171 days later, this guy looks really dumb

[PhoSita]

I'm curious how many wins this team would have if the final roster were substantially the same as at the start of the season.

Rondo and Green were just not good fits for Stevens' system, a fact that's even more glaring in retrospect.

our record would have been significantly worse.

Are we talking about keeping Rondo, Green, et. al or playing the whole season out with Thomas, Zeller, and company?

My apologies, it was somewhat ambiguously worded.

I meant if Ainge had opted to keep Rondo and Green through the end of the season, rather than trading them.

I agree with LarBrd that the record would have ended up much closer to my original expection (e.g. 28-30 wins, a.k.a. much worse).

[D.o.s.]

We would've had a better team with a worse record, I think.

[Moranis]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article. 

[Donoghus]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

And you know, declaring Smart and Bradley as shooting averse and pigeonholing Sullinger as a Center... just a bunch of mis-characterizations, even if you end up agreeing with the conclusion.

[Moranis]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

And before all the trades, Boston was that bad.  Heck even with the good play down the stretch still isn't going to get to even .500.  I mean as recently as February 2nd, Boston was 14 games under .500 with a win percentage under 35% (which translates to 25 wins over 82 games).  Ainge was able to put together a more cohesive team and the wins picked up significantly after Rondo (and to a lesser extent Green) were traded and even more significantly after Thomas was acquired. 

[Donoghus]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

And before all the trades, Boston was that bad.  Heck even with the good play down the stretch still isn't going to get to even .500.  I mean as recently as February 2nd, Boston was 14 games under .500 with a win percentage under 35% (which translates to 25 wins over 82 games).  Ainge was able to put together a more cohesive team and the wins picked up significantly after Rondo (and to a lesser extent Green) were traded and even more significantly after Thomas was acquired.

Helps to factor in the strength of the schedule pre & post all-star break.  Schedule broke easier the second half of the season.  They most likely weren't as bad as the 1st half of the season indicated and probably not as good as the 2nd half suggests.

[Moranis]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

And you know, declaring Smart and Bradley as shooting averse and pigeonholing Sullinger as a Center... just a bunch of mis-characterizations, even if you end up agreeing with the conclusion.

To be fair as a trio, Rondo, Bradley, and Smart averaged less than 30 shots a game  (and that is with the uptick in Bradley and Smart after Rondo left the team).  And oh by the way, the best percentage of those three is Bradley's 42.9% from the field.  That isn't exactly what anyone would call shooting prolific.  I didn't look at all the teams, but of the ones I looked at, I couldn't actually find a team that had less shots or less percentages as a whole than Boston from its 3 primary guards. 

EDIT: BTW, Sullinger was basically playing exclusively at center in the preseason.

[Moranis]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

And before all the trades, Boston was that bad.  Heck even with the good play down the stretch still isn't going to get to even .500.  I mean as recently as February 2nd, Boston was 14 games under .500 with a win percentage under 35% (which translates to 25 wins over 82 games).  Ainge was able to put together a more cohesive team and the wins picked up significantly after Rondo (and to a lesser extent Green) were traded and even more significantly after Thomas was acquired.

Helps to factor in the strength of the schedule pre & post all-star break.  Schedule broke easier the second half of the season.  They most likely weren't as bad as the 1st half of the season indicated and probably not as good as the 2nd half suggests.

Fair point, but it really is hard to say how much the trades positively affected the team.  I do think the team would be worse now without the trades.  The trades really appeared to help as I think Rondo was a cancer and Green just didn't fit well with the rest of the team.

[jpotter33]

Yeah, the guy was some sort of American Media studies professor at a college somewhere, so what he was doing writing a sports column is beyond me. But it was pretty clearly from a biased perspective that only talked about the worst parts of our current situation.

From the original thread:

Man, after a first read I would swear this article was written by someone from this board.

The article isn't depressing....It's just terrible. How does the "pop critic from Slate" who is also a  Media Studies Professor from U of Virginia get to write an ESPN article on the Boston Celtics? And which moron at ESPN said, "Yeaaah! This is the stuff we've been looking for, let's use this guy!"

Sports is part of pop culture.

He writes about basketball occasionally for Slate and other places.  Here, for example, is an article written for The Atlantic which mentions that he is a Celtics fan.  (He grew up in Medford and Lexington).

So, he is a professional writer who sometimes gets paid to write about his favorite sport.

I definitely didn't peg this guy as being a C's fan from this article. Even the most objective C's fan wouldn't have written such a biased article that almost categorically ignored all of our team's benefits and virtues in lieu of focusing entirely on the bad. I honestly thought a Knicks, Sixers, or Lakers fan wrote it when I first read it.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

And you know, declaring Smart and Bradley as shooting averse and pigeonholing Sullinger as a Center... just a bunch of mis-characterizations, even if you end up agreeing with the conclusion.

To be fair as a trio, Rondo, Bradley, and Smart averaged less than 30 shots a game  (and that is with the uptick in Bradley and Smart after Rondo left the team).  And oh by the way, the best percentage of those three is Bradley's 42.9% from the field.  That isn't exactly what anyone would call shooting prolific.  I didn't look at all the teams, but of the ones I looked at, I couldn't actually find a team that had less shots or less percentages as a whole than Boston from its 3 primary guards. 

EDIT: BTW, Sullinger was basically playing exclusively at center in the preseason.

First, nothing you said has anything to do with being averse to shooting. Rondo is the only one that can be considered as such if anything, but the insinuation that Smart and Bradley are shooting averse shows how little he knows about these players. Heck, this forum was/is fond of criticizing Bradley as Kobe Bryant light for his shot attempts.

