With the current roster, is the Celts a playoff team??

[Tr1boy]

Stevens was a defense-first coach at Butler.  With most of a full season of a Bradley/Rondo backcourt, I can see him putting together a top-10 team on defense.  It might require finding a cheap but adequate true center on defense, but it is possible.  Add that to Bradley making at least 37% of his threes and Olynyk also being a perimeter threat while playing acceptable NBA defense, and I can see the offense being good enough to make it into the playoffs when paired with maybe the 8th or 9th best defense in PPP.

Whether Stevens was a defense-first coach in COLLEGE or not, he's going to have to adjust to new rules and vastly better players.  I mean Leonard Hamilton produces one of the toughest, most physical and effective defenses every season in college and the one year he coached the Wizards, they finished last in defense.  A coach can only do so much.  To expect Stevens to work a miracle with the defensive personnel this team has in the front court, a front court which may be the slowest, least athletic in the league and to do it in his first season ever coaching in the NBA in any capacity is ridiculous.

The wizards with everyone healthy played good down the stretch. They have nene and okafor upfront who neither i consider very mobile nor have considerable iqs. And nene was injured alot.

And celts upfront of sully and olynyk wouldnt b the slowest in the league. That award goes to memphis duo of zbo and gasol. Still they were great. Its not always about flashy, 7'6 wingspan, highlight reel blockshots. Positioning, rotating , boxing out properly, anticipating, mental speed is so much more important when it comes to defense. 

[Yogi]

All of you who believe that the Bucks are a playoff team, please explain your reasoning.

I don't think the Bucks are a lock for the playoffs, but starting Larry Sanders for a full season and not having Monta Ellis on the roster strike me as reasons that the Bucks should be better than last season.

Monta Ellis was the best Buck last year by far.  It's not even close.  Sanders started for 55 of the 71 games he played.  Bucks lost Ellis, Reddick, Dunleavy and added Pachulia and Mayo.  I would say one of the worst offensive teams got significantly worse offensively.

hmm, you're right. the bucks  are probably going to finish 9th or 10th seed behind Miami, Indy, Chicago, Nets, Knicks, Wiz, Cavs, Pistons, and maybe the Raps? It doesn't matter.  We're still likely to be in the bottom 5 teams in the league next year.

Why would the Cavs, Pistons or Wizards be in the playoffs over the Celtics?  We are probably more talented than those rosters. 

Barring injury Miami, Brooklyn, Indiana, Chicago, New York will be in.  If Atlanta re-signs Teague, Korver and adds Ellis, they will also make it.  Wizards, Raptors and Celtics will fight for the remaining spot.  I think we have an excellent shot of making the playoffs.

because the wizards should be healthy this year and have enough talent to at least make it to the playoffs.
because Josh Smith makes the Pistons better and could push them to the playoffs, not to mention Monroe and Drummond should be improved.
because Cavs are fielding a ton of promising young talent that should also improve, if their health keeps up. they might make the playoffs as an 8th seed.

see, i even completely forgot about the Hawks, but yes, they will likely make it.

If only we had a bunch of young talent that can improve...

[Tr1boy]

Wizards - have a good chance at 7-8
Raptors - jury is out still. Lowlry as pg = disaster
Pistons - sf to c good. Jury out on stuckey and knight as pgs. They have half a roster right now
Cavs - who do they have outside of irving? What bennett who played inconsistent defense in college? They will be one of the worse defensive teams in the league, starting with irving
Atl- loss of smith will be bigger than most think. Team has no go to scorer with loss of johnson and now smith. Team is lost imo
Bucks - no ellis. Mayo was horrid down the stretch for the mavs. Jennings is immature. Giannis wont be able to save them
76rs - very little chance to make the playoffs

Celts have a definite chance from 7-8.

[Galeto]

On paper, it's truly awe-inspiring thinking about the ways this team could stink next season. 

For one, there is no way for this team to have an efficient offense.  Who is going to be able to get to the line?  Wallace is the best hope but it's hard to see him recapturing his "crash" days and given the composition of this team and his age, I wouldn't blame him if he didn't want to.  Everyone else is below average at getting to the line.  And the long-range shooting on this team looks awful.  Now, I have faith in Bradley's shooting ability and I think Lee can bounce back but if your best long-range perimeter shooters are Green, Bradley, Lee and Crawford, you're probably not going to be a dangerous shooting team.  If you have trouble getting to the line and making threes, it's really hard to have a decent offense.

