Let's take into consideration a few factors before jumping to conclusions here:
1. Last year and previous years the Celtics had what amounted to a 10 day training camp before pre-season games, about 7-8 pre-season games that spanned slightly over 2 weeks, then about 5-7 more days of practice before the season opener. Last year they opened with 3 games in four nights and lost to a pathetic Cleveland team on the second night of back to backs in that 3 games in 4 day stretch. Point is the Celtics had a over a month of practices, pre-season games, and 3 regular season games to come to the same point that they have already in about 2 weeks time.
2. Camp opened Dec. 9th and the Celtics players had not been near summer camps or the Waltham training facility or the coaching or medical or training staff all summer long. Everyone's condition coming into camp was a huge question mark for the Celtics coaches and staff. This had to set back the team's ability to properly condition and meld themselves into a cohesive unit.
3. The worst part of what we have seen thus far is a horrid team defense and just awful man defense and rotational defense. Part of that is a lack of practice, part is a lack of conditioning, and the third is a lack of cohesion due to the fact Pierce has missed the entire camp.
4. KG is older and father time will take over at some point. But let's remember something. In the past, KG has been able to know he had Perkins and Shaq behind him playing defense and he could play tighter man defense on the 4 and cheat when he had to because he had a bid defensive stud or intimidator behind him. I think the word is out on Jermaine O'Neal. He is not nearly the defensive rock at the center position he once was and can be moved easily and can not move laterally nearly well enough to pick up the rotations that well. I think this is why O'Neal is fouling so much early on.
5. KG isn't a center. He can't move those big guys off the blocks with lower body strength and doesn't have the initial explosion in his lift to get up high enough and effect big man's shots anymore. This is also why he has appeared to be late on numerous switches and smaller guys are getting layups off him. This was in evidence last year as well. Further proof of this is KG's lack of alley oops from Rondo. KG can't get the initial burst to get separation from his man on the high pick and is also having trouble getting elevation and hang time to get the ball and then throw it down. This was also in evidence last year as KG many times caught the ball, landed and then went up with a layup.
Take all this into consideration and I say we have to wait until Pierce is back and the starters start playing together for a bunch of games before we know exactly if KG is done or old. He should still be in the middle of preseason and practices. Instead he is going to be playing his 4th game in 6 nights tonight. He and this team needs a couple of weeks of playing together, practices, conditioning and cohesion as a group before I start announcing any player old, done, worthless, D-League material or any of the other stuff I have seen on this board. And yes, that includes O'Neal, KG, Bradley, Pavlovic, Daniels, Moore or any other player that someone has claimed has played poorly and is cooked.
Personally, I think KG has to have taken a step back. He's human and has a lot of mileage on that body. If he is limited to less than 30 MPG(Note: that is an average so I don't want to hear about the minutes he has put in thus far. If he's out of condition, and it appears he is, more minutes will get him in shape faster. Its why they have two-a-days during training camp.), can play regularly with the starters and have his minutes at center be limited to a zone defense, he can still be a very effective defender and 14PPG and 7 RPG player who will need about 6-8 games off during the year during the condensed schedule to remain fresh for the playoffs.
He won't ever be KG of 2007-08 ever again. I don't think we are even going to see much consistency from him this year, more like a great game and then a ho-hum game, then a good game and then a stinker. Its what happens to older players.
I would be happy though if this is his last year. I don't want to see him being Hakeem in Toronto coming off the bench because his game is so old.
