| Celtic Silver Lining: March Report Authored by Jared Cantin - March 8, 2007 - 2:24 pm
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In addition to the aforementioned significant life losses, on-court losses have also plagued the Celtics this year. Injuries to Paul Pierce, Tony Allen, Delonte West, and Kendrick Perkins have all cost the Celtics wins, and have cast a dark shadow upon the parquet floor. Absent the Tony Allen injury, which was an unfortunate tragedy for a kid trying to right his career, and his life, is a silver lining. In a rare move for a Boston Sports article, the remainder of this piece will be devoted to vigorously polishing the two significant 2007 Boston Celtic silver linings.
To trade, or not to trade Paul Pierce?
That is the question that has haunted Celtic message boards since Danny Ainge set Antoine Walker a-sail, and began to slowly sink the Celtic ship. Ainge is a realist, and he knew that a team structured around Antoine Walker, Paul Pierce, and Jim O’Brien, would never win an NBA championship. Upon this notion, he tore a playoff team apart, and created the prevailing question, should the Boston Celtics trade Paul Pierce to a contender and rebuild from the bottom up.
With Paul Pierce as a Boston Celtic, the team would never sink to the bottom, buoyed to mediocrity by his talent and will to win. Pierce is durable, plays hard, can take over a game, and by himself makes you a 30-win team, minimum. Unfortunately, his presence has proven to be the formula for perpetual mediocrity. Coming into this year, Celtic fans were cautiously optimistic. Predictions of the eight seed and forty wins were popular before then the unimaginable happened, Paul Pierce went down; panic hit the blogs, and the losses piled up. Celtics fans donned paper bags, and Sports Center, after years of neglect, began caring about the C’s again. The team became a laughing stock, but relevant all at the same time, because they were losing, and they were doing it in epoch proportions. The once proud Celtics were breaking records, for losses, not championships, and I couldn’t be happier…
Hold the onslaught, as that last sentence needs serious qualification! There have always been three Paul Pierce camps, and I fit squarely in the center like the coward I am. The first Paul Pierce camp is the “Pro-Paul at all costs camp”. This is the camp that realizes he is the one positive the C’s have had since the Bird era. This camp considers him a top ten player, and has doused countless “I-told-you-so’s” on the remaining two groups over the past two months.
The next camp is the “Anti-Paul camp”. This camp thinks Paul is a selfish slow-down player that doesn’t buy into the system. They allege that he only resigned with the Celtics for the money. This is also the camp was most likely to anoint Kedrick Brown the second coming of Harold Minor. Errr… I mean someone good.
The last camp is mine, the proud yet cowardly fence sitters. We follow the principal that Pierce is too talented, too durable, and too stubborn to allow the Celtics to be bad enough to effectively rebuild. We worry that as long as Pierce is here, we will keep getting mid-level talent and low lottery picks. We love Paul because he is too good to let the Celtics grow, yet curse him because he isn’t quite good enough for them to not need to.
As a member of this group, I knew that one of two things would have to occur for the Celtics to become great. The first was to trade Paul Pierce, suffer, and slowly improve. The second was divine intervention. Then Paul Pierce got hurt, but not a serious injury, not a knee ligament, or shoulder dislocation, or torn labrum, but an injury that required rest, careful attention, and will likely have no lingering affects on Pierce’s effectiveness. Amen.
Pierce’s injury allowed the Celtics to lose, a lot. In effect, the injury appeased all three groups in some regard. The first got to assert how great Paul was, for without him the Celtics proved terrible. The second group basically shut up, because it was now clear that Pierce is an excellent player and Harold Minor was not coming through that door. And the third group, mine, got what we wanted all along, a terrible Celtics team that would lose many games, get a high draft pick, and improve significantly for the future. Whether the Celtics get the first, second, third, or fourth pick, this one painful year to watch, will give the Celtics an additional commodity to get better in the future. Now all they need is a little luck.
The Draft
Thanks to a relatively minor yet slow healing injury to Paul Pierce (fingers crossed for the minor part), the Celtics will now almost certainly be picking in the top five. Below is The Celtic’s Draft Board, or my interpretation of how it should look.
1. Greg“I put the Grand in Grandpa” Oden – Ohio State:
It is not every day, and is increasingly rare in modern basketball to find a center than can control the game on the defensive end. Greg Oden is a guy that can do it. As a freshman he is putting up numbers superior to past freshman bigs like Tim Duncan, Chris Bosh, and Patrick Ewing. His team is ranked number one in the nation, and he is averaging over three blocks a game. He may not be the best freshman in college basketball, but he is number one on my list when paired with the Celtics needs. If I were Danny Ainge, I would request his birth certificate, and draft him with the first pick if he proves that he’s under the age of thirty.
2. Kevin “Feed Me” Durant – Texas:
Kevin Durant is the best player in college basketball right now. He is also an eighteen year-old freshman. He is long, has a smooth stroke, rebounds well despite his slight and developing frame, and has the ability to take over games. He has proven to be a solid weak side defender, and at times makes his ease in producing eye-popping numbers look effortless. Danny takes him second, maybe first if he agrees to live within a one-block radius of three fast food chains.
3. Al “Al-2-D2” Horford – Florida:
The talent takes a significant drop here from the top two picks, however Al Horford is nothing to scoff at. He has legitimate power forward NBA size, and produces on both ends of the floor. In many scouts’ eyes, the extra year in college has helped Al surpass Noah as the superior Florida talent. He is a winner and has the size and tools to compliment Jefferson well in the frontcourt. He should not require the extensive development time of a Brandon Wright, and could contribute early enough to help save Danny Ainge’s job. As a bonus, the Celtics could boast a “Big Als” starting frontcourt.
4. Brandan “Get-it” Wright – North Carolina:
Wright is an amazing talent comparable to Chris Bosh in frame. He is a shade shy of 6’10’’ and boasts an impressive wingspan of a 7’4’’ player. He is very raw, and defers to sophomore teammate Tyler Hansbrough in terms of offensive, defensive, and rebounding aggressiveness much of the time. With a few years of development, he could easily prove to be the third best player in the draft. He falls here because Danny Ainge may not have the job security to wait on another project. If he proves in workouts that he “gets-it”, he could move up one spot.
5. Joakim “You Didn’t” Noah – Florida:
Noah is a solid energy guy with good length on a slight frame. He is aggressive defensively, and has many tools offensively to contribute as a passer, ball handler (for his size), and finisher. He has an extremely awkward jump shot that he is hesitant to use. Many think he should have declared last year when he would have been the consensus number one pick. His stock has fallen as he has failed to improve from last year’s breakout performance. Does not boast the upside of Brandon Wright, but he would be intriguing to the Celtics as he could contribute almost immediately, albeit within his limitations. Noah is a nice option because you already know what he can contribute, he is less of a risk that Wright.
The Development of Al Jefferson
If the first silver lining of this season is getting a top draft pick without having to trade Paul Pierce, the second is almost certainly the development of Al Jefferson into one of the top young big men in the NBA. Since recovering from an appendectomy early in the year, Big Al has recovered to post the tenth most double doubles in the league in only 52 games. He is also the league’s sixth leading rebounder at over eleven a game, while averaging fewer minutes than any of the rebounders ahead of him, and won the Player of the Week award last week.
With Al Jefferson’s development, a healthy Paul Pierce next year, and an added player via the draft or trade, the Celtics look poised to finally break through the mediocrity of the past fifteen years.
You can contact Jared @ jcanti71@yahoo.com |
