Monday, April 30, 2007

Hey, thank god we have Tony Allen

Two and a half years ago the Celtics were close to closing on a trade with the New Orleans Hornets for All Star PG Baron Davis, a close friend of Paul Pierce's since their days playing AAU ball together as kids. By all accounts the team balked at the prospect of taking on Davis' uninsured max contract and bad knees, not wanting to pay big bucks for a guard that only gave you an average of 55 games a year. So instead of swapping Tony Allen and expiring contracts for Davis we did a seperate deal with the Atlanta Hawks to bring back Antoine Walker for a two-month rental and first-round playoff elimination.

Davis may rarely play a full season any more, but when he does play he's pretty impressive. Baron has been abusing Jason Terry and Devin Harris all series, and has #8 seed Golden State up 3-1 over the team with the best regular-season record in the league. Baron is playing like he could win the matchup with most guards in the league from a wheelchair, and from this living room looks like easily the best player on either team in the series (specifically including the Mavs' supposed MVP candidate).

As for the Celtics, they decided to tie up salary equal to Baron's in such healthy, productive vets as Brian Scalanbrine and Wally Sczcerbiak. So at least we got that going for us.

See you in Foxborough



To summarize: the Patriots traded Deion Branch to Seattle in exchange for moving up four spots in the first round (#28 to #24), a first round selection next year (from the mediocre 49ers; likely middle-top of the first round) and Randy Moss.

Legalized robbery.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

It's the pitching, stupid.

A glance at the standings tonight reflects that the Red Sox have surrendered 73 runs, the least of an American League team and trailing only the Mets and Giants. While the season is still young, this seems like a very good sign.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Uncoordinated but identical criticism

Was it only three and four years ago that I was regularly criticizing Peter May for being overly critical of Ainge while being sloppy with the facts? It's a sign of how far things have come that we're now largely in agreement on the former. This from this morning's basketball notes column:
A healthy disregard for the facts

Revisionist history is already in full force in Boston. The comments that the Celtics would have made the playoffs "had they been healthy" are almost laughable.

First, every team has injuries, and it's the playoff-caliber teams that respond to that that make the playoffs. Consider that Houston went 20-12 without Yao Ming or that Miami went 16-7 without Dwyane Wade. The Rockets and Heat are going to the playoffs. The Celtics went 4-31 without Paul Pierce. That's astonishing. (Actually, they went 4-29 and threw two others.) Atlanta won twice as many games without Joe Johnson.

And, yes, other guys got hurt, too. But other guys got hurt in Memphis, which went 5-22 without Pau Gasol. And other guys got hurt in Milwaukee, which went 3-17 without Michael Redd. Those teams aren't trying to rewrite history and claiming they'd be playoff teams had they stayed healthy.

It's all part of the "Yeah, But We Really Weren't That Bad" spin. This was, at best, a mid- to high-30-win team. The Celtics were 10-14 after the Golden State game in which Pierce got hurt, having played the easiest schedule in the league. Their much-ballyhooed five-game winning streak had come against the Nets, Knicks, Sixers, pre-Allen Iverson Nuggets, and Bobcats. They had yet to play a single road game against a Western Conference team. They had yet to play Miami. They had lost to Memphis at home.

If you want to believe the Celtics, fine. If you want to believe they can bring back the same team next year and make the playoffs, fine. Maybe they can. But the team this year wasn't good enough, healthy or otherwise, and they should admit it.


There has been a sometime chorus of Celtics loyalists in Boston this winter repeating different versions of 'when the best players on your team get injured you're bound to lose a lot of games'. In addition to the examples May mentions above, there is the obvious counter-example of the 2004-05 Indiana Pacers, a team that lost their two best players (Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest) for much of the season and still won 44 games and made the second round of the playoffs.

What does it say about Ainge that-- four years into his management of the team-- when the only player he didn't add to the roster (Pierce) goes down with an injury the remainder of the roster plummets to a record-setting awful record?

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Grading the Celtics

To borrow a device from Steve Bulpett's end-of-year story in the Herald, here are individual grades for the different players on the team. Is this exactly aligned with the way the team is depicted in the previous post? No, because I'm grading different players to different standards. If you don't like it, make your own ranking.


