If you look back at The Celtics season, they've seriously entered the fourth quarter of nearly 90% of their games with a chance to capture a "W". It's amazing how many times we've seen this team drop a victory down the stretch, whether it be from failure to maintain a lead, or failure to put a offensive streak together or back to back stops. If you really look at it, this problem in my opinion is caused by the lack of veterans. Who are the veterans on this squad? Paul Pierce and Raef LaFrentz? I think they could do a little bit better than that in terms of leadership and expierence. There is so much youth and potential on this roster that it's almost becoming a problem. They won't have the money to happily resign everyone of these young stars they have, so why not move them now and make a push further into the playoffs? In my opinion the only ones worth saving are Ryan Gomes, Al Jefferson, and Delonte West. The rest of the guys we could do without if we could get value for their potential. We need more veterans on this team, they don't have to be in the starting rotation but even if they come off the bench, their wisdom can still be heard in the locker room. Guys who have been there before, who have played those big games, and 10-12 year veteran who has probably seen and dealt with more in terms of basketball than 98% of our team combined. I really think this would be key. I believe we have a CORE GROUP of talent established and I think its about time Danny Ainge stops compiling youth and potential and begins molding a TRUE roster around this core. Just an opinion I guess, but I think The Celtics are a few moves away from getting REALLY competitive.
There should be more veterans on the team, but along with the three mentioned i'd want to try and keep Perk and/or Tony Allen. Regardless, the young guys can be very attractive bargaining chips to some teams, and the team can get lucky if they pull a couple of worthwhile trades.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting giftedvisionz:</div><div class="quote_post">There should be more veterans on the team, but along with the three mentioned i'd want to try and keep Perk and/or Tony Allen. Regardless, the young guys can be very attractive bargaining chips to some teams, and the team can get lucky if they pull a couple of worthwhile trades.</div> I'm not sure about Perkins, he's young and he seems solid, but I'm not sold on his potential quite yet. Could he start for a few teams in this league? Sure he could, but is he going to put up big numbers? Jury is still out on that. I look at Perkins and she a Nazr or a Dampier, someone who can give you a great game every now and again but we'll usually just put up decent numbers simply because of his body, I'm think like a 10-10 player. Tony Allen really impressed me last season, but his off the court problems concern me. I wouldn't want him pulling the other youth into his life style or perhaps effecting the entire team because of suspensions and what not. Ron Artest? Who knows, it's a gamble though. I've been saying things like this at work in Rhode Island and one of my co-workers has been agreeing with me about more veterans but when he came in today one of the first things he said was "Your right, Celtics need more veterans to teach how to hold composure and close out games, they had Cleveland last night and fell apart". Just an opinion but if you look around the league every GREAT team has veterans or players who've played those big games. The Spurs, Dallas, Detroit, Miami. Than you have teams like The Clippers and The Suns who've added more expierence to their teams in the offseason, Sam Cassell, Cuttino Mobley, Tim Thomas, Brian Grant, Kurt Thomas, etc.
I actually think Ainge has been thinking along the same lines recently. I think the whole plan was to load up on young players, then pick and choose which we want to keep and which we can go without. When Ainge took over, he had just about zero value on the roster to work with besides Pierce, now he's got a lot of young talent that's attractive to other teams out there. That being said, I think we have to wait a bit before we make our moves, though. Wait out the development of Jefferson and Green, then go ahead and try to move in some veteran pieces and put it all together. I'd love to see us be more competitive, but I learned my lesson during the Pitino era...that you have to have patience with young prospects before you trade them away and watch them become stars on another team.
i think now that bostons playoffs chances are almost dead, they should play some of the youngsters who have had limited minutes during the season. I think that they should give more time to Gerald Green and Tony, building for the future.
Ya I think in the month of April when we are 4-5 games out of the playoffs, Doc Rivers could slid in Gerald Green in and take minutes from Wally Szczerbiak away, so he can be fresh for next season. Just a thought.
Perkins has 10 rebounds, 3 blocks and 8 points in the 1st half... the guys a keeper no question. Great shot blocker and rebounder. He can score too. Id rather the celts trade Al Jefferson than Perkins. You can see Perk getting better and better by the week but Al is pretty much the same as he was when he started playing. The fact that he cant stay healthy doesnt help either.
You can never have too much youth. It's just like saying that you have too many All-Star players. All these young guys can be in trades or develop into good players.
That's true, but when you have Pierce on your team and are looking to be successful, you need that veteran experience come playoff time.
