Post#42 » by avi623 » Fri Jul 3, 2009 10:45 pm
Look, this is a ridiculous thread, because as it stands the Lakers ARE better than the Celtics, and I unfortunately do think the only team that could have beaten the Lakeshow last year was the Cavs. That said, here is the difference between the two:
The Lakers have an avalanche more talent than we do. Their best player is better than our best player. They are deeper, and they have better young guys who have the potential to get much better.
However, they are much more of a hot/cold team. At their best, they would win 70 games with that roster. But they do not bring it nearly as often, especially in the regular season, as the Celtics do. Part of that probably has to do with two of their players being total flakes: Odom and Bynum.
The Celtics, on the other hand, do not have the better team on paper. We have one young guy with (clear) big potential: Rondo. Two of our best players showed serious signs of aging last season: Ray and KG. We also do not have the kind of reserves they do. That is why we were bringing in scrubs like Starbury and Moore near the end of the season. However, our team is much stronger mentally in tough spots, brings it almost every night, and plays with better defensive intensity.
Thus, it is a coin flip. The Lakers, theoretically, are a better team. But you do not know which Laker team will show up on a given night, given some of the mental lapses of some of their key players. The Celtics will punch them in the mouth more than Orlando did, and you usually know which team will show up.
The simple state of the situation is this, however: THE CELTICS NEED TO MAKE A DRASTIC IMPROVEMENT TO THE BENCH. Rasheed is a start. But they need a wing defender who can guard more than one position and hit threes (it will not be Giddens, and probably not Walker either). They also need a backup point guard, who actually is a point guard (and it cannot be Marbury, he was an albatross out there last year). It is difficult without cap flexibility or contracts. Hopefully someone will take Scal's contract, which is expiring, and give us someone of use. And there is also the question mark of whether KG comes back completely healed next year. There is still so much up in the air going into next season that blanket statements that we are better than the Lakers simply make no sense.