Paul Pierce: A Still the man
Al Jefferson: A- Last year at this time there were serious questions about almost every aspect of Al's game: could he stay in shape and out of foul trouble enough to play 35 minutes a night? Could he get good enough at individual and team defense to not be a huge liability at that end of the court? When would he learn more than the two low-post moves that he went to every time? A year later he's put all these questions and others to rest. He's been averaging 18/12 with a 55% FG% since the All Star break and has been rock solid consistent for the last 80% of the season. The number of 21-year-old low post players who have put up his kind of numbers and not gone on to multiple All Star games is exactly zero. How he responds after his big contract extension is as important to this franchise as what happens on May 22. We need something close to a best case scenario out of both


Rajon Rondo: B Played about as well as I can imagine any rookie PG playing not at the Kidd/Bibby/Isiah/Chris Paul level. Hollinger recently rated him the second-bast defensive PG in the league, the only rookie to sniff that list. We all knew coming in he couldn't shoot. Yet he ended the year with a 42% FG%, which is on par with a lot of starting PGs. If his biggest weakness long term ends up being that he's average at something, the future is bright
Kendrick Perkins: B- Still the same basic physical package of athletic abilities and limitations which make him a perfect roster fit for the 1992-4 New York Knicks. A wide-shouldered, slow-footed bruiser who's future floor is probably a moderately better Etan Thomas. The encouraging news here is that he signed an extremely reasonable contract (4/$16M) and promptly 1) played hard all year, 2) played through foot injuries the visibly limited his reaction times and leaping ability, 3) showed better low-post moves on offense (even if he still has no touch) and 4) played very effective defense against some of the best big men in the league: Garnett, Duncan, JO'Neal, Howard. His work ethic, commitment and improved skills on both ends make me far more encouraged for his future than the short-term injuries. The guys is only 21. In optimistic moments like this one I'm still expecting him to be a good starting-quality NBA center in a few years


Delonte West: C+ You have to be a little dead not to root for Delonte-- a very intelligent and constantly hustling player. That said, he is what he is. His game has not improved in any noticeable way in the last three years. He can't play the traditional point guard role, since he's too slow-footed to create dribble penetration and has absolutely no right hand at all. Nor can he create his own shot against a decent defender, which is close to a non-negotiable for starting NBA SGs. He's both small and slow enough to be a defensive liability against quicker point guards and taller, more athletic shooting guards. His FG% last year (playing off double-teams of Pierce and Davis) was one of the best in the league among PGs. His FG% this year was close to the worst in the league for SGs. His ideal role on a good team is most likely a 10-15mpg stand-still shooter off the bench. Unfortunately, he's looked his worst in his career when asked to play fewer minutes behind people like Payton and Sczcerbiak. Needs to play better in short minutes. Needs to shoot better. Needs to settle for a Perk-esque, sub-MLE contract
Ryan Gomes: C+ See Delonte. The best players in the league do multiple things very well. The role players who stick for ten years often have a single exemplary skill (Bruce Bowen: defense; Kyle Korver: shooting; etc) that earns their place in a rotation. Gomes is decent at every aspect of basketball but really good at nothing. If he can add a three-point shot, defend SFs better on the perimeter and/or defend PFs better in the paint, then his value goes up. Currently on track for a solid, Kenny Thomas-like career (someone else who has only ever started on lottery teams)
Wally Sczcerbiak: C Played lousy team basketball all year, even when he wasn't injured. Invariably looked for his own shot, despite shooting like crap. Seemed to believe he could do things like take good NBA perimeter defenders off the dribble. Mugged for the camera after every made FG, waving his arms and yelling at his team-mates as if he was the only guy who was trying. An absolute turnstile on defense. Showed signs of either a very low BBIQ, megalomania, or both. The word around Boston is that he is a complete ahole as a teammate. Completely failed at his one job: playing well and staying healthy so that he'd have some trade value this off season. If it wasn't for his talent and experience he'd be graded lower. Wally is a perfect checklist for everything that Boston sports journalists traditionally despise in a pro basketball player, except that he's white and looks like a GQ model
Brian Scalibrine: C One of the few post-rookie-deal players on the squad who actually played up to his contract. Since this is Veal's ceiling, consider this grade a compliment and a sign of appreciation for a relatively good season. When Brian Scalibrine is your over-achieving vet and arguably your best acquisition in recent years, your team is in lots of trouble.
Tony Allen: C- Before his potential career-ending injury, his best run of play this year showed he could be the #1 perimeter offensive option on a horrible team. This will be very helpful for him 1) if he can get his NCAA eligibility reinstated, or 2) in Greece. He played the worst basketball of his career (selfish, dumb, inconsistent) early in the season before the better players around him got injured. If he can come back healthy can he play effectively as the forth option with Pierce, Jefferson and Wally? Will he still accept a role as defensive stopper and role player off the bench? If so, he'd have some value


