The reason we would go for gortat is because we have too many jump shooters in the starting five already. Our best celtics lineup in the last five years was with rondo, Allen, pierce, kg, and perk and perk certainly couldn't shoot. Gortat would be wide open under the hoop all the time with rondos penetration
So you think that Danny and Doc would rather steer towards the pick n roll starting five with Rondo dishing?
Remember there's much less room for Rondo to operate in the paint with Gortat in there than Bass moving out to 15 feet and taking his defender with him. I'm not saying this won't work. It worked very well with Shaq getting easy lay off's from Rondo.
But has Rondo become a better player with more space in the paint to work with?
Remember it's also not just about offense, it's about Kevin Garnett on the defensive end. How does KG go against Ibaka in a 7 game finals series?
Would we rather have Josh Smith on Ibaka and KG on Perk?
Or Smith on Amare and KG on Chandler?
I think Smith is a better all round defender than Gortat.
Who would be better against the Heat? Gortat or Smith? You could make arguments for both.
I just want people to weight the Smith vs Gortat debate up on both ends of the floor because most of the stuff I've seen really only implies offense.
Rondo makes both of them look good too- better than they currently look for sure.
Going back to offense, I think part of Rondo's ability to flourish into the assist king of the NBA is the space that our KG/Bass offense gives him.
You are completely missing the point.
Just because Gortat is our 5, doesn't mean he has to defend the other teams 5.
When we played Miami (before Nosh started to play center) Doc would cross match with KGon Bosh and Bass on Joel Anthony (because he's not an offensive threat).
We could very easilly start Gortat at 5 but put him on Ibaka, and start KG at the 4 and put him on,Perk. There is no NBA rule stating that you must matchup with the same positions.
Initially I was very much on the "Josh smith over Gortat" bandwagon, but the more I think about it the more I think Gortat is better for us.
Firstly Josh Smith will not likely come in the future for any less than a max contract. Even his current contract is quite large. We'd need to send Green and Bass/Lee just to match contracts, and we'd probably need to include Bradley too to make them bite. If we get him hell take up major cap space, and we really don't know how good he's going to get. Gortat is only on 7.5M for the next couple of years, and that's q bargain for a guy who's capable of averaging 15/10/2.5 in the right system. To get him we'd not need to lose Green - the contract is small enough that Lee or Bass on their own is almost enough to match. Phoenixo think are more desperate to ditch him, while Atlanta seem content to hold on to Smith until a great offer cones their way. That all means we can prob get Gortat for a,lot,less.
Next theres size. Smith is athletic but he's only 6'9". Having KG + Gortat gives us two 6'11" guys on the floor at the same time. I can see Doc playing small with Josh Smith spending time at Center - no fear of that with Gortat out there. I also see lebron/battier defending Smith easier then they could Gortat, who could shoot straight over guys like that the way people do to Bass now.
As for jump shots, last I heard Smith was shooting about 30% from midrange - you really want him taking shots to dare people ?
Finally I have no problem with KG defending PF's. So far this season I've seen him switch out on guards and SF's and he was able to put pressure on them and stick with them mist the time. A PF (outside of LeBron) should really be no problem for him.