Are you kidding me?

[LarBrd33]

I'm still in a state of shock to be perfectly honest.  WE have failed every single test this year. 0-9 against every single contending team (Dallas, OKC, Chicago, Miami, LA)... and consistently the reason is lack of size.  Outrebounded.  Dominated inside.  YOu can't compete with a team like this.  If you still think this team is "dang" good, you're in "dang" denial.

I'm still beside myself.  I can't believe we didn't do a single thing to improve our team in the short or long term.  Completely shocked.

[OmarSekou]

I'm happy we stayed put. May even throw up a Rage on Rondo thread for everyone to throw their rational and irrational hate at him now that he's here to stay for a bit.

There's a difference between trading to get players and trading to get rid of players. Everyone who wished for a trade was hoping we would trade to get rid of players. Future Hall of Famers aren't guys you get rid of. I trust that if Danny and the team saw a deal that would help the team, they would've taken it.

[ScoobyDoo]

Thanks for the Tommy Point. Find another team with as much experience as ours has and with a solid 1-8 group of guys that are as scrappy.

But there is something about this group that I like. Maybe it's the chemistry they have. They have that classic underdog feel to them. KG's out of position, Stiemsma is starting to play better. Bass is coming into his own as a starter, Pietrus is scrappy as all hell, Ray's the old gun slinger, Pierce is heating up...etc.

I'm excited to watch them play it out. Don't bail on them!

[ScoobyDoo]

Can't argue your point LarBrd33 about the 0-9 thing. But in any of those games did we even have a full compliment? Even the full compliment we've had on this current road trip? And if so did they have more than 1-2 games together to gel prior to playing the elite teams?

My point here is that I think we could make a fair argument that if Pierce was healthy early, Rondo hadn't missed 9 games, KG however he missed, Ray, Pietrus, Bass for two weeks, Wilcox, Jermaine, etc....could we have won maybe another 6 or 7 games and if so wouldn't that put us within 2-3 games of the best record in the league?

I think so.

The good news is Wilcox and O'Neal are not our most critical pieces. I'm most interested in seeing how this team continues to play if they can stay healthy enough to keep developing what appears to be great chemistry when they are all able to get on the court at the same time.

For example, we should be 3-0 right now - Lakers, Clippers and a very tough Golden State team at home. That's positive to me.

 

[Jon]

I'm still in a state of shock to be perfectly honest.  WE have failed every single test this year. 0-9 against every single contending team (Dallas, OKC, Chicago, Miami, LA)... and consistently the reason is lack of size.  Outrebounded.  Dominated inside.  YOu can't compete with a team like this.  If you still think this team is "dang" good, you're in "dang" denial.

I'm still beside myself.  I can't believe we didn't do a single thing to improve our team in the short or long term.  Completely shocked.

But again, what would you suggest Danny have done?  

I really feel like most people who are bitter on this board had totally unrealistic expectations and thought that we were going to get the likes of Josh Smith for JO, Wilcox, Dooling, and MAYBE a second round pick (if Danny was feeling generous that day).  

But as I pointed out in another thread (http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=54595.msg1169120#msg1169120) Danny was apparently denied Tyler Hansborough (a guy averaging 9 and 4 and shooting 39% from the field) and Indy's first round pick.  And in that aforementioned thread, I detailed the drafts of the past 15 years at #22 (Indy's current pick) and teams didn't get a lot.  

I think people are stuck in baseball/football mentality, two sports where you can trade away aging stars for young cheap talent and rebuild that way.  It doesn't work that way in the NBA.  Salaries need to match and 9 times out of 10 anyone taken outside of the lottery is usually mediocre or worse.  

It sucks.  But I don't think there was really anything Ainge could do other than essentially give away the Big Three for mediocre role players and bad draft picks.  And there was really no point in doing that.  

[hpantazo]

Can't argue your point LarBrd33 about the 0-9 thing. But in any of those games did we even have a full compliment? Even the full compliment we've had on this current road trip? And if so did they have more than 1-2 games together to gel prior to playing the elite teams?

My point here is that I think we could make a fair argument that if Pierce was healthy early, Rondo hadn't missed 9 games, KG however he missed, Ray, Pietrus, Bass for two weeks, Wilcox, Jermaine, etc....could we have won maybe another 6 or 7 games and if so wouldn't that put us within 2-3 games of the best record in the league?

