I don't think we are a better team without Ray

[Stig]

JET is very good as a bench gunner, but he's not the same caliber as Ray at any stage of his career.

he's undersized, not a very good defender, not as good at catch and shoot. Without Ray he'll have to play a lot more minutes. We are now very undersized at SG position.

So sad to hear Ray leaving, just can't get over it....

[LarBrd33]

i agree... we probably got smaller.  But then again if we end up starting Pierce at SG and Jeff Green at SF, we probably got bigger.

What's taking so long on Green, btw?  With Ray leaving that probably really favors he and his agent and their demands of 10 mil per year. 

[xmuscularghandix]

JET is very good as a bench gunner, but he's not the same caliber as Ray at any stage of his career.

he's undersized, not a very good defender, not as good at catch and shoot. Without Ray he'll have to play a lot more minutes. We are now very undersized at SG position.

So sad to hear Ray leaving, just can't get over it....

Yes he's undersized but he's made a successful career that way up to this point and has been contributing to winning teams for most of that career.

Jason Terry is a great catch and shoot guy. He also improves every other aspect of The Celtics game when he's on the floor, he's 10x the passer and ballhandler that Ray Allen is.

I also think that bringing back Pietrus fixes the size issue while also making the Celtics STACKED with perimeter defenders at the guard position.

Celtics are better with Ray gone, the only problem is that he only has to picnic at the three point line in Miami and will get some of the most wide open looks of his career.

btw I definitely have to argue with the "not the same caliber as Ray at any time..." Right now he's better than Ray Allen was last year.

[Stig]

I agree with some you said, Terry is a better ball handler and passer, because he used to play pointer guard position.

I love him as a second combo guard, a upgrade to Dooling and a complement to AB, but not a replacement to Ray.

I don't think Terry is a better defender than Ray, size aside, he'll be 35 next season, if we think Ray is too old to cover any quick guard, so is Terry. I believe Ray can recover from the bone spur and get back to the condition of beginning of last season, that Ray, I think, is a better player and a better fit to this Celtics team as a starting SG.

[Fafnir]

We're not a better team without Ray.

We might be better with the three guard rotation of Rondo/Bradley/Terry than Rondo/Bradley/Ray, but that's very hard to say. That's three small guards, hopefully we can get a veteran to provide a bit more size and rebounding.

[Celtics4ever]

It will hurt us in spreading the floor.  But there will be advantages too like not so many moving picks trying to free him up.  I do think Terry is a better athlete and defender than Ray.   Wait and see folks.  He is short but he is scrappier.

There is no guarentee that Ray will be Ray when he comes back.  He was a shadow of himself.  Mark my words Bradley is going to swat one of his shots.

I think this could benefit us if we get an athlete who can run with Rondo.

[kozlodoev]

It will hurt us in spreading the floor.  But there will be advantages too like not so many moving picks trying to free him up.  I do think Terry is a better athlete and defender than Ray.   Wait and see folks.  He is short but he is scrappier.

There is no guarentee that Ray will be Ray when he comes back.  He was a shadow of himself.  Mark my words Bradley is going to swat one of his shots.

I think this could benefit us if we get an athlete who can run with Rondo.

Having Allen _and_ Terry would have been great. Having Terry instead of Allen is probably a wash -- and it also addresses team needs better, provided Terry can get on with the program.

I've heard word that Bradley may be out until December, so I wonder what our contingency plan is -- given that Crawford is off the table, maybe we'll start Pietrus at the 2?

[Sketch5]

Are people forgetting that AB is Ray's replacement, and has been for a while? So why all of a sudden Terry has to replace Ray?

Terry is Dooling,Sasha, or Daniels replacement and thats huge!

Yeah Terry isn't as good of a 3 point shooter, but he can catch fire, he can create his shot, and handle the ball. He came here to come off the bench, something Ray didn't want to do. Plus he's a 15 point a night off the bench guy.

You know what the C's scored in game 7 off the bench? 2...2 freaking points to the Heats 25 or 27. You add a possible 13 more points, with Greens possible 10, and they win game 7.

People are also forgetting the run we had when Bradley started for him when he went down. They played pretty good. 10-1 I believe.

What we wont miss is the slowing down the offense to get Ray open in the middle of quarters. But what we will is his clutch 3 point shooting. Its hard to replace, but Im liking a team that isn't dependent on the 3, and with PP and Terry there are still two good clutch options.

We do need one more guard to fill in, Im sure DA has guys lined up. So until the final roster is set, Im holding judgement of if we are better or worse than last year. So far just with Terry, and possible Green I think at least the bench got better.

I think its not really are we better or worse this season, its more that we are going to be different than last. If its good or bad? Who knows, but the good thing is they are heading over seas for camp, and in 08 when they did that, good things happened...

Thanks for the 5 years Ray, I wont wish you luck in your new adventure, but I will appreciate what you did when you were here.

Now excuse me while I go to take the knife out of my back...

[thenotoriousjts]

Well we can still start Bradley like before, and have Terry be awesome off the bench. If we can stay healthy (HAHAHAHAHAH) then we should have enough depth to replace Ray's scoring in guys like Jeff Green. Basically, we're replacing Ray's ability to spread the floor and draw attention with Bradley's ability to slash through the defense and play some nasty D of his own.

[Lightskinsmurf]

Our starting 5 is better without ray. We could have USED him on our bench no doubt about it. Him leaving doesn't break us and it barely if at all hurts us. A bench of Terry Green Mp Sullinger is more than enough scoring and huge upgrade from last years bench. I love ray or should i say LOVED....but unless hes knocking down shots consistently hes a liability to have out there. Hes nothing more than a spot up shooter now.

[RockinRyA]

we are better without ray, but the problem is the heat are also better with ray.

addition by substraction, when we had ray, even when he was playing bad bradley has to sit down because ray's ego cannot handle playing second fiddle to bradley. we also had to pay a lot of money for someone whos just there as a decoy.

hes a better fit with the heat though, since lebron and wade gets so much attention when they drive hes likely going to have more wide open looks without having to run through a thousand screens (whcih he has a hard time doing nowadays.)

bosh lebron ray wade chalmers would be there finishing lineup, replacin battier. they gain better shooting (slightly imho, if you compare it to how battier shot against us) but theyd lose battier's ability to defend as well.