Leon Powe: D+ Borderline NBA player. Small PF who can't play away from the basket at all. Hustles constantly, which allows him to look good in games when nobody on the other team cares at all or bothers with things like boxing out. Good guy to have around if you're trying to keep some fans entertained while throwing games
Gerald Green: D This year he was only the worst player on the court most nights. Last year he wasn't even very good by NBADL standards. Right now his ceiling is probably somebody like Rashard Lewis, another athletic phenom with a fantastic outside shot who went from high school to the pros and took several years to learn how to play basketball. A more likely comp is probably something close to the next Jamal Crawford: a player who can put up a ton of points in a hurry when his shot is falling but who contributes absolutely nothing and is easily the worst player on the court when its not. Gerald may be severely learning disabled, or there may be other reason why at age 21 he still looks completely lost trying to play team basketball. Friends with season tickets this year have told me that Doc, the assistant coaches and his teammates spend almost every play telling Gerald where to go and what to do. His biggest strength is supposedly shooting and yet his FG% was close to the worst among NBA SGs
Bassy Telfair: D- Barely an NBA player. Appears sincerely interested in playing team basketball, only he's not good at it. Is very encouraging of the rest of the team from the bench. Needs to stop giving interviews
Allan Ray: F I feel a little bad giving someone a low grade because a lousy team gave them a shot. Does not have a single skill that is NBA quality: can't shoot, lousy handle, awful perimeter defender, no apparent ability to recognize when teammates have a better shot and make the appropriate pass. After watching a couple weeks of preseason games I couldn't believe he was still on the team. I still can't.
Michael Olowokandi: A+ Anyone with 'Kandi's career who can still talk an NBA team into signing him to guaranteed money is clearly a brilliant brilliant motherfucker. Normally, a big man in a contract year will need to play well in a playoff series or two before a dumb team will throw money at them. 'Kandi broke a sweat in exactly two preseason games. I love that the second the team needed him to play actual minutes he came up with a random abdomen injury (he supposedly strained a stomach muscle shifting gears while driving) so he could spend the rest of the season watching TV from his beach pavilion in the Caribbean. Hands down the smartest, most successful person associated with the 06-07 Boston Celtics


Doc Rivers: C+ Not great. Not horrible. Spent another season taking chicken shit and experimenting with different poorly thought-through recipes for chicken salad that he'd then consistently botch when preparing
Clifford Ray: B+ Don't know how much credit he gets for Jefferson, but if he's responsible for even 10% of the improvement we've seen he should get an immediate 10-year extension
Danny Ainge: F See above

An end-- or just a suspension?-- of misery

It's the kind of franchise that the Celtics are these days that a highlight of the basketball season is when they finally go home for the summer and the good teams all duke it out in the playoffs. With the regular season over and a month to wait until the NBA lottery order is determined, its as good a time as any to summarize the train wreck that was the 2006-2007 season

The Celtics finished 24-58 (.293 winning percentage) which made them officially the second-worst Celtics team of all time. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, only the absolutely pathetic ML Carr 19-win squad a decade ago had a lower winning percentage than this year's group of supposedly professional basketball players.

We can debate how much criticism for all this losing the front office should take, now that the team is headed for the top of a historically good draft and revisionist history is pouring out of Causeway Street in waves. It doesn't look good for Ainge, however, that he spent six months before this season adamantly insisting this was a playoff squad. Nor that the players he had assembled fell flat on their faces at the start of the year, well before injuries shortened the rotation. Playing one of the easiest early-season schedules in the league—including a majority of their games at home against non-playoff teams— the Cs plummeted to an NBA-worst 5-13 by early December. This was all before Pierce’s “injuries” and the to the historic 18-game losing streak.