I think so.

The good news is Wilcox and O'Neal are not our most critical pieces. I'm most interested in seeing how this team continues to play if they can stay healthy enough to keep developing what appears to be great chemistry when they are all able to get on the court at the same time.

For example, we should be 3-0 right now - Lakers, Clippers and a very tough Golden State team at home. That's positive to me.

 

that 0-9 is missleading, and he conveniently forgot that we beat the clippers on the road, they are a contender

[ScoobyDoo]

Also positive to me is 7-3 since the all star break and should be 8-2 had we not gaffed the Laker game.

[LarBrd33]

Can't argue your point LarBrd33 about the 0-9 thing. But in any of those games did we even have a full compliment? Even the full compliment we've had on this current road trip? And if so did they have more than 1-2 games together to gel prior to playing the elite teams?

My point here is that I think we could make a fair argument that if Pierce was healthy early, Rondo hadn't missed 9 games, KG however he missed, Ray, Pietrus, Bass for two weeks, Wilcox, Jermaine, etc....could we have won maybe another 6 or 7 games and if so wouldn't that put us within 2-3 games of the best record in the league?

I think so.

The good news is Wilcox and O'Neal are not our most critical pieces. I'm most interested in seeing how this team continues to play if they can stay healthy enough to keep developing what appears to be great chemistry when they are all able to get on the court at the same time.

For example, we should be 3-0 right now - Lakers, Clippers and a very tough Golden State team at home. That's positive to me.

 

The problem has been lack of center since the day we traded Perk.  I hope everyone understands this.  I hate to rehash it for the thick, but we traded Perk for Green and Krstik on the notion that Shaq would be healthy for the playoffs.  Shaq never returned and even with Krstik and Green on board we didn't have nearly enough in the playoffs.  It wasn't even close.  We got crushed.

Then Lockout

Green is out.  Krstik is overseas.  Shaq retired.  Our attempt to get a big man (West) failed.  I knew we were doomed from day 1 and I was extremely vocal about it.  You can't win with Jermaine O'Neal as your starting center (or anything less than Jermaine O'Neal like stiemsma)...

We either needed a center to "fall out of the sky" or we needed to trade Ray and Pierce for draft picks.   I know Ainge explored options for big men.  He explored Kaman trades.  He explored Hickson trades (though hickson isn't a center either)...  We weren't going to get them to "fall out of the sky" so his next option was to trade Pierce and Ray.   Supposedly he offered them both up to everyone and nobody bit.  I'm shocked about it.  Our players have that little value?  You're telling me Raymond Sessions (a backup PG in Cleveland) and Jordan Hill have more value at this point than Paul Pierce and Ray Allen (Hill and Sessions both fetched 1st rounders).   I guess I realized that already... but it's still blowing my mind.

This is a disaster of a season.  It has nothing to do with the abilities of the big 4... we just don't have anything beyond those guys to help us compete.  Long term we'll look back on this season and probably decide we would have been better off buying out Ray and KG on day 1 and tanking.

[Jon]

Can't argue your point LarBrd33 about the 0-9 thing. But in any of those games did we even have a full compliment? Even the full compliment we've had on this current road trip? And if so did they have more than 1-2 games together to gel prior to playing the elite teams?

My point here is that I think we could make a fair argument that if Pierce was healthy early, Rondo hadn't missed 9 games, KG however he missed, Ray, Pietrus, Bass for two weeks, Wilcox, Jermaine, etc....could we have won maybe another 6 or 7 games and if so wouldn't that put us within 2-3 games of the best record in the league?

I think so.

The good news is Wilcox and O'Neal are not our most critical pieces. I'm most interested in seeing how this team continues to play if they can stay healthy enough to keep developing what appears to be great chemistry when they are all able to get on the court at the same time.

For example, we should be 3-0 right now - Lakers, Clippers and a very tough Golden State team at home. That's positive to me.

 

The problem has been lack of center since the day we traded Perk.  I hope everyone understands this.  I hate to rehash it for the thick, but we traded Perk for Green and Krstik on the notion that Shaq would be healthy for the playoffs.  Shaq never returned and even with Krstik and Green on board we didn't have nearly enough in the playoffs.  It wasn't even close.  We got crushed.

