It seems that the natural reaction to our record and how we are playing is to become depressed and propose various unrealistic, and random trades.  This is usually accompanied by a heavy dose of scapegoating.  Big Baby used to take the the brunt of the criticism, but since he's gone the blame now falls heavily on Rondo and Jermaine O'Neal.  
  I think much of the depression stems from the fact that people are looking at this team in a completely wrong way.  We are NOT a veteran team with a core that's been together for a long time.  We have exactly 4 out of 15 players who can be considered old.  We have 4 players from the championship team, 5 players (Marquis Daniels) who were Celtics in 2009, and we can add 3 more players (O'Neal, Bradley and Pavlovic) to that list who barely played at all in 2010 to that list.  Compare this to the Spurs who have very strong continuity for the last few years.  
  We should be looking at this team as a brand new team, put together recently, with a lot of new players totally unfamiliar with the system, a coach who didn't know who will be on the roster until a couple of weeks before the season, and who have not had any time to practice and develop the proper chemistry especially given the injuries.  Combine this to the fact that the team has had 3 different defensive coordinators the last three years, and a completely new system to learn on both ends of the floor, and our record starts making a lot more sense.  
   I have seen a lot of very positive things in this team.  We are currently in the process of putting all these pieces together and when we do we will be an absolutely DOMINANT team.  
1. Shooting.  We are a much better shooting team than we were last year.  Dooling, Pietrus, Bass bring excellent shooting.  Unfortunately due to injuries we have not been able to see all three of them play together.  
2. Athleticism.  Bradley, Dooling, Pietrus, Bass and Wilcox is easily the most athletic bench I remember seeing with the Celtics. This translates in to excellent pressure defense leading to more steals, blocks, deflections and offensive rebounding.  This has also lead to more dunks and fast break points than I can recall in the past few years.  
3. Defense.  We are incorporating the zone defense as a weapon to be used when advantageous.  This is a tremendous undertaking with barely any practices and a third new defensive coordinator in as many years.  Despite all this we have excellent defensive numbers across the board.  
4.  Offense:  
-Our increased athleticism combined with Rondo has already allowed us to become a very effective run and gun team.  Avery Bradley, Sasha Pavlovic, Rajon Rondo, Mikael Pietrus are all players who have already stolen the ball and gotten an easy two in transition.  
-We have had more dunks this year than I've seen in any of the past three years.
-Rondo at the post is absolutely brilliant because not only has it forced people to guard Rondo, but actually teams to double him.  This has also allowed Rondo to draw fouls and put the other team in the penalty.  It also really allows him to hit the offensive boards where he is extremely effective.  
-Jermaine O'Neal is simply an unbelievable defender.  He just keeps drawing charges and blocking shots.  
-Rondo's been looking to shoot and has been hitting the mid range shots at an acceptable clip.  Rondo has demonstrated that he can be a monster scorer if he really has to.  Not only that, he has done that while racking up assists.  I can't believe that people still doubt his ability to carry the franchise.  He continues to score very efficiently and an increase in his shot attempts have not affected his efficiency.  
-The Big three have all shown their potential but they haven't been able to do it at the same time.  Ray started the year shooting fantastically but struggled on defensive end.  He's stepped up his defense quite a bit and although his shooting has cooled off, it's still extremely efficient.  Paul started very poorly with the injuries, but was scorching hot when Rondo was out.  KG also struggled early in the season but he has steadily improved until injuries kicked in.  
-It is very difficult to develop chemistry and build a contender from a team put together in the last minute with barely a training camp and extremely limited practice time.  Doc has a very difficult job ahead of him, but all the ingredients are there.  Once we can put all these pieces together we will be an elite team.