Chris Mannix says the Celtics no better than the 6th seed

[BballTim]

Celtics are old, this prediction is based on the assumption the Celtics will spend significant portions of the season with key players missing due to the injuries.

I think he could very well be right, although I think 4 or 5 is a more likely.


if you're comparing lineups between the playoff teams in the East, you have to consider that the Celtics lineup is going to look like this a lot of the time:

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Garnett - Wilcox

or

Rondo - Daniels - Pavlovic - Garnett - Bass

or

Dooling - Daniels - Pierce - Bass - O'Neal

or

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Bass - Stiemsma

etc.


The Cs are going to drop a lot of games that way.

  And you have to consider the act that the majority of the playoff lineups will feature three or four of Rondo, PP, RA and KG.

[kn 99]

To be honest I dont care if we are a 8 seed. As long as we make the playoffs. Plus with a draft class this deep Im rooting for the celtics to drop some games in the regular season because they gave the big three nights off. Then come playoff time step it up and give all they got.

[cman88]

look, the last memory we have of the celtics is losing in 5games to the Miami heat..so we've got a sour taste in our mouths..but while the heat were clearly the better team in that series you cant put all of that on Age.

our big 3 were relatively healthy last year. the problem was our bench was decimated by freakish injuries to the extent danny blew it up 3/4 into the season and started anew on the fly. then BBD regresses, Shaq is out and wala you have an undermanned team

theres alot of questions that have to be answered before we can call the celtics season hopes over, or even on.

for one, none of our acquisitions(besides bass maybe) may be big names this year, but healthwise these guys are more durable and more athletic. a bench with D.west and shaq looks nice on paper. but when you get about 25games out of each of them it doesnt exactly help

maybe Moore and Johnson produce and are nice players off the bench, maybe avery finds his spark. maybe Rondo takes a jump and plays more agressively in his scoring

either way, I look at the celtics who were the best team in the east for 3/4 of the season and find it hard to see them being a 6th seed this year..barring some major injury to one of the big 4

[manl_lui]

what is Chris smoking? I'd put

Miami, Chicago and Boston on the top 3, Knicks, Atl and Orlando follows in that order...

then im stuck between Pacers, 76ers

I thik he's smoking a normal cig from Quickies.
Eastern Conference Standings:
1.  Miami (J.Anthony,Bosh,Battier,James,Wade)
2.  Knicks (Chandler,Amare,Melo,Baron,Bibby)
3.  Chicago (Noah,Boozer,Deng,Rip Hammy,Dr.1)
4.  Pacers (Hibbert,West,Granger,George,Colison)
5.  Boston(same stuff older...)
6.  Atlanta (Hordford,Smith,T-Mac,J.Johnson,Hinrich)
7.  Orlando (Howard,Baby,Hedo,J.Rich,Nelson)
8.  Philadelphia (Hawes,Brand,Iggy,Meeks,Lou Will)
9.  Milwaukee (Bogut,Moute,Delfino,Jackson,Jennings)
10. New Jersey (Lopez,Humphries,Outlaw,Morrow,Deron Will)
11. Washington (Blatche,McGee,Lewis,Crawford,Wall)
12. Cleveland
13. Detroit
14. Toronto (they always suck as long Andrea is there...)
15. Charlotte

Okay, he was smoking something that was a bit wrong...
If u read at all the top 7 line ups, their starting line ups improved, except for ours...)

NO WAY I PUT THE PACERS AHEAD OF THE CELTS...I'm still not sure if NY will be ahead of us

as the above said, I believe Cs will be lead their division

[PosImpos]

Celtics are old, this prediction is based on the assumption the Celtics will spend significant portions of the season with key players missing due to the injuries.

I think he could very well be right, although I think 4 or 5 is a more likely.


if you're comparing lineups between the playoff teams in the East, you have to consider that the Celtics lineup is going to look like this a lot of the time:

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Garnett - Wilcox

or

Rondo - Daniels - Pavlovic - Garnett - Bass

or

Dooling - Daniels - Pierce - Bass - O'Neal

or

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Bass - Stiemsma

etc.


The Cs are going to drop a lot of games that way.

  And you have to consider the act that the majority of the playoff lineups will feature three or four of Rondo, PP, RA and KG.

yeah.  that doesn't change what the likely playoff seeding will be based on the regular season records.  the celtics will probably be seeded 4-6, but they'll be the 3rd or 4th best team in the conference in the playoffs.

nevertheless, i maintain that even with our starting lineup fully healthy, this team is a 2nd round exit waiting to happen, barring an enormous leap by Rondo.

[BballTim]

Celtics are old, this prediction is based on the assumption the Celtics will spend significant portions of the season with key players missing due to the injuries.

I think he could very well be right, although I think 4 or 5 is a more likely.


if you're comparing lineups between the playoff teams in the East, you have to consider that the Celtics lineup is going to look like this a lot of the time:

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Garnett - Wilcox

or

Rondo - Daniels - Pavlovic - Garnett - Bass

or

Dooling - Daniels - Pierce - Bass - O'Neal

or

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Bass - Stiemsma

etc.


The Cs are going to drop a lot of games that way.

  And you have to consider the act that the majority of the playoff lineups will feature three or four of Rondo, PP, RA and KG.

yeah.  that doesn't change what the likely playoff seeding will be based on the regular season records.  the celtics will probably be seeded 4-6, but they'll be the 3rd or 4th best team in the conference in the playoffs.

nevertheless, i maintain that even with our starting lineup fully healthy, this team is a 2nd round exit waiting to happen, barring an enormous leap by Rondo.

