s1ickd wrote:whatever it is, i hope we S&T Baby. Unless we severely cut down on Perk's minutes, paying Glen 4 mil a year to play 5 minutes a game and be "blowout insurance" is just a horrible way to run a team. This is comming from a big Glen Davis supporter.
This was initially my position as well. However, when you look at the injury history of Garnett, Wallace, and Perkins, you start to sing a different tune. Davis would not be so much blowout insurance, but injury insurance. Expensive insurance? Perhaps, but anybody in the insurance industry would verify that the insurance premium goes up as the likelihood of a claim occurring goes up.
Sure, if Garnett, Wallace, and Perkins all play 30 mpg for 82 games next year, there won't be much playing time for that 4th big, and paying Davis $4 million next season for 6 mpg would seem like money down the drain. However, I don't see ANY evidence that suggests that is how next season would play out. We may have the most talented 4/5 rotation in the league between Garnett/Perkins/Wallace, but we have one that is very injury-prone as well. In the past three seasons, none of those three have been able to play a full season (80+ games). In 06-07, they missed a combined 23 games, in 07-08 they missed 21 games, and in 08-09 they missed a whopping 47 games. So the odds of older versions of them all being able to last 82 games is pretty close to zero, imo. To put it another way, there is a total of 7,872 minutes available over 82 games at the 4/5 positions. In the past three seasons, the combination of Garnett, Perkins, and Wallace have been able to play 6,948 (06-07), 6,573 (07-08), and 6,159 (08-09), which would have left enough time left for that fourth big to average over 82 games 11.3 mpg in 06-07, 15.8 mpg in 07-08, and 20.8 mpg in 08-09.
The bottom line is that, while Davis might not be terribly happy being the fourth big initially, I think the Celtics simply cannot afford to not have that fourth big being capable of stepping in and playing heavy minutes at a moments notice. While a Robert Swift or a Mikki Moore might be acceptable 4th bigs when Garnett, Wallace, and Perkins are all in the line-up, the second they are put into that 3rd big role of 20 mpg due to injury, they will be exploited. Whereas we know that Glen Davis can step in and perform acceptably well in that third big role (or even as a starter) when necessary. Given the high probability that that is the role we will need our fourth big to be able to fill, I think $4 million a year seems reasonable.