Did DA Fix Our Biggest Weakness This Offseason?

mrautobahn · Post #1 » by **mrautobahn** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 3:14 pm

Here is my take on the Celtics offseason moves...

First of all... I believe and I'm sure many of you do... that the Celtics BIGGEST weakness last season (in spite of winning the Championship... no less) is this...

The Celtics are skilled but they lack athletic ability... which explains why they had so much trouble with some teams... Washington, Charlotte, Atlanta, and I'm sure I left out a team or two...

But the teams I named... it seemed that their game plan was to jack as many shots as they could and put back the offensive rebounds.

Well, if you look at DA draft and free agent signings...

Bill Walker (not signed yet)
J.R. Giddens
Pat O'Bryant
Tony Allen

You will notice that ALL these guys are above average athletes for their positions. They ALL play good defense. And they all are aggressive scorers. Or at least they were in college. (take a look at the highlights of Giddens and Walker on youtube if you haven't yet.)

In short... the starters retained their BB skills while the bench got more athletic. It remains to be seen whether or not any of the four guys will be major contributors...

But all in all... I think if any or some of the four guys exceed our expectations... and there is a good chance of that happening because of the presence of any of the big three will draw opposing defenses.

I think after a good training camp... (forget Posey), we will be ready for war...

GuyClinch · Post #2 » by **GuyClinch** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:40 pm

I think our biggest weakness was our lack of quality size. I think our athleticism has improved though.

Pete

MyInsatiableOne · Post #3 » by **MyInsatiableOne** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:45 pm

The 1980s Celtics weren't particularly athletic and they did just fine....I wouldn't worry too much about it.

mrautobahn · Post #4 » by **mrautobahn** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:44 pm

GuyClinch wrote:I think our biggest weakness was our lack of quality size. I think our athleticism has improved though.

Pete

Sure Pete... but THAT would be extremely hard to fix... unless you have a lot of freed up money or a top draft pick in a big man draft.

Think about it this way... all we realistically could sign was a broken big man (Darius Miles) and the dude (POB), the Warriors gave up on.

BTW, I don't think DA was ever serious about Darius... I think he was trying to get a little something from Portland to walk away...

mrautobahn · Post #5 » by **mrautobahn** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:51 pm

MyInsatiableOne wrote:The 1980s Celtics weren't particularly athletic and they did just fine....I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Didn't Atlanta scare you in the playoffs? Their season record was 37-45!

By rights... they should not have taken us to seven games... but they did... with athleticism...

YUNG CELTAHOLIC · Post #6 » by **YUNG CELTAHOLIC** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:56 pm

i cant trust POB being our 2nd string center. yes maybe he will develop but i just dont see him as a 2nd string on a championship team. however i do like the signing of jr and hopefully bill walker. both athletic and defensive presences as well as tony allen and his potential to be great off the bench. imo opinion if we do sign bill walker there is no way darius miles would make sense. so right now our biggest weakness is sf (pending bill walker) and backup C. a vet point signing in the middle of the season would help to

GreenGrizz · Post #7 » by **GreenGrizz** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 7:09 pm

We are getting old. That's our biggest weakness I can think of.

GuyClinch · Post #8 » by **GuyClinch** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:27 pm

Sure Pete... but THAT would be extremely hard to fix... unless you have a lot of freed up money or a top draft pick in a big man draft.

So he fixed our easiest to fix problem - not our biggest problem right? Listen let's be real here.. We could win another championship. But it will be more of a struggle then last year. A barely in the NBA big (POB) and TA to replace Posey and PJBrown doesn't sound like a landslide win for us..

Yes we gain athleticism but lose some talent. On the plus side the C's during the regular season last year were absolutely DOMINANT. People forget that. If anything we underachieved winning the championship the way we did. It should have been much easier by the numbers.

Pete

Post #9 » by **ParticleMan** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:11 pm

Considering that we beat ATL 4 times during the RS by double digits, I don't think athleticism necessarily kills us. Don't get me wrong, it's always good to get more athletic, but I'd take talent over athleticism anyday. I'm excited about Giddens because he's talented, not just a good athlete. Same with POB. I'm less excited about Bill Walker bceause I see him more as a raw athlete right now.