  If we're healthy and Rondo's playing like he was when he was healthy last year we could easily beat any team in the league. I'd say that there would have to be a noticeable dropoff in the big three this season to believe otherwise.

[PosImpos]

Celtics are old, this prediction is based on the assumption the Celtics will spend significant portions of the season with key players missing due to the injuries.

I think he could very well be right, although I think 4 or 5 is a more likely.


if you're comparing lineups between the playoff teams in the East, you have to consider that the Celtics lineup is going to look like this a lot of the time:

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Garnett - Wilcox

or

Rondo - Daniels - Pavlovic - Garnett - Bass

or

Dooling - Daniels - Pierce - Bass - O'Neal

or

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Bass - Stiemsma

etc.


The Cs are going to drop a lot of games that way.

  And you have to consider the act that the majority of the playoff lineups will feature three or four of Rondo, PP, RA and KG.

yeah.  that doesn't change what the likely playoff seeding will be based on the regular season records.  the celtics will probably be seeded 4-6, but they'll be the 3rd or 4th best team in the conference in the playoffs.

nevertheless, i maintain that even with our starting lineup fully healthy, this team is a 2nd round exit waiting to happen, barring an enormous leap by Rondo.

  If we're healthy and Rondo's playing like he was when he was healthy last year we could easily beat any team in the league. I'd say that there would have to be a noticeable dropoff in the big three this season to believe otherwise.

as with other things, i think we've both learned that this is an area in which we will have to agree to disagree.

unless rondo can play for 3-4 playoff series the way he did against cleveland in 2010, i don't see how the celtics could get past the top contenders in the league (miami, chicago, oklahoma city).

[vinnie]

I have been saying 4th-6th since the Green injury and see no reason to change that now. As far as health, Pierce is already injured and now they are saying he might miss the season opener. This is what we are going to go through all year. Predictions are fun and this one by Mannix did exactly what he wants it to do -- he's got a 5=page thread of diehard Celtics fans talking about it.

[PosImpos]

I have been saying 4th-6th since the Green injury and see no reason to change that now. As far as health, Pierce is already injured and now they are saying he might miss the season opener. This is what we are going to go through all year. Predictions are fun and this one by Mannix did exactly what he wants it to do -- he's got a 5=page thread of diehard Celtics fans talking about it.

haha, so true.

you don't make it in Mannix's business by making safe, run-of-the-mill predictions.

Henry Abbott, for example, basically makes his living by writing TrueHoop articles that he knows NBA fans will get all bent out of shape about.

[BballTim]

Celtics are old, this prediction is based on the assumption the Celtics will spend significant portions of the season with key players missing due to the injuries.

I think he could very well be right, although I think 4 or 5 is a more likely.


if you're comparing lineups between the playoff teams in the East, you have to consider that the Celtics lineup is going to look like this a lot of the time:

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Garnett - Wilcox

or

Rondo - Daniels - Pavlovic - Garnett - Bass

or

Dooling - Daniels - Pierce - Bass - O'Neal

or

Rondo - Allen - Daniels - Bass - Stiemsma

etc.


The Cs are going to drop a lot of games that way.

  And you have to consider the act that the majority of the playoff lineups will feature three or four of Rondo, PP, RA and KG.

yeah.  that doesn't change what the likely playoff seeding will be based on the regular season records.  the celtics will probably be seeded 4-6, but they'll be the 3rd or 4th best team in the conference in the playoffs.

nevertheless, i maintain that even with our starting lineup fully healthy, this team is a 2nd round exit waiting to happen, barring an enormous leap by Rondo.

  If we're healthy and Rondo's playing like he was when he was healthy last year we could easily beat any team in the league. I'd say that there would have to be a noticeable dropoff in the big three this season to believe otherwise.

as with other things, i think we've both learned that this is an area in which we will have to agree to disagree.

unless rondo can play for 3-4 playoff series the way he did against cleveland in 2010, i don't see how the celtics could get past the top contenders in the league (miami, chicago, oklahoma city).

  He has to play well for us to win but not necessarily at that level. I think the biggest concern is his staying healthy for the playoffs, but then we're discussing how well a healthy Celts team would do. By the way, Chicago didn't fare any better against Miami than we did and OKC needed 7 games to get past Memphis and lose to the Mavs in 5 games. I don't think they had the level of success in this or past years to be elevated to the "practically unbeatable" level.

[Change]

call me a homer, but Celtics finish no worse than 2nd seed.

I believe

[j804]

I have been saying 4th-6th since the Green injury and see no reason to change that now. As far as health, Pierce is already injured and now they are saying he might miss the season opener. This is what we are going to go through all year. Predictions are fun and this one by Mannix did exactly what he wants it to do -- he's got a 5=page thread of diehard Celtics fans talking about it.

I agree only with Green out if we had him IMO we could have surprised a lot of people this year and even came out the east

[chambers]

Mannix, as usual, has no idea.
He had put Philly, Indiana and Orlando all ahead of us.

His goons agreed "I'd say that's a pretty fair assessment'.
We just had three guys all voted in the top 25 in the NBA and Ray Allen who is still the best 3 point shooter (and top 50 player in the NBA).
Our bench is stronger than it's ever been. Not one injury problem coming off the bench for us.
Not saying we are winning the whole thing but Chris Mannix is a clown, plain and simple.

[celtics2]

One more body part fart and we'll be in the lottery.

[Celtics4ever]

Against the grain sells in sports media, just look at Skip Bayless.  A controversial pick here or there and when one of them happens you look like a genius if they fail people turn in to jeer at you.