TSN.ca basketball columnist Tim Chisholm is looking at one NBA team each day for the month of September.
Boston Celtics
Sacramento Kings
In the waning days of summer Danny Ainge managed to pull off the savviest free agent signing of his tenure running the Boston Celtics and, perhaps, the most important free agent signing (as opposed to re-signing) of the entire summer.
Before the NBA Draft this June I was quite unforgiving in my analysis of Ainge and his term in office with the Boston Celtics, but there is no denying that this summer will stand as among the most decisive and thorough rebuilding projects in modern NBA history.
Ainge had become notorious for running a team without any kind of identity or direction, on the one hand clinging to the aging Paul Pierce and his quest for a ring while at the same time surrounding him with youth that was years away from reaching their potential as NBA players. In one summer, however, all that changed. Ainge acquired Ray Allen on draft night and Kevin Garnett a month later and he sacrificed everyone on his team but Paul Pierce to do it.
Which brings us back to the free agent signing. In the last days of August, when most GM's are taking a brief vacation before the grind of the NBA season kicks back in, Ainge went out and signed Miami free agent James Posey to a two-year deal.
Now, Posey was definitely not the best or most talented player on the market this summer, but in terms of need and fit, this marriage is perfection. The Celtics were in dire need of not only depth at all positions on their team after giving away seven players and three draft picks to land Allen and Garnett, but they were also in need of insurance should any of these players in their thirties go down with injury.
Posey will now come off of the bench behind Allen and Pierce and also slide easily into the starting five should either one be hit with an injury (Allen missed 27 games last season, Pierce missed 36). Posey also brings with him superior defensive skills on the wing as well as a career 35% shooting stroke from behind the arc. Both are skills that make him much more than the kind of bench players they had been signing previously like Eddie House and Scott Pollard.
Now, all this said, the Celtics aren't exactly deep by NBA contenders' standards. Posey affords them a certain amount of breathing room now behind Allen and Pierce, but the team still has no backup point guard, and their starting point guard is second-year player Rajon Rondo, who is known more for his skills as a defender than as a playmaker. Couple that issue with the fact that Pollard is 32, broken down and averaged 4.5 minutes per game last year and one could say that the Celtics frontcourt depth isn't exactly shorn-up yet, either.
The bottom line on the Celtics is this: This team has one of the most - if not the most - talented top-3 in the entire NBA. Garnett, Pierce and Allen run the gamut in terms of what skills they bring to the court for this team. All are hungry for a shot at an NBA title and history shows that most of the time such a team is most dangerous in their first year together (just look at the 2006 Miami Heat). However, the Boston trio will probably find that their strength up-top is not as important as their weakness down-low as teams with similarly strong troikas trump the Celtics in overall depth. Teams like Dallas or Phoenix or San Antonio will be able to go toe-to-toe with Garnett-Pierce-Allen and still have players like Jerry Stackhouse or Grant Hill to throw back at the Celtics.
The unfair part about a team built like Boston is that it can only measure its success by the number of titles they win. For this team to make the Playoffs, win a Division or even a Conference is simply not good enough. These players are all aging, they eat up almost all of Boston's salary-cap and so time to grow and develop as a team doesn't really exist. There is no trade or signing that is going to make this team appreciably better than they are now and so what they have is what is going to have to get them to the Championship, and I'm not sure that what they have is enough to get it done.
PROBABLE STARTING LINE-UP
PG - Rajon Rondo
Much of the trepidation surrounding the Celtics' potential success begins right here, with Rondo as their starting point guard. Here we have a player who had a typical rookie season, with its usual peaks and valleys, who is now being asked to helm one of the most potent offenses in the NBA. It now falls on Rondo's shoulders to distribute shots and run a team comprised of some of the best players of this generation. And he's not a playmaker. Rondo is best compared to a guard like Brevin Knight or Earl Watson. He provides defense and a tempo change from a starting guard, but he himself still has a lot to learn about the fundamentals of the position before he can really be put in a class with Knight or Watson, let alone with the kind of top-flight guard a team like this would theoretically dictate. Either way, as a lead guard there is no reason to believe that he is ready to helm this attack, and that could become especially true in the Playoffs when each round he'll be facing off against an opponent savvier than him.
SG - Ray Allen
Just when it looked like Allen was doomed to slip into the NBA ether and be forgotten as a player his career receives this much-needed shot in the arm. Now, not only is Allen hugely relevant again as a pro, but he also doesn't have to carry the entire load of a franchise like he was doing in Seattle, because for all the talent of Rashard Lewis, it was always Allen who had to answer for that team's shortcomings. Now Allen can confidently park himself behind the three-point arc and bomb away with impunity when defenses collapse around Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. In fact, the only time he may even be asked to stray from that position is when he'll be forced into playing some point guard for this team (much like he did in Seattle in 03-04 when he split time there with Brent Barry). Either way Allen gets to have it both ways in Boston; he gets the lightest workload of his NBA career while also playing on his most prominent team. Life is good.
SF - Paul Pierce
Do you think that Paul Pierce goes to sleep terrified every night that he'll wake up only to discover that this summer has all been a dream? In the last four months this team has been turned from a laughing stock that broke the NBA record for consecutive losses into a legit Finals contender in many eyes and it has all happened because the team decided that if it was going to build around Pierce they might as well go all the way. Pierce, like Allen, has now seen his career revitalized as a result of Ainge's efforts as he once again plays on a team of prominence, a team that will play on national TV, a team that appears to be a shoo-in for the Playoffs. Also like Allen, he has seen his workload plummet with the arrival of Allen and Garnett. All he has to do now is stay injury-free, which to be fair he usually does, and he can plan on playing well past April for the first time since 2005.
PF - Kevin Garnett
While Allen and Pierce get to relish in the glow of playing on a team with actual expectations, it will most likely fall on Garnett's shoulders to meet those expectations. Garnett now represents the best player on the team, the best player the Celtics franchise has employed since Larry Bird, and the player who will have the greatest legacy beyond his retirement. More than Allen and Pierce, Garnett needs this title. He needs it to prove that his career wasn't wasted. He needs it to prove that he hasn't fallen so far behind Tim Duncan in stature. He needs it because if he doesn't get it here, all his excuses about teammates and management will fall on deaf ears and he alone will remain the constant in his inability to nab a Championship. For some, like Charles Barkley, one's legacy can still be ensured, but Garnett doesn't have the Michael Jordan excuse to fall back on. His generation has represented what is perhaps the most wide-open in terms of Championship aspirations that the league has ever seen, or at least equal to the dynasty-free 1970s. Allen and Pierce want this title. Garnett needs it.
C - Kendrick Perkins
If Kendrick Perkins has one obligation this season it's to not get injured. This team cannot rely on Scott Pollard to play starters minutes more than once or twice this season and there is no one else to play centre on this team. That mean if Perkins gets injured Kevin Garnett will be playing centre. That means that either James Posey or Glenn Davis will be playing power forward. All of this means that Kendrick Perkins cannot get injured this year. Sure, it would help if he could develop a modicum of consistency or could stay on the court longer than twenty-minutes per game, but those are just secondary issues. Kendrick Perkins cannot get injured this season. It's just that simple.
Tim Chisholm can be reached at timchisholm@telus.net.