I don't think we got that much better (if at all) this offseason on paper. I'd say we probably got worse. What we did get was experience. To me, THIS is what killed us against Atlanta. We simply didn't have the trust and experience to combat the emotion of a hostile arena in our first playoff series as a team. We took ourselves out of our own game, more than anything ATL did. Once we got over the jitters we improved in that aspect every round.

The reason I have more hope this year is that we've already gone through the trial by fire, and succeeded. That's a huge confidence boost for us going into the playoffs this year. Now I mostly just worry about overconfidence!

sam_I_am · Post #10 » by **sam_I_am** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:16 pm

Our biggest problem last season was our inexperience at Center and Point guard. This season Danny will plug in a couple of veterans with Championship experience at those two positions.

Losing Posey will hurt but he was a luxury last season. Powe and Davis will be more confident and experienced and if POB brings anything at all to the Center position his youth and size should be an upgrade over Pollard.

Replaceing Posey with Tony Allen could actually be a big plus given his superior ability to create his own shots this season but that remains to be seen.

Having Giddens, Walker and Gabe as young draft picks could be nice if 1 of them has the same rookie impact as Delonte West or Tony Allen had.

In all.... this team's biggest weakness was a lack of experience in big game situations together which was the biggest explanation for underacheiving against Atlanta and Cleveland. We saw against Detroit and LA what happened when the chemistry, the talent and the trust fused and the team began to steamroll. Look for even more of the same this season.

mrautobahn · Post #11 » by **mrautobahn** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:04 am

GuyClinch wrote:We could win another championship. But it will be more of a struggle then last year. A barely in the NBA big (POB) and TA to replace Posey and PJBrown doesn't sound like a landslide win for us..

Ah! But I would argue that the Celtics has a much better chance of winning this year. Last year.. all the so called experts were saying that the Celtics would be good but it would take at least a year for everyone to "gel" and win the Championship.

Well guess what? They won anyways and THIS year... the Celtics are supposed to win their championship...

And besides... I think you are giving Posey a little too much credit here... Sure... he made some timely steals and 3s... but TA is also a pretty good defensive player, was getting more confident in his knee at the Championship games AND can attack the hoops.

And don't count out P.J... he probably got the BEST part time job in history bar none...

mrautobahn · Post #12 » by **mrautobahn** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:13 am

YUNG CELTAHOLIC wrote:i cant trust POB being our 2nd string center. yes maybe he will develop but i just dont see him as a 2nd string on a championship team.

Well, the Warriors didn't think much of a center that they drafted #3 back in the late 70s...

Instead of trusting the opinions of the Warriors staff... a guard oriented team that doesn't seem to have a clue about developing big men... take a look at what draftexpress had to say about POB instead... it sounds like POB has the size, athleticism and skills to be molded into an elite center. The problem may be desire... since the Celts have an excellent big man coach and strong positive influences on the team... Methinks that POB is gonna surprise the hell out of Golden State...

DelMonte West · Post #13 » by **DelMonte West** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:20 am

FWIW, Erdin looks to be a very good athlete for his size and moreso than O'Bryant (even though we probably won't be seeing much of him, especially if he stays overseas this year).

I think our biggest weaknesses were bench players who couldn't draw contact, slash, and get the opposition in early foul trouble. Powe was fairly good in this regard -- usually during offensive rebounds/putbacks -- but outside of an erratic TA we otherwise lived and died by the jump shot. Hopefully TA/Giddens/Walker can diversify our offense somewhat.

rambo_ortega · Post #14 » by **rambo_ortega** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:09 am

biggest need is a steady back up pg. - not accomplished yet
legit back up C - o'bryant
athletic wings who will allow us to go to the line more. - giddens/walker*/a healthy TA

captain_cheapseats · Post #15 » by **captain_cheapseats** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:10 am

To the extent we actually have a weakness, I'd say it's bench scoring rather than athleticism. But if this thread is intended as two big thumbs up to DA's efforts to attain athletic bench players, I 100% agree. Surrounding three superstars with top-notch athletes sounds like a decent plan to me.