How Many Games Would This Team Win?

[PhoSita]

Take a look at the following depth chart:

John Wall - Brian Roberts
Tony Allen - Thabo Sefolosha
Luol Deng - Stephen Jackson
Dante Cunningham - Charlie Villanueva
JJ Hickson - Tyler Hansbrough


Think about that.  There are some decent players there.  But are they likely to get you very many wins, all together?  The whole looks like it would probably be a lot less than the sum of its parts.  I don't see how that team could beat any teams that are actually built to be competitive.







Now look at the Celtics roster for this season again and try not to let your familiarity with these players get in the way.




Rondo - Pressey
Bradley - Lee - Bogans - Brooks - Crawford
Green - Wallace
Bass - KO - Faverani
Humphries - Sullinger - Melo


Is the above roster really any better than the hypothetical one?  I'd argue that it's probably worse, especially when you account for Rondo and Sullinger coming back from major injuries.  I actually erred on the side of being charitable with the player comparisons.

[GreenEnvy]

I believe Wall will continue to grow and be better than Rondo this season. TA is better than Bradley. Deng is probably still better than Green (for now). Neither have impact bigs, but we have more depth in the front court. Hypothetical team still better than ours.

[PhoSita]

I believe Wall will continue to grow and be better than Rondo this season. TA is better than Bradley. Deng is probably still better than Green (for now). Neither have impact bigs, but we have more depth in the front court. Hypothetical team still better than ours.

I agree on all points.

Yet, I believe the hypothetical team would struggle to win more than 30 games.  That frontcourt is just so awful, and the bench is pretty bad.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Our team is better. Better defensively, better offensively, better passing, better ball handling, and better rebounding. So not sure what your point in all of this is.

[Mazingerz]

my prediction is between 40 - 45 wins for this year; We get into the playoffs as 6th to 8th seed;

[LooseCannon]

The second team will be better defensively, especially on the interior.  I also think team 2 will have better three-point shooting and floor spacing on offense.

[PhoSita]

Our team is better. Better defensively, better offensively, better passing, better ball handling, and better rebounding. So not sure what your point in all of this is.

Sorry, but this is homerism, and blatant at that. 


You definitely couldn't avoid letting your familiarity get in the way.

[PhoSita]

The second team will be better defensively, especially on the interior.  I also think team 2 will have better three-point shooting and floor spacing on offense.

You think Bass / Humphries / Sullinger / Olynyk are going to defend the rim?  Like, at all?

Where's this floor spacing you're talking about?

Bradley is a streaky shooter at best; Green is an okay outside shooter, but not really any better than Deng.  Wallace can't shoot to save his life.  Lee is a solid spot-up shooter.  Pressey maybe can shoot, maybe not.  Olynyk is probably a good shooter, but I'd expect him to be inconsistent as a rookie.  No better than Villanueva as a shooter.  Bass's range extends to 15 feet.

[bfrombleacher]

The second team will be better defensively, especially on the interior.  I also think team 2 will have better three-point shooting and floor spacing on offense.

You think Bass / Humphries / Sullinger / Olynyk are going to defend the rim?  Like, at all?

Where's this floor spacing you're talking about?

Bradley is a streaky shooter at best; Green is an okay outside shooter, but not really any better than Deng.  Wallace can't shoot to save his life.  Lee is a solid spot-up shooter.  Pressey maybe can shoot, maybe not.  Olynyk is probably a good shooter, but I'd expect him to be inconsistent as a rookie.  No better than Villanueva as a shooter.  Bass's range extends to 15 feet.

Being better at interior defense is not a tall order when you're looking at JJ Hickson. Sully and Bass with the tutelage of KG their cause.

Sully, Bass, Olynyk and even Hump can shoot a little. Hickson and Hansbrough can't.

Is it really necessary to try so hard to convince those who are being positive and cheering for the roster? Let them be in """denial""", "realists".

I personally also don't think the team will go far but it'd be fun to see the kids grow up.

[LooseCannon]

The second team will be better defensively, especially on the interior.  I also think team 2 will have better three-point shooting and floor spacing on offense.

You think Bass / Humphries / Sullinger / Olynyk are going to defend the rim?  Like, at all?

Where's this floor spacing you're talking about?

Bradley is a streaky shooter at best; Green is an okay outside shooter, but not really any better than Deng.  Wallace can't shoot to save his life.  Lee is a solid spot-up shooter.  Pressey maybe can shoot, maybe not.  Olynyk is probably a good shooter, but I'd expect him to be inconsistent as a rookie.  No better than Villanueva as a shooter.  Bass's range extends to 15 feet.

In terms of defense, JJ Hickson is the big man equivalent of MarShon Brooks or Jordan Crawford, with a reputation of not caring about defense.  His matador defense is why he has moved around quite a bit.  Charlie Villanueva also has a poor reputation.

Meanwhile, I think there is a decent chance that, despite their flaws, the Celtics big man corps will give more effort on defense, so that their interior defense will be better than that of your hypothetical team.

