The Perfect Player

Nice article.

The main concern I have is that at the moment, it’s actually not that difficult to double team this team since the guy guarding Rondo can often cheat over to Allen and the guy guarding Perkins may be able to cheat over to KG.

Rondo and Perkins will have to prove that they will punish if left alone.

The main concern I have is that at the moment, it’s actually not that difficult to double team this team since the guy guarding Rondo can often cheat over to Allen and the guy guarding Perkins may be able to cheat over to KG.

We still got Paul. :) You can’t double team 3 players. Even so, I’m not sure anyone can stop KG with just a double team (maybe SA and Det), so you have to scheme your defensive rotations about when to double and triple based on the locations of the key players.
While I would agree Perk and Rondo aren’t scoring machines you really can’t leave them open entirely. One of the things Rondo needed to learn is that when your man turns his back on you that’s when you head to the rim, if he backs off you shoot. The going to the rim part seems progressing nicely if he’ll drop in a layup every now and then, it’s the shooting that has everyone worried.

Perk will be fine.

One thought about all this is that we have 3 All-Stars and Rondo’s and Perkin’s game level will increase being on the same floor with these guys more quickly then if they had Green, Jefferson, West next to them.

Many misunderstand that having the caliber level of Pierce/Allen/Garnett next to a Rondo/Perkins will have an effect on them on the court. You won’t see it during the beginning of the season because they need to develop a togetherness together first.

But I anticipate that both of these guys come February will be a completely different player.

Also I want to add that you really don’t need to have a big bench. Your rotation should be 8 deep at best. Were paying these guys allot of money and the last thing they want to do is sit on the bench. Would Bird, McHale, Parrish want to come out of a game? These guys want to play and really don’t want to sit.

Just want to add to what Ancient Red said. Till now we’ve often had 5 guys on the floor who were learning the game. It doesn’t work. Put three or 4 guys on the floor who know what they’re doing and the younger talent will develop quicker. We all know we need to fill holes, but we still have some good young talent who will develop faster now. As to the C backup position, we could be surprised at what Powe and Big Baby can do. We need them only for defense and rebounding. What they lack in size they make up for in heart and desire and they will be better because of the other players on the floor with them. We are now going to always have at least 3 and possibly 4 vets on the floor at the same time (assuming one of PP, AR or KG are out). We haven’t had that in years.

As to the article and the short window with 3 guys over 30. Of the three I would think PP is the oldest 30 because of the way he plays (takes punishment). None have been in the playoffs for any significant time. Being in the playoffs and going far adds years to your playing life. You don’t get the time to recover from the nagging injuries and this shortens your career. Consider PP going far in the playoffs this season with the injuries he had last year. Little recovery time till next season. Without the playoffs and without the need to play at the end of the year lots of recovery time. I think our window is more than 3 or 4 good years, especially if we can carefully add or develop quality players. We can start this be signing Ryan Gomes and Jefferson next year when they become free agents (I know I’m dreaming, but maybe not). Minny made a huge mistake by not extending Al Jeff before the trade was completed.

Excellent article, Jeff. I can’t wait for these games to start. As much as the town is buzzing now, I still think that we are UNDERrating KG. He is such a special player. And I think we’re underrating Allen even more. People are talking about him as if he’s Dale Ellis or Robert Horry. This guy can do so much more. Rondo and Perk will look really good next to these guys if they just play defense.

TrueGreen,

Gomes and Jefferson are restricted free agents, meaning that if they sign with another team, Minnesota has the right to match that contract.

Believe me, I’d love to see both of them back here again, the likelyest would be Gomes if he is released by Minnesota.

I don’t think many of us understand what’s happened here with our team. Going from a lottery team to a team that can win the Eastern Conference is huge.

Kevin is a special player, and he has not only one but two All-Stars around him to raise his level of play even more so.

The auora that these 3 carrys a big cliche when other teams come in the Garden to play us. It will be almost 1986 all over again in many ways.

Err… no TrueGreen.

