Hollinger - No one saw last year coming.

[chakdaddy]

In Hollinger's forecast, he says that last year's team massively exceeded expectations, and that the hope was that the team could win the division and make a deep playoff run.

I don't agree with this contention; no one really predicted 66 wins, but aside from cranky Bob Ryan and absolute haters like Skip Bayless, wasn't most peoples reactions after the KG acquisition that: "Wow, that is one of the best rosters in the league if not the best and they will be one of the favorites for the title." I live in Detroit and that was the reaction from local Pistons fans. Now, it did seem that the national media was mostly haters complaining about the bench, but the average NBA fan with sense knew we would be one of the best teams. Everyone could say "you never know", but common sense said that we should be one of the top few teams.

[UGA Hayes]

To be fair I think if you pull up last years prediction thread, which would obviously be more biased toward giving the team a winning record, only a few people, myself included , were willing to predict wins in the 65-70 range. And I wasn't even that big of a fan of the Ray trade. Of the ESPN guys, I think only Marc Stein predicted us to do really well. The media focused a lot on the bench and chemistry, but I think most people around here were still unsure of how rondo would do.

[ParticleMan]

I think there were enough questions that it made sense not to think we could win it all. Personally I was surprised, I expected an ECF appearance but nothing beyond. It's pretty rare that a team is assembled in pre-season and wins it all in the first year. In fact, I can't think of the last time that happened. It's not a fantasy league, it's not just about adding up stats. The thing that was really surprising was the defense, which was elite, and that's what won us the title.

[Andrew McCeltic]

I thought our depth was a serious question, and so did Raptor fans. There had been enough 3+ all-star teams that didn't win championships (like the Dirk/Nash/Finley/Jamison/Toine Mavs) that it was easy to underestimate just how stellar our stars are.

Plus, I don't think anyone foresaw just how dominant the C's would be defensively. Prior to the playoff wobbling we were winning all of our games decisively and easily.

[DelMonte West]

I thought our depth was a serious question, and so did Raptor fans.

*guffaws*

Oh, I wish we could re-live those days...the feuds, the suspensions, the locked threads between our boards were classic! Depthitydepthdepthdepth...they couldn't go 2 sentences without mentioning the words "depth" and "superior".

[Rocky5000]

Being optimistic and riding the KG high, I predicted 60+ wins, but I remember a lot of people being in the mid to high 40s which didn't seem ridiculous to anyone. In fact, this year was supposed to be the year when the team would become dangerous, last year was for the guys to get used to playing with one another.

[GuyClinch]

Hollinger just writes that because HE didn't predict it. Actually in fairness several people predicted 60+ wins. I think Wages of Win people would be high on that team as well as generally they thought that Garnett was the best player in the league and that Ray Allen is nearly as good as Kobe.

Hollinger was just sour from the Jefferson trade - a guy he loved from the get go, IMHO. The simple theory I used - was that PP + Crap is good for 40 wins. Garnett has to be good for another 12-15 and Ray good for another 5-8 on top of that..

If PP can win 49 games with Antione Walker and Tony Battie its only "shocking" to ESPN that he would win 66 with a MVP and a seven times sweet shooting all-star in Ray Allen. Over on C's blog alot of people were crying about Posey. Posey was great and clutch. But even without him this team is going to win a crapload of games. Basketball is a star based game and the C's have three stars.

As far as the "bench" goes unless you have guys that flat out can't play in the NBA playing with all-stars makes them look a heck of alot better. That's what people said last year BEFORE the championship to the Toronto "depth" crowd.

Actually a ton of 'pretty good' players cause alot of in-fighting.. Guys who are happy being bench players (Eddie House) can really excel. The C's have three clear alpha-dogs on the team. The rest of the guys just try to help them out.

I can remember Rondo talking about how he didn't want to 'let down" PP and the other longtime vets. Thats the kind of dynamic the C's had. It wasn't about Rondo getting a fat pay day..

Pete

[avi623]

Hollinger is right from a statistical perspective too though. If you combined the PER's of the big three then put it in the context of the other players, they did not look like a 66 win team. more like 55-60. Further, it was impossible to forecast that PP and Ray were actually going to play that good of defense, and that we would have one of the best TEAM defenses in NBA history. No team has ever done in one year what they did.