In the 2012-2013 regular season, Green shot 38.5% on long twos, compared to 35.3% for Luol Deng, and 38.5% vs 32.2% on threes.  Green seems to stand a reasonable chance of maintaining or improving upon his shooting numbers, since he was getting better as the season progressed, while Deng seems to be declining and I doubt he will get better at this point.  It would be wrong to say that Green is not really any better than Deng.  Brandon Bass took 35% of his regular season shots from 16 feet or longer and he made 45.2% of those.  15% of his shots came from 18 feet or further and he made 43.3% of those.  To say his range extend to 15 feet has no basis in fact.

It would take too long to go name by name, but you seem to be treating superficial similarities as if they are concrete equivalencies, when that comparison is not backed up by numbers.

[PhoSita]

The second team will be better defensively, especially on the interior.  I also think team 2 will have better three-point shooting and floor spacing on offense.

You think Bass / Humphries / Sullinger / Olynyk are going to defend the rim?  Like, at all?

Where's this floor spacing you're talking about?

Bradley is a streaky shooter at best; Green is an okay outside shooter, but not really any better than Deng.  Wallace can't shoot to save his life.  Lee is a solid spot-up shooter.  Pressey maybe can shoot, maybe not.  Olynyk is probably a good shooter, but I'd expect him to be inconsistent as a rookie.  No better than Villanueva as a shooter.  Bass's range extends to 15 feet.

In terms of defense, JJ Hickson is the big man equivalent of MarShon Brooks or Jordan Crawford, with a reputation of not caring about defense.  His matador defense is why he has moved around quite a bit.  Charlie Villanueva also has a poor reputation.

Meanwhile, I think there is a decent chance that, despite their flaws, the Celtics big man corps will give more effort on defense, so that their interior defense will be better than that of your hypothetical team.

In the 2012-2013 regular season, Green shot 38.5% on long twos, compared to 35.3% for Luol Deng, and 38.5% vs 32.2% on threes.  Green seems to stand a reasonable chance of maintaining or improving upon his shooting numbers, since he was getting better as the season progressed, while Deng seems to be declining and I doubt he will get better at this point.  It would be wrong to say that Green is not really any better than Deng.  Brandon Bass took 35% of his regular season shots from 16 feet or longer and he made 45.2% of those.  15% of his shots came from 18 feet or further and he made 43.3% of those.  To say his range extend to 15 feet has no basis in fact.

It would take too long to go name by name, but you seem to be treating superficial similarities as if they are concrete equivalencies, when that comparison is not backed up by numbers.

My point was not to say that each player I listed is exactly the same, but rather that the overall talent level and make-up of the two rosters is very similar, in terms of what the players can do.  I stand by that claim.

Re: Bass -- fine, you're right, his range extends to 20 feet.  But he can't shoot threes.  That's what I'm talking about when I say either of the rosters I listed lacks outside shooting.

JJ Hickson is indeed a terrible defender.  However, there isn't a single big man on our roster currently who can be even an average defensive player at the center position at this point in time.  Humphries is probably the starting center at the beginning of the season, and I think he and Hickson are very comparable.

[PhoSita]

Is it really necessary to try so hard to convince those who are being positive and cheering for the roster? Let them be in """denial""", "realists".

I personally also don't think the team will go far but it'd be fun to see the kids grow up.

Being positive and cheering for the roster is one thing, but what irks me is when people get all defensive and act as if you aren't a real fan if you think this team isn't going to be close to a playoff team.

Some people really truly overrate the players on the team simply because they wear the Celtics jersey.  The point of this thread is to try to get people to ignore the names and the jersey for a second and just think about what these players can actually do.

[LooseCannon]

JJ Hickson is indeed a terrible defender.  However, there isn't a single big man on our roster currently who can be even an average defensive player at the center position at this point in time.  Humphries is probably the starting center at the beginning of the season, and I think he and Hickson are very comparable.

JJ Hickson is a sufficiently terrible defender that one can be a below-average defensive player and still be a significant defensive upgrade.

There are different circles of hell and varying degrees of bad.

You might be inclined to think that a difference of a couple of percentage points on shooting percentage is not that big of a deal.  The Celtics as a team had a 46.5% shooting percentage, good for 6th overall.  A team with a 44.5% shooting percentage would have been between the 20th- and 21st-best teams (Toronto and Memphis).  If you put out hypothetical Team A and Team B composed of similar-looking players, but Team B's players have shooting percentages that are generally 1-3 percent higher, that's not two teams that are shooting practically the same, that's two teams with a meaningful difference on one aspect of offense.  All other things (such as defense) being equal, that slightly better shooting could be worth five more wins, perhaps more.  If there's also a seemingly slight but real difference on defense as well, then you could be looking at two teams that look alike but might have a difference of ten wins.

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

I`m guesstimating 20 wins in the lead up to the trade deadline, a bug trade, then 10 wins till season end. This is totally arbitrary

[chambers]

between 25-30 if Rondo is healthy.
under 25 if he's injured early.

The team of B grade All Stars you put together makes a good point. I think they'd beat us given their depth. We are a below mediocre starting 5 with an extremely poor bench and no depth defensively or shooting wise.