Gomes is an unrestricted free agent at the end of this year (barring an extension). MN has full Bird rights so they can pay him more than anyone else, but they can’t keep him if he wants to go elsewhere for less money.

Jefferson will be an unrestricted free agent next June unless he signs an extension. Glenn Taylor said yesterday that they plan to get an extension in place before the start of the season.

Sorry Brick, my bad

PP/RA/KG can’t play 40 minutes a night forever. These 3 averaged 116 minutes total last year. Impressive, but consider this: you need 240 minutes per game. That means players other than these 3 will get half the total playing time. And given the age of all 3, that 116 minutes is going to shrink, will have to shrink, if we expect them to remain effective.

Bottom line is, this team needs another good player. It doesn’t have to be an all-star, but a solid player to come in and give these 3 a break. Maybe Tony Allen can do it, but I wouldn’t bet on him, at least not for this season.

One aspect of this trade that bothers me so much is giving up Gomes (other than the obvious in trading Big Al). He was pretty meaningless for Minnesota, probably doing nothing more than helping them be a little more respectable for one year. On the other hand, he mabye could’ve been huge for Boston, giving solid backup minutes at both the 3 and the 4, in the right circumstances, and perhaps more importantly, he could be a stop gap fill-in if someone got injured. Who fills that role now? Brandon Wallace? Eddie House? That’s a bad joke. Given that the reported offers from other teams weren’t close to what the Celts gave up (except for maybe G. St.), I don’t understand why Gomes was included.

What the bench needs is a guy like Gomes, or Tony Allen pre-injury. Unfortunately, that guy is no longer out there, and even if he were, we shipped every available asset to Minn for KG. At some point this season, old age will catch up with one of these guys and we’ll be wishing we had a solid player off the bench. Someone said that the stars don’t want to come out, ala Bird & Co, but remember when Bird and McHale hit their early 30s, they started falling apart physically.

I see this as a 48-52 win team that might be in the mix with Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland, but I don’t see it as the vastly superior juggernaut that many here seem to. And I find it amazing that 75% of you think we win a title in the next 3 years.

People seem to forget that once the big three is on the bench (which will not happen all at one time anyway) that the celts will be able to run teams to death with the young blood off the bench, not to mention a trailer like ray allen on the break to hit a three, or kg to clean up the mess. This team is gonna gel sooner or later and once playoff time comes don’t underestimate the will power that those three have for a championship. They won’t let that oppurtunity slip through their fingers.

This team is definetely not falling apart either. Kg has only missed 37 games his entire career, not to mention rest will come more often with the talent they’ll have on the floor and on the bench with Tony Allen.

I don’t understand the people who think Toronto is a fifty or sixty win team. With the talent in the Atlantic (Celts, New Jersy, and the Knicks) it is gonna be awfully hard for a young team like that to keep up with that kind of firepower. Match-ups will prove to be an issue with that roster.

Run people to death with what? Big Baby, Leon Powe, Wallace and House? That lineup would struggle against some college teams.

Let’s face facts: we have 3 stars, a solid player in Perk, a potentially very good player in Rondo, and absolutely nothing off the bench.

It just always seem that the NBA championship caliber teams find a way to get the Robert Horry, Bill Walton late in his career type players.

I don’t know all the ins and outs, but I think some how, some way, we end up with a respectable bench come playoff time.

Gerald Green killed us!

If Gerald had shown a glimmer of the potential star that has been written about him over the past few years, we probably wouldn’t have had to give up Gomes and one of our picks to make the KG deal go down. We probably could have thrown in Scal and adjustments for $$$ made to make #s work.

