Even though I'm not quite ready to jump on the Boston Celtics bandwagon after the Kevin Garnett trade, I would like to make sure there's a spot for me there next March. While I'm not yet sure this team is championship material, they have become the most interesting storyline going into next season.
The threesome of Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen is as good as any in the NBA, but the Celtics will need an unproven group of players to quickly become role players if they are going to contend for a title.
After Tuesday's trade the Celtics only have 11 players under contract for 2007, three of which are rookies (Glen Davis, Gabe Pruitt and the undrafted Brandon Wallace). If the season started tomorrow their All-Star trio would be joined by Rajon Rondo (6.4 points, 3.8 assists per game in 2006-07) and Kendrick Perkins (4.5 points, 5.2 rebounds per game in 06-07) in the starting lineup. Their most experienced backup would be Brian Scalabrine, who averaged 4.0 points per game last year.
Maybe Danny Ainge did his job already, maybe this team is just suppossed to be more interesting than they have been for past 15 years. But for the Celtics to join echelon of elite NBA teams, they may need to do better than Rondo and Perkins.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
It's tough to expect for Danny Ainge to do much better than Rondo and Perkins considering that he has so much money tied up in the big three.
It's remarkable to consider what he's accomplished in assembling three of the greatest players in the game on one team.
It would have been an accurate assertion to predict that a Ray Allen and Paul Pierce collaboration instantly propelled the Boston Celtics to upper echelon status within the Eastern Conference, but then to add Kevin Garnett to such a collaboration is deserving of a General Manager of the year award.
Most teams would kill for the chance that Ainge has provided, and he's done so under perhaps the most scrutiny that exists. Although the team has yet to win a game, I'm certain that they're destined to compete for the Eastern Conference title, and in doing so, Ainge has lived up to his responsibilities, and is deserving of more credit than he's received thus far.
There's a common misconception that you CAN'T pay people in the NBA past a certain point - not so, you just have to deal with luxury tax. Ainge can go out and add a PG or C if he thinks it's necessary - I'm not sure it is - and just pay the luxury tax, which Boston must be resigned to do given their desire to take on the Allen and Garnett contracts. I don't know about GM of the year, but Ainge is sitting pretty.
Post a Comment