Better Celtic Team: KG-Pierce-Allen v Pierce-Gasol-Jefferson

[spf211]

Since the Grizzlies eventually gave away Gasol, I think the Celtics may have been able to construct a strong offensive team along the lines of:

Rondo
T. Allen / West
Pierce
Jefferson
Gasol

What I like about this team, in particular, is it sets up Jefferson to be in the post with options to go to outside shooters -- even a traditional outside shooter in Gasol, which would be very effective. The halfcourt offense would be formidble.

Clearly you lose nearly everything here defensively, but you could use a combo of Rondo/Tony Allen to be a defensive backcourt -- more focused at disruptions and turnovers to get the team out and running, the lack of outside shooting could be a problem however.

Gasol is also four years younger than Garnett (28 v. 32) which could extend his playing career alongside Pierce. Naturally, you have the development of Jefferson, Rondo and Allen to hopefully bridge a competitive gap -- though the latter three would eventually need a wing player, of at least Rip Hamilton caliber, to remain effective after Pierce's decline.

I am not sure if that team would ever compete for a championship the way the Celtics currently are -- especially with the defensive deficencies -- but the window would be longer, IMO.

Interesting to see the possible options the Celtics could have been weighing last summer -- poised in either direction to get better in a very quick period of time.

[CelticsWhat!]

I'll take a shorter window with a better team, and that team is with KG and Allen. That would be an intriguing line up on the offensive end with Big Al and Gasol, but the defense would suffer too much. We also wouldn't have Posey, House or Brown.

[TheMartian]

I am not sure if that team would ever compete for a championship the way the Celtics currently are -- especially with the defensive deficencies --

There's your answer right there.

[tombattor]

Gasol and Jefferson are very good PF/C combo and between them you can probably count on about 45 ppg from them. However, who's going to play interior D in that lineup? As good as Gasol and Al are on offense, they are as soft on D.

And don't forget, reason number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...1,000,000, we're this close to winning a title is because of our defense.

[canman1971]

I think being up 2-0 in the FINALS with our current team tells you all you need to know. It starts with defense.

[jfs1000d]

The Gasol, Jeff Pierce team isn't near the Lakers offensively, and in case you haven't noticed its the defense that makes this team a title contender.

A pierce, Jeff Allen team was probably 50 wins. A Pierce, Jeff, Gasol team is probably a 45-55 win depending on how well Jeff plays. But, we wouldn't have beaten Detroit, and I doubt we would have beaten Cleveland. In the end, what's the point?

KG is an all-time great defensively at the PF spot (he isn't a center, and how often does a PF dominate the game defensively?).

[s1ickd]

You have better perimiter defense by a little bit with the younger lineup... the interior D would meh.

I still think that group gets to the finals though, as they could beat the Pistons in a 7 game series. The team we have now is better though.

[BeanTownBrawler]

We could still have Ray Allen with that team

[kgcelts5]

last year Ainge had so many trade able assets that the celtics were in position to do any number of things, there are many possibilities we could come up with of what our team might have looked like is ainge did any number of things. Regardless it turned out perfectly. theres no way anyone can argue with being 2-0 in the NBA finals against the lakers. the whole point of fielding an NBA team is to win a championship, if you have the chance you go for it, even it means sacrificing some of the future.

[Gomes3PC]

There's no way I'd rather have Jefferson and Gasol over Garnett. We'd be the Lakers- great scoring team that played absolutely no defense. Having a good pair of guards to play D won't make a good D; to have a good team D you need a good pair of defensive big men, and Big Al might be one of the worst defensive big men around (though he has time to get better for sure).

And as BTB said, we could still get Allen and have Gasol and Jefferson.

[MyInsatiableOne]

-= original quote snipped =-



There's your answer right there.

[Truthiracy]

Rondo
T. Allen / West
Pierce
Jefferson
Gasol

Yuck..

[kgcelts5]

how could we still get allen and have gasol and jefferson. we would have to give up jefferson to get gasol i'd assume. what deal do you think Memphis would do that would give us gasol and allow us to keep Jefferson?

[captain_cheapseats]

The current team is obviously superior to the one listed in the initial thread, IMO.

Though if you could get Gasol for scraps like the Lakers did and then still do the Allen deal like btb mentioned, I'd take that team in a heartbeat. I love KG, but the idea of getting Gasol basically for free and still having a team that would be the odds on favorites to win it all is just too much to pass on. I mean, even if the team fizzled due to a lack of interior defense like many of you have suggested, with that much talent you could just as easily trade for KG the following season.

[Kefa461]

Please stop the insanity......

Dorothy....we are not in Kansas.....

2 games away.......

[tombattor]

The current team is obviously superior to the one listed in the initial thread, IMO.

Though if you could get Gasol for scraps like the Lakers did and then still do the Allen deal like btb mentioned, I'd take that team in a heartbeat. I love KG, but the idea of getting Gasol basically for free and still having a team that would be the odds on favorites to win it all is just too much to pass on. I mean, even if the team fizzled due to a lack of interior defense like many of you have suggested, with that much talent you could just as easily trade for KG the following season.

Come on man. Results are results. You can't possibly have a better result than what we have right now. We were the best team in the league from the beginning and now we're 2 wins away from #17. I don't care what hypotheticals you have, you can't beat results.

Let me put it this way. If you had $50 million in the bank, would you buy 50 million lottery tickets for a chance to win $100 million?

[Rocky5000]

PG Rondo/Telfair
SG Allen/Allen
SF Pierce/Gomes
PF Jefferson/Powe/Baby
C Gasol/Perkins

Trade:Ratliff/Green/Minnesota Pick for Gasol (About Equivalent to LA deal)
Trade:West/Szczerbiak/#5 for Ray Allen and Glen Davis

Yes that's a good team, but we have a good team right now. Would we win more championships with that team? Hard to say, but I don't think we should be too greedy. If Danny Ainge had known that Gasol was going to go for peanuts, then maybe he would have waited and not dealt for Garnett. Still, you have to take what you can get, and what we got was pretty damn good.

[captain_cheapseats]

Come on man. Results are results. You can't possibly have a better result than what we have right now. We were the best team in the league from the beginning and now we're 2 wins away from #17. I don't care what hypotheticals you have, you can't beat results.

Let me put it this way. If you had $50 million in the bank, would you buy 50 million lottery tickets for a chance to win $100 million?

Of course you could have a better result. Namely, a hypothetical team that not only wins a title this year, but continues to win well into the foreseeable future.

But I think you're missing the point of this thread. It's not that I wish we had traded for Gasol instead of KG; I'm thrilled with the current team and am very happy with everything that has happened. Instead, it's meant more as a fun thought experiment, i.e. what would have happened if Ainge had done X instead of Y. Some people enjoy abstract thought, hence threads like this. It doesn't mean they like the current team any less.

[BeanTownBrawler]

What if we traded scraps for Gasol, got Ray Allen, then STILL traded Al J for KG?

Rondo
R Allen
Pierce
KG
Gasol

LOL. Or kept Al J and traded Gasol for KG. Hahaha its absurd to think what the Lakers gave up for that mofo

[daveisceltics]

We won 66 games during the season and are up 2 games to nil in the NBA Finals.
Does it get much better?

if we didn't have KG we wouldn't have gotten out of the second round of the playoffs.