In Case Of Emergency

As much as he is a post-All-Star game backup.

Doc said at 39, Sam has an expiration date on his career. He doesn’t want to use it up before the playoffs start.

“In fact, it almost seemed like he invited himself to camp and just never left.”

Didn’t Olowakandi do this one year with the Celtics?

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing Sam in the lineup actually to run the point alongside Eddie. Not really impressed with Pruitt.

If Cassell can still play, he could be a decent contributor. However, what the team needs is a wing with size and perimeter shooting, a big with length, etc..

Cassell and House won’t have many chances of playing together. It hurts the defence too much. Basically it’s the same reason you don’t see House and Rondo paired together a lot, but much worse, as Sam is obviously a far worse defender than Rondo. So, if Sam is playing, House is not. Unless Sam brings more than House to the table (and consider here that this team really needs outside shooting), he’s not playing a lot.

I agree with the owner of this franchise: this team needs some additions/changes, some more muscle.

He never fit in last year on the court, I dont see why this year would be any different..most of the minutes he got had me screaming at him on the TV, hes older and probably ever more out of shape this year

The Celtics have a young guard named Pruitt who is a better defender than Cassell ever was, and not a bad shooter, either.

Give him 20 minutes a game and stop complaining.

They’re panicking in Cleveland. They’re buying out players so as to be able to pick up a free-agent. One of their players scored 47 points and is on the block. With 0.2 seconds James fouled Grainger of the lowly Pacers and he hit the free throws to win the game for the Pacers. What fool would foul with 0.2 seconds in a close game? Of more importance what is the name of the ref who called that foul. We want him. Where was he when Ray was fouled by the Lakers on the last play. Where was he when Ginobli should have been called for not allowing room for Ray to make the inbounds pass against the Spurs? This ref is the guy we should be looking to sign.

i’m sure sam can play. but so can pruitt. and when they finally put gabe in, let’s remember there’s plenty of rust on the guy. give him a chance.

Doc explained this a week or so ago. The warranty doesn’t start until Sam plays. I think it’s only
a four month warranty. Doc hasn’t been playing Sam because he doesn’t want the warranty to expire too soon.

It’s going to take Sam MONTHS to shake off the rust in order to be game ready.
If they’re planning on playing him AT ALL down the stretch & in the playoffs, Doc had better start feeding him some minutes after the break.

If Sam’s part of the plans for the playoffs, he should start getting some burn soon so that the rust is shaken off. He still doesn’t help out biggest need, but I don’t think I’m alone in being sick and tired of the Good Tony/Bad Tony show. I like the Rondo/House combination; if you can pair those two together, and when Rajon needs a breather run Cassell out there with Jesus, that might work pretty damn well. If Sam’s got value, it’s more in letting Eddie do his thing than in anything Sam provided directly.

Still need a big, though…

41-11 isn’t good enough for ya?

- He is well-rested.
- He’s in good shape from working out with the team.
- He knows the system.
- He has an alien head.

Seriously, Sam is the best option. I don’t care how well Gabe performs, it won’t convince me that Sam isn’t the better option for the playoffs, and I think Dock knows it. There is no better choice at PG than Sam Cassell. Nothing else makes sense right now. Gabe is still developing and will be a solid PG down the line, but I just don’t see it this year.

The fact that Pruitt has been taken out of the rotation pretty much guarantees that he won’t be developed enough for playoff minutes.

Eddie has been a disaster at point, and pretty good off-the-ball, but I don’t think a Cassell/House backcourt is a tenable proposition. House gets beat defensively by average backup points, and I don’t think Cassell can be counted on to defend anything at this point in his career. There might be moments here or there where you can get away with it, but overall you don’t put two sieves in the backcourt of a defensive team unless you’re a sadomasochist or something.

For now, Pruitt gets himself another chance to play. He was decent beforehand, he showed good defensive instincts (shutting down points like Lou Williams or Aaron Brooks, guys that absolutely killed Eddie House), decent ballhandling (though towards the end of his run he had a couple bad ball handling games), the ability to run a pick and roll and initiate the offense in a timely manner. His biggest faults were not hitting enough jumpers (and I believe he is a good shooter, it’s just a matter of reps with him) and not being assertive enough. Hopefully the time away helped with the assertiveness. Now he just needs a few jumpers to go down and he’ll be set.

I really hope Gabe puts a stranglehold on the backup point guard position now that he’ll have another decent stint of playing time. I’m tired of seeing Eddie House run our team into a ditch offensively and then see almost all of Celticblog nation blame it on TA. Guys, is it possible that maybe these ‘peaks and valleys’ we saw with TA were a product of playing with a crap point guard? Is it a coincidence that Eddie’s game came alive when he was moved off-the-ball? What if TA ever got to play with a real point guard and he wasn’t asked to be the de facto ballhandler, creater and dribble penetrator of the 2nd unit? Maybe that consistency would be easier to attain if Doc didn’t ask him to play out of position? People need to start observing individual performances in the context in which they are produced.

I think you can have a regular rotation of 8 guys that doesn’t include Eddie, but still use Eddie effectively. There’s always room to sneak a shooter in here and there for 10-20 minutes. If Doc wants’ to have his starters only come out once a quarter (which seems his MO) then he’ll need to have some bench guys come in and out to bridge things. Eddie seems to be the perfect guy for that.

If you guys think Sam Cassell is the answer to you problems then you guys are in for a dissapointing post season!!