I have no confidence that Powe can come back at 100% this year. We’ve seen with Kevin Garnett, Tony Allen, Tom Brady, Kenyon Martin and a slew of others that it usually takes much longer than that, and maybe the player never gets back to 100%.

The Celtics made the wrong moral decision but not necessarily the wrong basketball decision, although I do think that the Celtics miss Powe’s locker room presence and leadership among the younger players.

A more baffling question is why Shelden Williams has been banished. I’d rather see him in the game than Scalabrine, that’s for sure.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I hated to give up on Powe, but at the time it seemed like a good decision. Doc must have his reasons for not playing Shelden. He cannot be that bad, especially to give us 10 minutes a game. And it is no lock that Powe will be back or back 100%. The bottom line for me is to get Daniels back in the rotation, PP back and pace KG for the playoffs. I do not care who we play in the playoffs or whether we have home court. If we have a healthy 8-9 player rotation and Sheed starts showing some energy, then we will be the best team. Injuries like we have experienced would sink other elite teams. Has Orlando played without Howard this year? Has Cleveland played without LeBron this year? Has LA played without Kobe this year? KG is our guy and he missed ten games this year. Yet, Cleveland is the only team that is ahead of us in the East. I am waiting for the full roster to be healthy and the second season to begin in April.

Shelden Williams is the invisible power forward. Put him in the game – and poof – he becomes invisible. He’ll never horse down those big time offensive rebounds like Powe did.

that he thought that he would be including one of the two of BBD and Shelden in a package deal before the trade deadline to solidify a spot and wanted a healthy option to include in the deal, not an injured one who hadn’t played all season?

I am a big believer in Shelden being able to step into BBD’s role and perform just fine. (Just like those first 30 days) He doesn’t give us the exact same player, but IMO a better fit. If we had to trade BBD, Scal, and someone for a backup PG for example, he could step right in and we are a better team. (Solid true backup PG + Shelden is better than BBD + no backup PG)

Good post Brick. Agree completely.

  Since we’re not likely to need a big behind Sheed and Baby we might as well have signed someone who probably won’t be at full strength? I just don’t see a lot of upside to signing him, more that we could have survuved wasting a spot on Leon. And I’m not dissing Leon, I’m just skeptical about his knee. I don’t think people realize how unlikely he is to be playing like he was befor ethe injury this year. Does anyone remember Amare’s recovery from microfracture?

yeah – but don’t you know that given his prior injury history, Powe’s ligaments can be simply torn apart and put back together like velcro?

I was thinking pretty much the same. Not sure how much run Powe would get with Rasheed on the team. But Powe, if back to full strength, might be able to give us more than what BBD provides (rebounding, inside game).

By the way, when is Baby going to become a factor? His game has taken a step or two backward, since the play-offs.

You know that tear we went on in the beginning of the season? I don’t know if that happens without Shelden as our 4th big. baby and scal were down and scal has shown to not be very effective in any role, but that would’ve meant more minutes for KG and Wallace, which would’ve been dangerous.

I like Leon, but let’s see how he looks out there with that brace. That’s when I’m going to make my real judgment.

Leon Powe was overrated. Sheldon Williams sucks. Seems like it was lose-lose to me.

Even if Powe does make it all the way back— and I’m certainly rooting for him— I don’t see where he fits in Cleveland. Varejao has the same role and Varejao is better. Also, you can’t really play Powe when Shaq is in the game, because Shaq clogs up the post. Lastly, defensive rotations are not Powe’s forte, and Brown’s defensive schemes are similar to Thibodeau’s.

IMHO the Cavs signed Powe to keep him away from Boston, not because he filled a need that they had.

If you didn’t like Leon, something was wrong with you. But the time between re-injuring keeps getting shorter for him and he wasn’t a good gamble. We had a plan, remember, a 3 year window with the Big 3. The bet was Leon was not coming back in time to be this year’s (Year 3) PJ Brown. So they secured Big Baby and brought in Williams. Seemed like pretty good moves. The Celts didn’t demonstrate their cold blood re Leon because it was short money. What they showed was a belief that he won’t make it back and we needed parts for this year’s championship run.

As for the plan, Big Baby has disappointed, with last night a notable exception. He played strong last night. Until last night I don’t think Williams would give you any less than BBD. “He’s only a rebounder”. Well, we’re almost last in league in rebounding. But something has sunk him. He wasn’t bad when BBD was on shelf.

The only move I don’t have a good feeling about as a basketball move is Lester Hudson. I think he’s got NBA game, young hunger, decent size/strength.

And I doubt he’ll play any major role in Cleveland. In fact, I’m still not sure if he’ll even play this season. He might be ready come playoff time, but I believe DA did the right thing by letting him go.

his not being here is the biggest reason we are not rebounding as well and are having problems. how stupid could we have been? you gotta beleve when it comes to leon. hasn’t he always showed everyone what it is to believe? his not being on our team bothers me tremendously.

Sheldon played well early on…but is now in the dog house.

If you are not an established player….The moment you disappoint Doc for any reason…he will consider you “dead”!!!

though it would have been tough in the begining with kg limited and baby out, I do miss him/his energy. tell you what though, we would have fewer losses if he was playing with us (and healthy)

Water

…and everything to do with the beginning of the season. With KG’s health uncertain to start the season, we simply couldn’t afford to have another injured big on the roster.

I said that before Davis broke his hand, but that injury solidified the point. With no Davis, no Powe, and no Shelden, KG and Rasheed have to play way too many minutes to start the year, and who knows what kind of trouble that causes down the line.

Shelden would do most of the things Leon did if Doc trusted him enough to play him (and I don’t understand why he doesn’t, since Davis has been pretty terrible). Along those lines, if Doc liked him so much, he should have played him more. He’s the one most responsible for making Powe appear to be dispensable.

While both Powe and Shelden are not playing at this time, one big difference between the two is that if anything prevents BBD or Scal to play now, Shelden can step right in and play. I don’t think Powe is healthy enough to play in real games now or the rest of the season.

I like to see Powe remains a Celtics, but as the other post said above, ’what’s done is done’. I move on and hope that down the road the Celtics can pick up a healthy Powe if the Cavs decides to waive him.

…a truly promising young player, just to free up a roster spot… then there was simply no way to use up that last spot on Leon Powe in his condition.

“If Shelden is going to be buried on the bench…” What? The single reason Shelden is here is to add depth and insurance in the case of injury. Nothing more, nothing less. Everyone knew it when we signed him, and it hold true still. What has changed? Nothing. So you’re not rubbing salt on anyone’s wound.

Things would have been brutal early in the year if they had kept Leon with the injury to Davis and with KG just coming back from his surgery with Doc’s plan to keep his minutes limited. There’s no reason to second guess this at all. Danny comes out looking pretty smart on this one.

They were very lucky to have Sheldon Williams then. He filled his role rebounding and defending, but he’s not needed in the rotation now. Davis has a good bit more shooting ability, although he is working to get it back, and he has improved more than Williams when he’s been given the opportunity to show what he can do, as happened last season.

Leon Powe isn’t that good.