This is what the Spurs bench looks like:

Bonner – 4.9 pts, 2.8 reb in 12 min
Barry – 8.5 pts, 1.8 assists in 22 min
Finley—vs Ginobli because he played half Ginobli’s minutes—- 9 pts 2.7 reb in 22 min
Horry 3.9 pts, 3.4 rb in 16 min
Oberto 4.4 pts, 4.7 rb in 16 min
Udrih – 4.7 pts, 1.7 assists in 13 min
Vaughan – 3 pts, 2 assists in 12 min

Other than Finley and Barry, there really isn’t anyone that impressive on this bench. Here’s what we have so far:

Tony Allen —with an * of course— 11.5 pts and 1.7 assists in 24 min
Powe – 4.2 pts and 3.4 reb in 11 min
Scal – 4 pts and 1.9 reb in 19 min
House – 8.4 pts and 1.2 assists in 17 min

Then 3 promising rookies in Davis, Pruitt, and Wallace.
Also the likely addition of a big man. Mutombo put up 3 pts and 6.5 reb in 17 min last year. He is 41 years old though so who knows…

I don’t see where anyone but Barry and Finley really contributed to the Spurs success last year that couldn’t have been replaced with about any bench player out there. This goes to show that the 8 deep is really all that is needed. In the finals, only 7 guys got decent PT and 2 got about 10 min. No one else really even played. If we give our minutes to the starters plus House, TA, Powe and or Davis, and the big man we will have a solid rotation. Much of next years success will be determined with Allen’s health.

Remember how well this team played with PP on the floor versus how bad they were with him off of it? Well, now with three stars, Doc will be able to keep at least one of them on the floor at all times. That means that the team will never have to field a “second unit”. Will they struggle with only one star on the floor? Yes. But, they only have to do it for short stretches, whereas Paul had to do it for whole games. I think we’ll be surprised just how good some of these rookies look when they only have to sub one or two stars at a time.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Horry is one of the best clutch shooters of his time. Finley is a former all-star. Barry has been a solid player for many years. All these guys are solid vets. Other than Tony Allen – who most people seem to forget is coming off a major injury and may never be the same again – who do we have? Davis, Pruitt, and Wallace. I’ve not seen much of Pruitt, but I’ve watched Davis and Wallace many times. I don’t see a legitimate NBA player in either of them. Big Baby is too short, overweight, and he can’t jump. Wallace wouldn’t make the roster on most NBA teams: he’ll only make it in Boston because we’re looking through the trash bins of 29 other teams looking for live bodies. One or two good games in the summer league is all that separates Wallace from about 100 guys who won’t be playing in the NBA, but were just pretty good college players.

Regardless, we’re talking about counting on 2nd round draft picks and undrafted rookies, who most likely will be nothing more than the 12th man on most teams, vs the veteran core of good players that a team like SA has on the bench. Absolutely no comparison.

Joe Fan can celebrate the addition of KG all he wants to, but the reality is that our current roster is inferior to the great teams out west.

TN Celtic, the good thing about it is though we are in the JV East, so the most we have to worry about in regard to the West is winning one playoff series against them (NBA Finals) and the good thing is they have to beat the heck out of each other to face us or whomever comes out of the JV East.

The goods we have are 3 star players and KG argueably a top 5 in the league. Another point, none of the 3 are primadonnas. Third point, although getting older, I’d rather have them at 31 with their current skill levels than have them 21/22 with only a year or so of NBA experience. Fourth, all of our stars are hungry for a ring and will sacrifice to get it. Fifth, all our stars skills complement each other. Sixth- Perk is the perfect meat and potatoes guy needed in the middle if he can stay healthy. Sixth- Rondo simply needs to play under control, play his good D, and hopefully improve his outside shot.

I love this line up right now. I am 100% confident our bench will be better than what the Cavs had last year, and look where they ended up last year.

The sun will come out tomorrow, well tomorrow is here.

I thought the Mavs roster two years ago was far far superior than the Heat. I thought the Pistons roster was far far superior than the Cavs.

That’s why they play the games.

Some of you guys are going from us being the second worst ball club in the NBA last year to complaining that we can’t beat the West in the finals.

If I’m in Vegas and putting all my money on an eastern conference championship next year, I’m putting it with a team that has 3 superstars.

For me, one ring in the next 4 years, or even 2 NBA finals and no rings have proven that this trade was a success. The NBA finals is the promised land, we need to get their first.