To call Hollinger out on that is a little ridiculous. Even the people who predicted the Celtics to exceed the 55-60 win total did not foresee the statistical dominance or that it would happen almost overnight. THat was mainly the point of his article too. The C's dominated statistically at an almost unprecedented level on defense. From a bottom half defensive team the previous few seasons, how could anyone have expected that.

[drza]

I don't know that Hollinger or anyone else necessarily needs to be called out for not seeing it coming, but that doesn't mean that nobody did. I did using one line of logic, and like Pete pointed out guys like Dave Berri at the Wages of Wins site did with another line of logic.

My line of logic was similar to the one Pete used with Pierce and the 49-win Celtics, but slightly more detailed. KG with an old Sam Cassell and Sprewell combo + cheap vet role players rolled out 58 wins in year 1 and was an old-guy hip injury away from (IMO) a championship in 2004. Pierce and Allen are younger upgrades of Cassell and Sprewell that would play similar roles around the KG base, Rondo and Perkins were more talented/diverse versions of the Hassell/Johnson defensive role players from that Wolves team, and (despite being questioned) the bench vets on last year's Celtics squad were better versions of the vets from that '04 Wolves squad. Since this Celtics squad basically looked like a steroided version of the 58-wins title caliber Wolves squad, I expected nothing less than mid-60s wins and a title.

Berri's logic was more based on his Wins Produced formula ( http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/ ... n-and-mvp/ ) and that, as Pete pointed out, by that formula KG has been the best player in the NBA for much of the last decade. Unlike Hollinger's PER, the wins produced stat does factor in defense, so it's not surprising that Berri would expect a Celtics team built around KG to win a title while Hollinger just saw 3 very good players by his PER measure that would make them a playoff team but not necessarily a champ.

[GuyClinch]

To call Hollinger out on that is a little ridiculous. Even the people who predicted the Celtics to exceed the 55-60 win total did not foresee the statistical dominance or that it would happen almost overnight. THat was mainly the point of his article too. The C's dominated statistically at an almost unprecedented level on defense. From a bottom half defensive team the previous few seasons, how could anyone have expected that.

I am calling out Hollinger for claiming that NO ONE SAW IT COMING. That's just simply not true. I expected a championship out of last years team - or at least a strong championship contender. Even when they were failing in the playoffs I predicted the same thing.

Hollinger PER is a simple minded statistic - not hardly as useful as he imagines. It's just like efficency but warmed over a tad with some extra seat of the pants variables thrown in. Wages of Win is not perfect either - but lets give those guys some credit.. The LOVED both KG and Ray Allen for nearly 6+ years. They were higher on both these players then I was and Hollinger too.

Pete

[Datruth345]

The simple theory I used - was that PP + Crap is good for 40 wins. Garnett has to be good for another 12-15 and Ray good for another 5-8 on top of that..

If PP can win 49 games with Antoine Walker and Tony Battie ...

this is the exact logic i used, now i never predicted 66 wins but i most definitley used the same logic as Pete, if Paul Pierce and Antoine can win 50 games, we are obviously going to win more than that. I don't even remember how many wins i predicted, but i know it was over 50 due to this simple logic ( i wish we cold find the thread, i would be interested in just reading it again)

[GuyClinch]

Yeah FWIW I only predicted 60+ not 66.. But my point is that Berri and company pretty much saw it coming.. They predicted a championship for the C's and championship teams almost always win 60+ in 82 game seasons.

Incidentally this is why Dallas was the biggest choke job in sports that doesn't get talked about.. The C's improvement defensively is what vindicates Berri in this case and proves that KG was perhaps the greatest player in the league. Everytime someone calls Kobe the greatest baller in the world they are disrespecting KG.

I always liked KG of course. But I was kinda down on him as being the best player because he never 'took over" games at key moments. But it turns out Paul can do that - and he proved it against Lebron and Kobe. And KG's help D more then makes up for his lack of ball handling and "take over" ability..