But maybe the Celtics can make up for some of their offensive deficiencies with their collective passing.  Maybe they can beat teams with their basketball IQ and court vision.  I don't see how.  After Rondo, the best passer on this team might be Sullinger.  Crawford's a talented passer but not a committed one.  This team is basically one playmaker surrounded by a bunch of mostly non-playmakers and guys who struggle to create offense on their own efficiently. 

[LilRip]

Why are you listing duncan, hibbert etc. Olynyk is a pf in the nba. That is vs guys like monroe, al jefferson, josh smith, david west etc.

Alot of pfs are about 6'10 while olynyk is a legit 7 ft. Wingspan is mostly overrated. Only some know how to utilize it to their adv.

Sully will take on tyson chandler, gortats of the nba. He did a fantastic job on these guys. He can guard centers and rebound against the best

Oh right, because Monroe, KG, Josh Smith, David West, Zach Randolph, Millsap/Horford etc. etc. are such easy covers. not to mention the terrific help defense he'll be able to provide against the perimeter players, a point you conveniently ignored. imo, olynyk has to protect the paint and he has to guard bigs, whether that big is Marc Gasol or Zach Randolph, whether it's Monroe or Josh Smith, whether it's Horford or Millsap, whether it's Okafor or Nene, whether it's Melo or Chandler, whether it's Lebron or Bosh, whether it's Lopez or KG, etc. And i think he will do a bad-average job of it. He's not a star player who can do it all. Ainge pretty much said he doesn't expect Olynyk to be a star. He's a role player and his role is to score. On a good team, he'll come off the bench and provide a scoring spark from the post. But as far as anchoring a top-10 defense in the league? i don't see it.

And furthermore, if sullinger is our ONLY C, don't you think we're in trouble? And if we have to rely on Fab Melo, of all people, to be our backup center, don't you think we're in even deeper trouble? Olynyk will have to play minutes at the 5. And so will Bass and Humphries.

And wingspan is rated just fine. It helps high iq players and doesn't help low iq players. having short wingspan has never helped anyone on D.

[LilRip]

All of you who believe that the Bucks are a playoff team, please explain your reasoning.

I don't think the Bucks are a lock for the playoffs, but starting Larry Sanders for a full season and not having Monta Ellis on the roster strike me as reasons that the Bucks should be better than last season.

Monta Ellis was the best Buck last year by far.  It's not even close.  Sanders started for 55 of the 71 games he played.  Bucks lost Ellis, Reddick, Dunleavy and added Pachulia and Mayo.  I would say one of the worst offensive teams got significantly worse offensively.

hmm, you're right. the bucks  are probably going to finish 9th or 10th seed behind Miami, Indy, Chicago, Nets, Knicks, Wiz, Cavs, Pistons, and maybe the Raps? It doesn't matter.  We're still likely to be in the bottom 5 teams in the league next year.

Why would the Cavs, Pistons or Wizards be in the playoffs over the Celtics?  We are probably more talented than those rosters. 

Barring injury Miami, Brooklyn, Indiana, Chicago, New York will be in.  If Atlanta re-signs Teague, Korver and adds Ellis, they will also make it.  Wizards, Raptors and Celtics will fight for the remaining spot.  I think we have an excellent shot of making the playoffs.

because the wizards should be healthy this year and have enough talent to at least make it to the playoffs.
because Josh Smith makes the Pistons better and could push them to the playoffs, not to mention Monroe and Drummond should be improved.
because Cavs are fielding a ton of promising young talent that should also improve, if their health keeps up. they might make the playoffs as an 8th seed.

see, i even completely forgot about the Hawks, but yes, they will likely make it.

If only we had a bunch of young talent that can improve...

now, if only we had some sort of inside defensive presence...

[LilRip]

Cavs - who do they have outside of irving? What bennett who played inconsistent defense in college? They will be one of the worse defensive teams in the league, starting with irving
Atl- loss of smith will be bigger than most think. Team has no go to scorer with loss of johnson and now smith. Team is lost imo

Cavs still have Varejao (provided he can stay healthy). And ATL just signed Millsap to replace josh smith so they're not as terrible as one would think.

[Tr1boy]

The only ways we cant make it are
- injury to rondo and green.
- both sully and olynyk underperform.
- wallace, humphries, lee, bass are horrid off the bench
- stevens cant adj to nba life

I just cant see any of these things happening outside of injuries. Many especially dont feel great about sully and olynyk as starters/providing impact. Its understandable, but again remember they lead their teams in college to oustanding records and were considered top 5 of their positions by the end of the season.

