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Yes the bench played great last night against Cleveland. But taking a look at what we've got - i'm worried.

Let's go player by player:

The Good
Marquis Daniels - GREAT value. I still can't believe we stole him for $1.8m. Will be very important to our success.

Eddie House - Another great value! An impact player!

Rasheed Wallace - Overrated. Why?
1) Over the years he has evolved into a lazy brick-chucker. 1/2 his shots will probably be ill-advised 3s. Why have him launch them when you could have Allen/House/Pierce shoot them. Wallace should be banging down low getting offensive rebounds like a big man. Instead... he will shoot a mediocre % shot and if it misses it is effectively a turnover.
2) He thinks he is better than he is (on offense). This is bad because he doesn't move the ball well and takes more shots then he should.
3) He is all about himself (not the team, regardless of what he says). Always has been. It's how he plays and how he composes himself. He will get T'd up in the 4th quarter in tight games. I've seen him quit on games in both portland and detroit. Personally I think he'll have a slightly negative impact on the overall mentality of the locker room.

Fortunately he is a big body, and a good defender. 10x better than Mikki Moore so i guess i shouldn't complain about his faults - as long as Doc can keep his lazy, inefficient O game under control.

The Bad

Big Baby - I'm just a hater i guess when it comes to baby... but i just don't see it. He is an undersized PF, who can shoot pretty well, plays with hustle, etc. But he is a complete liability on D. Guys own him all the time. His nick-name should be And-1. Plus, he continues to show immaturity. When he returns he'll be whining about minutes before long. Hopefully he lays off the burgers and fries while he is rehabing his thumb which he broke at 4am fighting his drunk friend a couple days before opening night.

Tony Allen - Shown flashes, but injury-prone, and inconsistent. I still have hope he'll make a difference. I'm not sure why i do.

Scal - Does his thing. He'll give us some good minutes.

The Ugly

Sheldon Williams. An undersized, one-dimensional (only D), player with stone hands. I actually like him, but so far he hasn't proven squat in the nba.

Bill Walker - Bad knees with a game that requires good knees

Giddens/Hudson - Total wild cards.

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So to summarize, we have
-The best starting lineup in the league
-Two great bench players
-Two flawed but good bench players (i'm being generous by including baby here)
-And then 6 bad NBA players.

-Also zero point guard depth*
*not sure if this matters or not -> a different debate

I guess my overall point, is that for a team competing for an NBA championship... we have very poor depth. This is especially a problem because PGA are that much older. I'm worried that, like last year, Doc will rely on our starters too much... and they will be 1) more likely to be injured and 2) less effective in the playoffs.

I guess you didn't notice Big Baby in the playoffs last year and how good he looked in preseason.

Shelden will be deeper down the bench when Baby returns.

The bench is fine.

You're probably only complaining about Baby because the recent troubles. Get off the kid's back already. He's paying dearly for his mistake.

Wow, I don't even know where to begin. Did you watch the game last night? Our bench outscored their bench by almost 20 points. Our bench was responsible for getting us back in the game during the second quarter and extending the lead in the 3rd quarter. That is exactly what you want from your bench. Why are you complaining?

Our bench looked great last night as well as in the preseason. MD and Sheed really add to the rotation. House and Baby are fine for 8th and 9th guys. We have to wait and see on Shelden and yeah n back up point. Id say we have a great bench with only 2 minor weaknesses, ones we can hide.

to reiterate Cisco

The bench is fine. After a first game victory i didn't expect to see this thread today but the bench is fine.

As much as I think big baby is an immature little boy, he plays with passion and is a solid role player. He can even fill for big name starters should one go down with an injury, just like last year. Now how effect can he when comes back? specially since the hand he hurt is his shooting hand? who knows, time will tell.

Shelden is not a bad 4th or 5th big guy to have. When Scalabrine gets back in a week....he and Shelden will share time there. If he was the 3rd big guy, i'd be concerned but as a 4th/5th or even 6th....he's fine.

Your knock on Sheed though isn't meritted....not yet, hopefully not at all this season. Sheed took 9 shots last night, 6 of which were behind the arc. Sheed was brought in to stretch the court for everyone else to work. Last year the problem was that after KG went down, no big man could hit an outside shot. He did his job last night by bringing out Big Z and Shaq out of paint and let KG, Ray and Pierce work. When they doubled them....bang....a 3 to bring them back to cover him. Also there was one particular play as soon as he came in when him and KG got 2 or 3 blocks in a row on one posession and got an easy bucket....that's another reason he was brought in. He's long and he's still mobile enough to get to spots to fill in and bother shots from everyone. He even altered a few of Lebron's shot.

Only guy i don't like on the bench is Tony Allen.....he needs to go....he's done...nothing left in his tank.....