Determination, Grit, Heart

These 3 players have it and want to win. That’s the difference between other players on other teams. How many really and truly want to win.

I came away from the press conference where they had this dire need to win.

When you look at a desperate person who will do anything he can to achieve what he wants, more than likely he will.

When you put 3 desperate people will do anything they want to achieve, they will.

LeBron carried the Cavaliers, why can’t Pierce, Garnett, and Allen do the same for us. I understand it’s not 3 on 3 basketball.

But take our 3 to everyone else’s 3 in the league and we are near the top.

I said earlier that these 3 will have a huge impact on Rondo’s and Perkins’s play. You’ll see Rondo and Perkins elevate their game because they don’t want to feel as if they are not letting the team down first of all and they want to elevate their game because of their presence.

These 3 guys will have a huge impact on the rest of the team from the time they start training camp, through scrimmages, to pregame work outs, to the games.

What you had before was all kids on this team trying to go somewhere with no direction from anyone other than Pierce and Doc. Now you’ve added more Veteran Presence and you’ve created a different atmosphere all together.

As far as the bench I feel that we are all being a little cynical without giving them a chance.

We are sitting pretty with our starting five.
everyone needs to be covered or you will pay.
You cant leave rondo alone because he will score
in bunches when you do.
you cant leave perk alone because he will haul down
double digit rebounds, shoot he will do that anyway
but you know what i mean.
this starting five will play about 175 minutes a game
leaving 65 minutes to be split up between five positions.
House 12
powe 14
big baby 8
t allen/j manuel 12
possibly b knight,mt mutumbo and scali will make up the rest
of course some will register DNP on some nights, but i suspect
we will play 9 to 10 deep then playoffs 8 to 9 deep and less mpg

our biggest concern shouldnt be the bench ,that will
work out just fine. we all should be worried about
matching the opponent in in-game coaching.
you know how they do that
team vs team adv thing
     spurs vs lakers (for ex.)
  pg adv
  sg adv
 so on and so on then bench and coaching
they weigh seven things then predict a winner
most of the time it pans out.
come playoff time, either poor coaching or poor
bench play carry a lot fo weight. im concerned that were
addressing the bench but not concerned about us being
outcoached by the better coaches, most of whom are in the
playoffs were most teams have decent talent after the first
round wipe outs

Perk,

I stand corrected. Roster problems are pale in comparison to the void in our coaching situation.

If we’re counting on Big Baby for anything, we’re in big trouble.

TNCeltic,

I think you’re wrong about Big Baby. I think he will surprise a lot of people. Good things seem to happen when he is on the floor. He knows how to use his weight to his advantage. Yes, it was only SL, but he looked good in that last game against the Mavs. He scored, rebounded and blocked shots. He also passes pretty well for a big man. KG will be a good mentor for him too.

I am thinking perk avgs 10-12 pts this yr. He’s going to be wide open 2 feet from the rim off of the double team. STEP AND DUNK big man… Step and dunk;

What a great article. Good writing, nice read.

TNCeltic – Did you fail to read the part where I gave the credit to Barry and Finley? Those two are very solid bench players and are the only two that are much of a part of their rotation. Horry on the other hand is not a key component. I always felt he was a little over-rated and was more hype from hitting a few big shots than a star at all. It has been 6-7 years since he was really a solid player. Look at his finals stats:

Game 1 – 1-3 for 3 pts in 23 min
Game 2 – 1-3 for 5 pts in 26 min
Game 3 – 1-1 for 3 pts in 19 min
Game 4 – 0-2 for 1 pt in 19 min

That’s more like Sideshow Bob than Big shot Bob. He’s living off his past.

The main point was that if TA can come back healthy, and House can shoot the ball like he always has, and Powe continues to play solid vs the 2nd team, and we get one surprise from either Davis, or Pruitt, or Wallace or someone else not yet on the lineup, we don’t look that much worse at the bench spot than San Antonio does. They are who we have to knock off, so with a little luck we are true contenders.