So what kind of assets do we have on our roster? Where are our strengths and where are the holes? The following assessment is not based on potential, or trade value, but strictly each player's most recent production on the court. Players that are not starting-quality, but who are good enough to be the first off the bench at their position (point, wing, post) get slotted as 'rotation'. If you're not even that good you're 'bench'. If your medical future is sufficiently uncertain then you're 'unfit or unknown'.



I'll add to this a couple observations

- First, whether or not someone starts is obviously not always correlated with whether they are 'starting quality'. Lots of lottery teams start players out of desperation that would only play 5-10 minutes a night on a 55-win playoff squad. Lots of strong playoff teams have starting-quality talent coming off the bench.
- Second, he best players on your team by and large determine how many games you win in the NBA. Having a really good 9th or 10th man is nice, but not nearly as important as how many and how good the starting quality (or better) players are. This becomes even more true in the playoffs. As the Celtics found out this year, when you don’t have much in the way of top talent, you do a whole lot of losing. During the brief window at the end of the season when Pierce and Jefferson healthy and allowed to play the Celtics won three road games against playoff teams in a week (San Antonio, Toronto and Orlando). Without Pierce the team didn't win for over a month.

Player-by-player assessments to follow in the next post

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Bill Simmons Media Criticism Dept.

By the way, I'd pay at least $500 to have someone who gives a crap like Seiko Smith covering the Boston Celtics. I'm not kidding. Something tells me he wouldn't be regurgitating the "young players have really improved under Doc!" (a bold-faced lie, by the way -- the only one who's gotten better is Al Jefferson) and "you never want to enter a season with a lame duck coach" B.S. (really, the players give a crap if their coach is in the final year of his contract?) and hoping Doc Rivers comes back just because another season of Doc makes their job easier. The way the Celtics have been covered over the past few years makes me want to throw up. Shame on everyone. This team has changed its long-term plan four times in four seasons, they don't play defense, they have one guy who's gotten better in three seasons, they're the second-worst team in the NBA ... and every Boston media member is fine with the coach and GM coming back? Nobody's even questioning it?
link

Tanking.

Further to my lunchtime conversation with B., consider this post on why the NBA sees more late-season tanking than other leagues.

A Dice-K scouting report.

It's time for our Dice-K scouting report of the week. "If [Jason] Varitek has trouble catching him, because the ball moves so much, you know the hitters have their work cut out trying to hit him," says one scout. "He doesn't have any pattern. He has all that movement. And he throws so many different pitches with command. This guy is farther along in his first year in the big leagues than [Hideo] Nomo was. He has a much better arm, for one thing. And he has a chance to have more staying power, because he doesn't have all the gyrations Nomo had in his delivery. So this guy is going to win a lot of games, and he's going to have a huge impact."
ESPN.com.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Stick around, Al.

Jackie MacMullen has a piece on ESPN.com about the prospect that the Celtics will draft Greg Oden or Kevin Durant and then trade Al Jefferson, who doesn't think the C's need another big man:

Pierce continues to lobby for Boston to bring a proven veteran to the Celtics. He recognizes the price could be steep. The team's bargaining chips include the lottery pick that will be coming the team's way in the June draft, Theo Ratliff, whose expiring contract is worth $11.66 million and is attractive to teams looking to carve out salary cap space, and a collection of young, unrefined talent that Danny Ainge, the Celtics' head of basketball operations, has been stockpiling.

It's no great mystery which of the youngsters will draw the most interest -- Jefferson -- and while Pierce prefers to rebuild with Big Al in tow, he acknowledged the price of acquiring a high level talent like Kevin Garnett or Pau Gasol might require parting with the young forward.

Team sources confirmed that if the Celtics end up with either the No. 1 or 2 pick (which would land them either Ohio State's Greg Oden or Texas' Kevin Durant, in that preferred order), they will not trade it. That would leave Jefferson, who was averaging 15.8 points and 10.9 rebounds a game before being sidelined with a bruised knee, as the major bait for a major veteran.

Big Al, meanwhile, consistently has chafed at the incessant talk of Oden in Celtics green.

"We don't need a big man," he sniffed recently. "We already have one.

"I just hope and pray Danny believes that me and Paul are the ones who can get us to the playoffs."

Assume that the Celtics draft Oden. Wouldn't both Oden and Jefferson be a lot better with each other, offensively and defensively? And the same is true, to a lesser extent, with Durant. Who would you give up Jefferson to get?