We have to try to look past the lack of oustanding athleticism and quickness.

[LooseCannon]

Stevens was a defense-first coach at Butler.  With most of a full season of a Bradley/Rondo backcourt, I can see him putting together a top-10 team on defense.  It might require finding a cheap but adequate true center on defense, but it is possible.  Add that to Bradley making at least 37% of his threes and Olynyk also being a perimeter threat while playing acceptable NBA defense, and I can see the offense being good enough to make it into the playoffs when paired with maybe the 8th or 9th best defense in PPP.

Whether Stevens was a defense-first coach in COLLEGE or not, he's going to have to adjust to new rules and vastly better players.  I mean Leonard Hamilton produces one of the toughest, most physical and effective defenses every season in college and the one year he coached the Wizards, they finished last in defense.  A coach can only do so much.  To expect Stevens to work a miracle with the defensive personnel this team has in the front court, a front court which may be the slowest, least athletic in the league and to do it in his first season ever coaching in the NBA in any capacity is ridiculous.

It depends on how many similarities there are between his and Doc's systems.  I don't know what his defense looks like.  It could be the case that Brad Stevens will even try to maintain the defense rather than bring in his own system.

[Yogi]

now, if only we had some sort of inside defensive presence...

True.  I forgot about the shot blocking requirements to make the playoffs.   

[Tr1boy]

Why are you listing duncan, hibbert etc. Olynyk is a pf in the nba. That is vs guys like monroe, al jefferson, josh smith, david west etc.

Alot of pfs are about 6'10 while olynyk is a legit 7 ft. Wingspan is mostly overrated. Only some know how to utilize it to their adv.

Sully will take on tyson chandler, gortats of the nba. He did a fantastic job on these guys. He can guard centers and rebound against the best

Oh right, because Monroe, KG, Josh Smith, David West, Zach Randolph, Millsap/Horford etc. etc. are such easy covers. not to mention the terrific help defense he'll be able to provide against the perimeter players, a point you conveniently ignored. imo, olynyk has to protect the paint and he has to guard bigs, whether that big is Marc Gasol or Zach Randolph, whether it's Monroe or Josh Smith, whether it's Horford or Millsap, whether it's Okafor or Nene, whether it's Melo or Chandler, whether it's Lebron or Bosh, whether it's Lopez or KG, etc. And i think he will do a bad-average job of it. He's not a star player who can do it all. Ainge pretty much said he doesn't expect Olynyk to be a star. He's a role player and his role is to score. On a good team, he'll come off the bench and provide a scoring spark from the post. But as far as anchoring a top-10 defense in the league? i don't see it.

And furthermore, if sullinger is our ONLY C, don't you think we're in trouble? And if we have to rely on Fab Melo, of all people, to be our backup center, don't you think we're in even deeper trouble? Olynyk will have to play minutes at the 5. And so will Bass and Humphries.

And wingspan is rated just fine. It helps high iq players and doesn't help low iq players. having short wingspan has never helped anyone on D.

Do you think nowitzki is good on defense? How about paul pierce? Do they have any business being good?

Olynyk if you watched him bc i dont think you have, is a very good and smart defender. And he will cause matchup issues for guys like millsap, smith etc. Most pf in the nba are 6'9-6'10 avg height. They will have to score over olynyk. So it wont b easy. So a guy like smith has to resort to shooting jumpers and we know how that will turn out. Im not stating olynyk will shut down everyone, but he is going to cause issues. He has the height , strength , iq and agility to not get abused from the inside or out.

And to answer to the poster that said what about the questions about passing and shooting fts. Olynyk is an excellent passing pf. Green always racks up 3 or 4 and sully is also a good passer. What worries me is rondo hogging the ball and not let these guys utilize their passing skills.

Also olynyk got to the line almost 4 to 5 times a game.

This is why i say olynyk is the x factor.

[Tr1boy]

If sullinger can cover chandler, gortat, asik, he can cover a good number of centers in the nba. He has serious strength to prevent ppl from getting inside position.

