Never said they were championship caliber, but I'm sorry those rosters are much better than one and done with a legitimate star wing. Pierce would have had those teams playing at a much higher level. I would have loved for Pierce to have guys like Miller, Camby, Billups, Nene, Martin, Smith, or hell even Affalo. All of these guys are arguably more impactful players than Pierce ever got to play with for the most part. (I really don't like Walker in retrospect, game 3 ECF aside). You are really underrating Denver's supporting cast there and are forgetting how weak the NBA was compared to now. You didn't need three big time players to move forward in the playoffs like it feels like nowadays. Pierce would have had these guys at a higher seed and would have given them a better opportunity to move on in the playoffs because they probably wouldn't have had to play the Spurs or Lakers in the first round.
My only real point is that people have to stop comparing Melo to Pierce in terms of them 'figuring' it out. Pierce always knew. He literally had no teammates to play with. Melo, though? He's had plenty of opportunity to lead his team somewhere further than the first round and fails almost every time. His rosters barely had holes in them and were incredibly balanced compared to the rosters we had. Melo actually had real point guards. He had real second options for the most part. He usually had bigs that could actually rebound and defend. All things Pierce never had until '08.
And yet the teams Melo lost to in Denver were far superior to the teams Pierce lost to in Boston. Melo lost to the eventual NBA champion or WCF champion on multiple occasions. The competition in the West was far tougher for Melo than it was for Pierce.
Melo has warts, but so did Pierce once upon a time. I don't think it's entirely fair to put all the blame on Melo when year after year he faces better 'teams', and loses. The only team I would say was inferior that Melo lost to was the Clippers, and that is questionable. Put Melo on the '08 Celtics and I wouldn't call it preposterous at all to think they would have still won the title.
Melo can win a title. Plenty of people thought Pierce/KG/Ray couldn't either, until they did. It's all about putting the right pieces around him. No different that any other NBA player.
My point is that Pierce wouldn't had those teams playing the eventual champions in the first round. Remember all the hype about Denver? Those teams were underachievers. It's all anyone really talked about 5-6 years ago. There's a reason the Nuggets didn't really skip a beat replacing Melo's production with Galinari and Wilson Chandler. Both players took care of Melo's scoring easily when combined and since Melo doesn't offer too much else, the Nuggets didn't really change too much. That would have never happened with Pierce. He's not that replaceable.
The '08 Celtics would not have won a championship with Melo. We were highly dependent on Pierce's passing that year. He basically ran our offense while Rondo was still getting his feet wet in the NBA. Melo has not shown this kind of ability in his 10 year career so far.
Pierce lost to the ECF champs twice (the '03 Nets were actually pretty decent and gave the Spurs a run for their money). The '02 Nets were pretty meh, though, so I'll give you that one even if they were the champs of our weak conference. Pierce then lost to the Pacers (a 60 win team) which featured Ron Artest in his prime, Jermaine, and Reggie Miller. They probably would have won the championship if it weren't for Detroit. The next year after that Pierce and Walker lost to the Pacers, which is a series I think the Celtics should have won. That's the only time I was really disappointed with Pierce's maturity, but we still won the that game at least. Lucky for him.
So yeah, Pierce actually did play some really good teams in the playoffs and the Celtics were generally known as overachievers if anything.
Like I've said before, though, I would actually love to have Melo on this team. I think Rondo could actually reign him in and turn him into a great off the ball player. He's no Pierce, though, and I would never want to have Melo with the ball in his hands with 20 seconds left like Pierce. Melo is too one dimensional and only looks to shoot in those situations.
Paul George is the guy who is very similar to Pierce. Not Melo.
Topic: Rondo+ Carmelo+ (insert player here?) on Celtics= Legit contender. (Read 24918 times)