Whether Sullinger was playing that position or not during the preseason doesn't define what he is. Again, he pigeonholed Sullinger into being an undersized Center when that's just one facet of his game. That he didn't give room for anymore shows how he manipulated the situation to fit his narrow and shortsighted view. Any avid watcher of the Celtics could easily tell you that Center is not his main position, that he's playing out of position, that he can fill that role shouldn't be looked as a negative, but a positive... instead of extrapolated that facet of his game to define him as a whole.

[Neurotic Guy]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

And you know, declaring Smart and Bradley as shooting averse and pigeonholing Sullinger as a Center... just a bunch of mis-characterizations, even if you end up agreeing with the conclusion.

To be fair as a trio, Rondo, Bradley, and Smart averaged less than 30 shots a game  (and that is with the uptick in Bradley and Smart after Rondo left the team).  And oh by the way, the best percentage of those three is Bradley's 42.9% from the field.  That isn't exactly what anyone would call shooting prolific.  I didn't look at all the teams, but of the ones I looked at, I couldn't actually find a team that had less shots or less percentages as a whole than Boston from its 3 primary guards. 

EDIT: BTW, Sullinger was basically playing exclusively at center in the preseason.

I'm with you , Moranis -- I don't see this as such a bad article given when it was written.  I probably wouldn't have characterized Bradley as shooting aversive, but other than that, I can't find much in the article anything that I couldn't have found easily on these pages.  He mentioned the possibility of battling for an 8th seed which is exactly what happened -- and he mentioned this without knowing that Evan Turner and Tyler Zeller would play far better than expected, that Danny would pick up a guy that would average close to 20 ppg off the bench, and that we'd have guys who'd emerge as dynamic energizers like Crowder and Jerebko playing inspired minutes.   

How many here on opening day would have traded Jeff Green, Rajon Rondo and Marcus Thornton for Isaiah Thomas, Jonas Jerebko, Jae Crowder, and Gigi Datome, and then expected to make a playoff run?  Answer...None.

Guy was saying what many others were saying.  He's probably not all that dumb.

[AngryAndIrritable]

I don't think anyone could have foreseen the extent to which our trades this year (many of them forced from a position of relative weakness) improved team cohesiveness to the extent where we made the playoffs.

This season's team reminds me of one of those old episodes of 'The A-Team' where they fashion some sort of uber-vehicle out of household junk and come out all guns blazing and pound the baddies into next week.

[celticsclay]

It just seems like a kind of lazy piece assuming the worst of everything.

 I did a search on him and it seemed like he wrote a few pieces about the Celtics in the second half of last season (not trading rondo, how the lottery could help us). However, this is the last thing he has written that is on ESPN Boston.

[Moranis]

I'm not really sure what is so wrong with the article.

Probably because the author was so spot on with gems like this.

The only sure thing is the 2014-15 Celtics are going to be a bad team, and probably a very bad team at that. Worse, they'll be a bad team without recourse to fanciful hope or the illusion of direction. They probably won't be the worst team the franchise has ever put out on the court, but in all honesty, they often feel that way, particularly to those who've grown accustomed to winning, or even just relevance. Those people include only its best player, its front office and its entire fan base. But, hey, we'll be fine.

And you know, declaring Smart and Bradley as shooting averse and pigeonholing Sullinger as a Center... just a bunch of mis-characterizations, even if you end up agreeing with the conclusion.

To be fair as a trio, Rondo, Bradley, and Smart averaged less than 30 shots a game  (and that is with the uptick in Bradley and Smart after Rondo left the team).  And oh by the way, the best percentage of those three is Bradley's 42.9% from the field.  That isn't exactly what anyone would call shooting prolific.  I didn't look at all the teams, but of the ones I looked at, I couldn't actually find a team that had less shots or less percentages as a whole than Boston from its 3 primary guards. 

EDIT: BTW, Sullinger was basically playing exclusively at center in the preseason.

First, nothing you said has anything to do with being averse to shooting. Rondo is the only one that can be considered as such if anything, but the insinuation that Smart and Bradley are shooting averse shows how little he knows about these players. Heck, this forum was/is fond of criticizing Bradley as Kobe Bryant light for his shot attempts.

Whether Sullinger was playing that position or not during the preseason doesn't define what he is. Again, he pigeonholed Sullinger into being an undersized Center when that's just one facet of his game. That he didn't give room for anymore shows how he manipulated the situation to fit his narrow and shortsighted view. Any avid watcher of the Celtics could easily tell you that Center is not his main position, that he's playing out of position, that he can fill that role shouldn't be looked as a negative, but a positive... instead of extrapolated that facet of his game to define him as a whole.

Less than 30 shots a game from your three primary guards ranks, if not last, just about last in the league in shots per game.  Now sure maybe they aren't averse per se, but when you don't so something that sort of word kind of fits. 

Here is what he said about Sullinger.  "Center Jared Sullinger has had a nice preseason, drawing particular praise for his impressive 3-point shooting, but no one aside from the most shamrock-goggled Celtics fan really believes the undersized Sullinger has the makings of a star player."

Not sure what the issue is with that statement.  Sullinger was playing center, had a nice preseason with impressive 3 point shooting, is undersized (especially at center) and won't be a star.  He certainly never said he was a bad player or even that he wasn't a good player, in fact praised both his overall play and 3 point shooting.  The only negatives are that he was undersized and wouldn't be a star.  Both of those things are true (especially for Sullinger the center, which is the position he was playing at the time).