Celtics: Most dangerous bench in the EAST?

[bfrombleacher]

The Knicks might rival us. But they might take the curse of injury from us (cross your fingers) with their signing of multiple old players.

I don't view the Knicks bench as very impressive. Their best bench guy is Camby?

Kidd, Camby, J.R. Smith, Kurt Thomas

Maybe Novak (who might have benefited from Jeremy Lin though)?

I don't think Smith/Camby are good enough to have them in the conversation. Those are the only two impact guys.

Novak is a shooter who got hot with Lin, widely overrated and overapid now. Kidd/Felton aren't going to manufacture the same sort of looks for him, nor is he going to shoot that hot again. Meanwhile he's a negative everywhere else on the court.

Kind of thought so with the Lin part of the whole thing.

I think those are some big names though and they're not just starting caliber, they're both one of the best in their respective positions.

I also think they're very comparable to our roster when we had Shaq. We had a great top heavy roster with Marquis Daniels at his very best, Glen Davis who was having/had one of his best years, JO and Perk coming off injuries.

But with that much age and having such a top heavy roster did not help us at all.

[Lightskinsmurf]

 That's why I wouldn't be surprised to see someone like Pietrus make a return appearance.

He wants more than the vet min and hes not getting the BAE. Hes not coming back.

[rayallen1934]

oh yea , i think its definently the most potantially dangerous bench, and definently the most talented

[the_Bird]

 That's why I wouldn't be surprised to see someone like Pietrus make a return appearance.

He wants more than the vet min and hes not getting the BAE. Hes not coming back.

Someone *like* Pietrus, not necessarily him. 

But, Pietrus didn't exactly take the League by storm last year.  He was decent but certainly not spectacular, not a player that's likely to command a lot more than the BAE.  38.5% shooting, 33.5% from distance.  Played good D and a good guy to have around, but he's also already 30 years old.  He may be looking for more money, he may be looking for a mini-MLE type contract, but I'm not convinced he's going to get it. 

If he's looking at a BAE offer elsewhere (what I think is most likely), there's a decent chance that Danny would make the same offer, and he'd probably come back.

But, even if it's not Pietrus, I wouldn't be surprised to see SOME veteran SF come to Boston, on either a vet-min deal or using the BAE.  That's the one position where we still seem a little light, unless they believe Courtney Lee can slide over to the "SF" spot in a three-guard smallball lineup.

[Birdman]

and no old folks..alot of young legs

[the_Bird]

and no old folks..alot of young legs

...  JET is old, but yeah - Danny's quietly rebuilt the team without blowing it up.  If these guys play up to expectations, that's almost as impressive as when he first put the Big Three together.

[ram]

For the record, Terry, Lee, Green, Wilcox and Collins have 1,745 career starts among them. Lee has the least with 135, Wilcox with 254 and Green with 263. Collins has 467 and Terry 626.

That's 60% of the total games played. Wilcox the lowest at 45%, Lee at 47%, Terry at 61%, Collins at 69% and Green at 83%.

That is a lot of experience.

[BandwagonFan]

I'm actually a little concerned about our "bench depth". We've got a ton of guys who excel in the "sixth man" type of role; but I feel like Bradley and Bass are among them, and we're counting on them to start.

We've got three All-Stars, and then a half-dozen Sixth-Guy-On-A-Championship-Team types, from what I can see. That's certainly a good team, I'm just not sure that it's a championship team, particularly once rotations shorten in the playoffs.

[kozlodoev]

I'm actually a little concerned about our "bench depth". We've got a ton of guys who excel in the "sixth man" type of role; but I feel like Bradley and Bass are among them, and we're counting on them to start.

We've got three All-Stars, and then a half-dozen Sixth-Guy-On-A-Championship-Team types, from what I can see. That's certainly a good team, I'm just not sure that it's a championship team, particularly once rotations shorten in the playoffs.

Both Bradley and Bass are much, MUCH better when they're stuck in a starting role next to Rondo. Bradley, in particular, has been an abject failure as a sixth man, mostly because it's been asking him to do too much.

It's really only Terry that is sixth man material of the lot, so I'm not concerned.

[P2]

Collins and Wilcox are just role players. Terry is a real sixth man, Lee and Green would be starters on many teams in this league. Bass and Bradley excel when starting alongside Rondo and Garnett. So yeah, we're pretty good on paper, let's see what happens.

[Roy H.]

Terry
Lee
Green
Wilcox
Collins

Wouldn't be too bad of a starting lineup, actually.

That team would be Bobcats bad, or worse.

It's excellent for a bench, though, assuming everyone blends well.  Also, I'm hoping Wilcox plays over Collins, with Sullinger filling the PF slot.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I'm actually a little concerned about our "bench depth". We've got a ton of guys who excel in the "sixth man" type of role; but I feel like Bradley and Bass are among them, and we're counting on them to start.

We've got three All-Stars, and then a half-dozen Sixth-Guy-On-A-Championship-Team types, from what I can see. That's certainly a good team, I'm just not sure that it's a championship team, particularly once rotations shorten in the playoffs.

Both Bradley and Bass are much, MUCH better when they're stuck in a starting role next to Rondo. Bradley, in particular, has been an abject failure as a sixth man, mostly because it's been asking him to do too much.

It's really only Terry that is sixth man material of the lot, so I'm not concerned.

I don't think that's true about Bass. I think he's shown himself to be better as a bench player and more productive per minute.

Here are his splits for last year:
http://espn.go.com/nba/player/splits/_/id/2745/brandon-bass

As I've argued before, Bass is much more valuable to us off the bench than with our starters, even if the change in productivity is slight.

[looseball]

I think so and also I've been doing alot of thinking. Our starting lineup has showed time and time again that we can hang with miami. Its the bench that has let us down and its the bench that constantly gave up leads. So we had to rely on our older guys to play huge mins which is why we could never keep the leads that we built. At the very least we seemed to always be right there with miami before we simply ran out of gas. With our bench this year the whole running out of gas thing, its over. If that isn't a reason to be scared of this team, idk what is.

Did we change coaches?

[All Star Matt Clement]

I think so and also I've been doing alot of thinking. Our starting lineup has showed time and time again that we can hang with miami. Its the bench that has let us down and its the bench that constantly gave up leads. So we had to rely on our older guys to play huge mins which is why we could never keep the leads that we built. At the very least we seemed to always be right there with miami before we simply ran out of gas. With our bench this year the whole running out of gas thing, its over. If that isn't a reason to be scared of this team, idk what is.

weren't you saying in the other thread about how we can't beat the heat and that you're worried about the team and now you're saying the bench is awesome? i'm confused. pick a side and stick with it.

[guava_wrench]

The Knicks might rival us. But they might take the curse of injury from us (cross your fingers) with their signing of multiple old players.

I don't view the Knicks bench as very impressive. Their best bench guy is Camby?

Kidd, Camby, J.R. Smith, Kurt Thomas

Maybe Novak (who might have benefited from Jeremy Lin though)?

I don't think Smith/Camby are good enough to have them in the conversation. Those are the only two impact guys.

Novak is a shooter who got hot with Lin, widely overrated and overapid now. Kidd/Felton aren't going to manufacture the same sort of looks for him, nor is he going to shoot that hot again. Meanwhile he's a negative everywhere else on the court.

Plus, it seems like cheating to list Kidd as evidence of a strong bench when you have a bad starting PG in Felton.