[Galeto]

Stevens was a defense-first coach at Butler.  With most of a full season of a Bradley/Rondo backcourt, I can see him putting together a top-10 team on defense.  It might require finding a cheap but adequate true center on defense, but it is possible.  Add that to Bradley making at least 37% of his threes and Olynyk also being a perimeter threat while playing acceptable NBA defense, and I can see the offense being good enough to make it into the playoffs when paired with maybe the 8th or 9th best defense in PPP.

Whether Stevens was a defense-first coach in COLLEGE or not, he's going to have to adjust to new rules and vastly better players.  I mean Leonard Hamilton produces one of the toughest, most physical and effective defenses every season in college and the one year he coached the Wizards, they finished last in defense.  A coach can only do so much.  To expect Stevens to work a miracle with the defensive personnel this team has in the front court, a front court which may be the slowest, least athletic in the league and to do it in his first season ever coaching in the NBA in any capacity is ridiculous.

It depends on how many similarities there are between his and Doc's systems.  I don't know what his defense looks like.  It could be the case that Brad Stevens will even try to maintain the defense rather than bring in his own system.

Whether the Celtics can be a top 10 defense next season depends on Stevens maintaining Doc's defensive system?  So replacing one of the best defensive bigs in the league with Humphries and a physically underwhelming rookie isn't as big a factor?  Stevens might be a legitimate wunderkind but it's going to be neigh impossible for him to wring a good defense out of this collection of players.  My hope is that he's such a sharp mind that when/if Ainge gives him good defensive personnel, he can coordinate the defense into something special but the expectations on him in his first year are unrealistic.

[Galeto]

Why are you listing duncan, hibbert etc. Olynyk is a pf in the nba. That is vs guys like monroe, al jefferson, josh smith, david west etc.

Alot of pfs are about 6'10 while olynyk is a legit 7 ft. Wingspan is mostly overrated. Only some know how to utilize it to their adv.

Sully will take on tyson chandler, gortats of the nba. He did a fantastic job on these guys. He can guard centers and rebound against the best

Oh right, because Monroe, KG, Josh Smith, David West, Zach Randolph, Millsap/Horford etc. etc. are such easy covers. not to mention the terrific help defense he'll be able to provide against the perimeter players, a point you conveniently ignored. imo, olynyk has to protect the paint and he has to guard bigs, whether that big is Marc Gasol or Zach Randolph, whether it's Monroe or Josh Smith, whether it's Horford or Millsap, whether it's Okafor or Nene, whether it's Melo or Chandler, whether it's Lebron or Bosh, whether it's Lopez or KG, etc. And i think he will do a bad-average job of it. He's not a star player who can do it all. Ainge pretty much said he doesn't expect Olynyk to be a star. He's a role player and his role is to score. On a good team, he'll come off the bench and provide a scoring spark from the post. But as far as anchoring a top-10 defense in the league? i don't see it.

And furthermore, if sullinger is our ONLY C, don't you think we're in trouble? And if we have to rely on Fab Melo, of all people, to be our backup center, don't you think we're in even deeper trouble? Olynyk will have to play minutes at the 5. And so will Bass and Humphries.

And wingspan is rated just fine. It helps high iq players and doesn't help low iq players. having short wingspan has never helped anyone on D.

Nice bit about wingspan being rated just fine.  I looked up Kevin Willis' stats because he's the only guy I can imagine whose wingspan was a full inch shorter than his barefoot height and I was shocked that his career average in blocks was only 0.5 and his career best was 0.8.  He was a 7-footer and a beast of an athlete and yet his career block percentage of 1.3 is the same as Pierce's.  A short wingspan is no joke. 

[kgainez]

Keep in mind that it's the east, 35 wins could get you into the playoffs. I could see this team pulling that off.

yep
i think after Heat, Nets, Knicks and Pacers it's a free for all...there will be a great amount of distance.

Atlanta isn't going to do much.
Wizards might.
Don't see the Bucks doing much more
Torontolol
Pistons have good pieces I think
Bobcats...don't care if they got Al...still a trash team...probably adds like 5-10 wins to a trash team.
Sixers obviously rebuilding.
Bulls...Nate is gone. When's Rose coming back? I think his mental has already defeated his rehab
Cavs + Orl didn't even hit 30 wins. Not a factor.

I mean honestly, if we take things seriously (as in not tanking) and Rondo wants to win and Brad Stevens does that thing where he coaches subpar talent into overachieving, we can easily be 6th seed.

I think even in playing around with the season, we're 7-8 seed. 41 wins got us there last time, and in reality 39 would've done the trick.