Yes the ride is over. If your talking about improving the bench theres no point in arguing because you don't realize the problems with the starters. KG is only a star on one side of the floor, Pierce is a more efficient scorer, but he's a lot less explosive. Rays a shooter who needs others to create looks for him to really excel. Their all peices, but there's no real star to get this team over the top, I expected Rondo to step into that role but he hasn't. In this league you need stars to win and right now were lacking that.
However saying we're likely to finish 7th in the east is a huge stretch. The only teams in the east to worry about as of now are MIA, CHI, and NYK.
we really had no stars in 2010 and made the finals...and that year Ray had one of his worst shooting years and KG was playing on one knee..both were much better last year..but everyone else Wasnt..and thats really what killed us.
Rondo was injured all year which killed his driving to the basket, and dislocated his elbow in the playoffs. If healthy, I think rondo can step into a role of helping the team more and up his scoring
we were the best team in the east 3/4 of the year. If healthy, I think we can contend..
the score to those heat games were alot closer than the 4-1 would suggest..and 2 of them were basically played without Rondo
maybe im not as pessimistic as others, but I think if Rondo is healthy and we have 2 REAL bigs to clog the paint, we can beat miami