Then Lockout

Green is out.  Krstik is overseas.  Shaq retired.  Our attempt to get a big man (West) failed.  I knew we were doomed from day 1 and I was extremely vocal about it.  You can't win with Jermaine O'Neal as your starting center (or anything less than Jermaine O'Neal like stiemsma)...

We either needed a center to "fall out of the sky" or we needed to trade Ray and Pierce for draft picks.   I know Ainge explored options for big men.  He explored Kaman trades.  He explores Hickson trades (though hickson isn't a center either)...  We weren't going to get them to "fall out of the sky" so his next option was to trade Pierce and Ray.   Supposedly he offered them both up to everyone and nobody bit.  I'm shocked about it.  Our players have that little value?  You're telling me Raymond Sessions (a backup PG in Cleveland) and Jordan Hill have more value at this point than Paul Pierce and Ray Allen (Hill and Sessions both fetched 1st rounders).   I guess I realized that already... but it's still blowing my mind.

But again, as I said in a post above this, only contenders want Ray and Paul.  Contenders have late first round picks.  They really aren't worth anything.  We have a much better chance of getting the next J.R. Giddens than anything else.  All you typically get in the first round (if you get anything) is a mediocre role player.   And we don't need to accumulate those.  They are a dime a dozen on the free agent market. 

I would've been all about trading Ray or Paul for a legit piece for the future, but some random 1st round pick at the end of the draft isn't going to get us that. 

Thus, we might as well give it one last try. 

[ScoobyDoo]

I 100% agree with you that we failed at getting a center for this season. I hated that

Personally, I still like the Perkins trade long term. I figured Shaq could give us 15 a night, with a few pulled muscles here and there where he might miss a game or two, but not a career ending injury for a guy who was basically "serious" injury free for his whole career). I actaully disliked the Erden trade more.

But I like Jeff Green and the Clipper's pick moving forward, over a nine year veteran with knee surgery that we probably would have had to pay $10 mil a year for in Perkins. And Perkins is one of my all time favorite Celtics, right there with Bird, Silas, Cowens & KG, McHale.

I think we did fail miserably in not getting a center. I was baffled that we didn't try to at least sign a guy like Aaron Gray, who could have been had cheap and who gave Bynum fits last year in the playoffs. He's no superstar but on this team, the way it's built, we don't need a superstar at center, just a big space eating guy who can hit people and put bunnies in the basket when they're handed to him from the big four. I was dumbfounded that we didn't get "someone" other than Jennifer O'neal.

All that being said - I like this team moving forward, and I'm holding out a ray of hope that maybe we get lucky without a buyout guy and can add at least one more half decent big body that will help us make a decent run.

Start rebuilding in earnest next season.

  

[greenpride32]

Don't know where you're getting the 0-9 from; we beat CHI once.  True they didn't have Rose; but a Rose-less team just beat the Heat.

Let's face it; none of the C's players are in high demand around the league.  If we're only going to get pennies on the dollar I'd rather keep the current squad.  

[ScoobyDoo]

Also agree we are undersized and it's our Achille's heel this year, no question about that. We have to figure out a different way to win.

Let's see how the team does from here on out if they stay healthy now. We're 7-3 in our last ten. Let's see if they can keep building on that.

[GreenFaith1819]

phonic1 - LOVE your avatar.

Voltron is similar to our Celtics, if you think about it.

This Core Four..plus Bass, Pietrus, Stiem, AB?

By themselves, not quite as intimidating.

But TOGETHER? Especially after TODAY?

This group could go places. That PLACE could be many games won in the playoffs, or it could be only a few games.

But there IS a CHANCE. That's all this team needs.

I'm guessing that there won't be another team that can mimic this team's chemistry from this point on out.

[jdz101]

Our record would look a lot nicer if we didnt drop bunny games to detroit (twice) and toronto.

26-16 looks a lot better than 23-19

[CelticsFanNC]

  If the right deal was out there Ainge should have and would have pulled the trigger.  It wasn't out there so he held.

 Putting together a trade that firstly benefits the Celtics (because that is what we care about) but also benefits the other team involved (because it if it doesn't then they don't deal) while bidding against many other teams also looking to make deals is a whole lot harder then people think.

  Ainge isn't running the Celtic's in a bubble.   Does anyone honestly believe he didn't kick just about every tire in the NBA this past month? He and Doc obviously didn't like what was out there for what we had to offer so they held which is exactly what he should have done.