happened so far on this team.Usually you see a role player come up big in a few games to boost the starters,example:last night in the Bulls vs Hawks game the Bulls backup pf came thru in crunch time for them.He gave them the necessary energy and some timely pts when they needed it,something that hasn't happened on this team yet.Between the players who already existed on the bench and the trade guys the bench hasn't given us much.

Correct. This is where Jeff Green comes in. Where is that 20-point, 5-rebound performance to help lead the team to victory? That is the deal with a bench in the NBA. It is less about consistency and more about someone different stepping up to help a team win. The Celts have had none of that.