DorfonCeltics wrote:Wow, I don't even know where to begin. Did you watch the game last night? Our bench outscored their bench by almost 20 points. Our bench was responsible for getting us back in the game during the second quarter and extending the lead in the 3rd quarter. That is exactly what you want from your bench. Why are you complaining?

I didn't want to post this after a bad game by the bench because then it would seem reactionary. If the bench plays like they did last night... then there is zero concern. I just don't see that happening.

Also, lack of depth hurts you more as the season progresses. Right now everyone is fresh.

Didn't realize the Celtics had a problem with their bench.

We have one of the best benches in the league!

Daniels, House, Davis, Wallace is as good as it gets...

I agree with you about Sheed and his shot selection. I guess we can expect him to take at least a couple of ill advised shots every game...OTOH, that is why he is in the game! To spread the floor. He needs to get into game shape, so I expect him to be a lot better in a couple of months. On defense he is great though. In the end, he is still one of the best bench players in the league, IMO...

House and Daniels are a perfect back court combo. Quis showed last night that he can be a defensive stopper for us. He looked very good guarding Lebron, extremely smart...

Davis isn`t my favourite player but he proved last season in the playoffs that he can really help this team.

I also like Shelden, a very solid, smart player that can step in when there is an injury or foul trouble.

I do think we need another bench player however. A back up SF who can hit a three is the only thing this team is missing. Hopefully, Danny can package TA/Scal/Giddens for someone who can help us...

thebirdman wrote:We have one of the best benches in the league!

I'm a huge homer, but looking objectively - i just don't see it.

grantlongforpresident wrote:

thebirdman wrote:We have one of the best benches in the league!

I'm a huge homer, but looking objectively - i just don't see it.

I suggest getting some glasses.

Our last problem is the bench now. Maybe some point guard depth would be nice, House still seemed to handle it and dump it off to Pierce rather than let Daniels take over, but that should hopefully change over time. What you described Sheed as is all Posey offered on offense, but Sheed can add a lot more and I'm sure he'll be motivated come playoff time. You're just a blind Baby hater as far as I'm concerned. He has about the same value to this team as Eddie imo.

As for Shelden, I was surprised at what I saw last night. I was expecting him to come out completely flat, but he showed some life out there. Solid D and he can at least make his free throws.

if you're having trouble saying that the celtics have a good bench, try this. name teams benches that are better than the celtics................
see, it's not easy. therefore the celtics bench is as good as anyones. no worries there.

grantlongforpresident wrote:
I didn't want to post this after a bad game by the bench because then it would seem reactionary.

So you'd rather seem blind or uniformed then reactionary? Odd. I guess I see the Celtics coming from a position of strength with their bench rather than seeing it as a weakness. Orlando might be the only team in the league with a bench as deep as ours.

I think you're really underrating Sheed. His defense is really key. We now have 3 shot blockers about 2 more than most teams. Not having anyone over 6-8 on the pine last year (that should be in the NBA) really hurt. He moves well and is physical. The fact he can hit some threes and is a great passes out of the high post is icing to me.

We have nine guys who can play. How many do you need? And they all do different things and fit very well together. I thought last year our biggest problems off the bench were height and ball-handling. Daniels and Sheed solve those.

grantlongforpresident wrote:
I'm a huge homer, but looking objectively - i just don't see it.

So, which teams have a better bench then?

George Hill, Manu, Finley, Blair, and Bonner are a pretty solid bench for San Antonio as well. They also have Ratliff.

Orlando's got a nice bench:

Anthony Johnson
Pietrus
Matt Barnes
Brandon Bass
The Polish Hammer

Rasheed Wallace is not great anymore. And yes even in his prime he took ill advised shots, lacked consistency and gets dumb technical fouls at bad times. Yet despite that, his career has been full of 50+ win seasons, deep playoff runs etc. To have a guy like that as a bench player on a team that won a championship without a true starter on its bench is ridiculous.

I just don't think you understand the NBA game if you think our bench is a problem. This team is a contender with no bench. This team took Orlando to 7 games last year with Davis and Perkins as our only 2 big men. To have Wallace, Davis and Williams on the bench is an enormous upgrade.

This team will go only as far as the big 3 take them. This bench will never put them in a hole and will give the big 3 lots of minutes so they are never required to play 40+ every night.

What more can you ask for? Odom, Vucavic, Farmar and Luke Walton? Give me a break!

I dont see your point on our bench. the main guy we will miss dearly is leon powe. leon could score on the block almost at will at times and he was a banger. it will be hard to mold rasheed into that but rasheed makes up for it with his deadly range and defensive presence. the bench is a top 5 bench in the league imo

name teams benches that are better than the celtics................

Man, our bench may not be THE best but it is definitely in the top tier of benches. I can't disagree more with the OP.