I disagree here as well - a lot.
What's been wildly exaggerated is the lack of value to this team of a player who's very good - admittedly not great - at a variety of skills: shooting, defense, rebounding, court intelligence, work ethic, etc. This board as a whole just doesn't grasp the value of versatility on a bench - and apparently neither does Ainge.
I could agree to an extent with the value of adding young talent if Ainge had added any. But beyond Rondo, to insinuate there's anything else young with star potential on this roster is a wild exaggeration in and of itself.
And Rondo himself isn't going to get there until he puts in the work to develop a shot.
I agree here. Ainge filled his bench with projects and one dimensional players this off season and no versatility.
If Doc needs outside shooting he has Eddie, but he gives you little else.
If Doc needs slashing he has Tony, but he gives you little else. And before everyone goes off about him be a defensive specialist/stopper, remember, two coaches have publicly critcized his defense saying it wasn't nearly as good as some have perceived.
If he wants height he has POB but he gives you little else, very little.
Someone said that even if he had signed Posey would that have allieviated the problems at backup center and backup PG. No it wouldn't have. But he didn't sign Posey and the holes at Backup center and backup PG haven't still haven't been addressed and now we have a hole at back up SF.
Lastly, CoachBo, the reason I think the Celtics still stand as good of a chance as any to win it all has to do with pure, unadulterated luck. There is just no way that Danny could have envisioned Rondo going from where he was to near All-Star status in one off season nor could he have counted on Perk taking the leap in his development that he did given the fact that Perk couldn't do anything basketball related all summer due to shoulder surgery. He got lucky. [dang] lucky. So because of the extraordinary jump that Perk and Rondo have had, the C's can make up for the fact that Ainge bungled the off season and a player like Powe can take a step backward in his development.
The problem in our lineup has rarely come from the SF spot. It seems that way as of late because Tony (capable of playing 3 positions, how's that for versatility?) has been injured, but throughout the year not having a legit SF has not really hurt us at all.
I'm quite aware that the PG and C needs haven't been addressed YET. The difference, again, we still have financials to fill them. If Danny fails to improve this team, then sure have at him, but we're at the halfway point of the season and Ainge is not out of options. And we still haven't seen what Cassell can bring to this team (even if I think his signing was a mistake it might end up being a brilliant move).
The 2nd unit looks as weak as it does because of the style in which Doc coaches, with little mixing and matching of starters and bench players. This will not be the case in the playoffs. Our bench last year wasn't particularly good either even with Posey in there. I also find it interesting when people talk about spreading the floor with him in the 4 spot, when by enlarge people around here hated Doc using Posey as the 4 (and our lack of height in the bench would mean that Posey at the 4 would be even worse this year up to this point).
There was definitely a hue and cry around here against "Small Ball" last year which almost always had Posey at the 4. But in reality, until PJ came aboard, did Doc have any choice? he had a terribly small sized bench with just about everyone undersized for their position except Posey at the 3.
As for Tony's versatility, he might be able to play three positions but he plays 2 of them horribly. Not sure that exampleworks for your discussion.
The Tony comment was meant to show that Ainge does value versatility, and when you're financially strapped with a depleted bench, he had to sign people capable of playing multiple positions (Pruitt, Cassell, Tony, Eddie, Davis, and Scalabrine are examples of this from the bench). So as flawed as Tony is in some positions, his versatility does add value.
As for small ball, I don't blame Doc for using the lineup because of what you said. But the PJ Brown situation doesn't really apply at the moment for us because the current state of our bench doesn't have that PJ Brown person that will allow Posey to stick to playing SF. So my point is, that up to this point in the season, the contribution of Posey and how it would've improved our team up to this point would've been quite marginal and the results of us winning games would've been very minimal.
The problem with our bench is not in the SF spot, as thin as it is, and that's where Posey is at his best. So I can't comprehend some people making Posey the savior he's being made out to be. Piece, Ray, and Tony have been doing quite a good job at filling the position throughout the season. It's not there where we are losing games.
Ainge had strong interests in Posey, and he offered a great contract for him, so that Ainge didn't value him as CoachBo loves to believe is completely false and shows lack of care for the truth and facts.
The 2nd unit looks as weak as it does because of the style in which Doc coaches, with little mixing and matching of starters and bench players. This will not be the case in the playoffs. Our bench last year wasn't particularly good either even with Posey in there. I also find it interesting when people talk about spreading the floor with him in the 4 spot, when by enlarge people around here hated Doc using Posey as the 4 (and our lack of height in the bench would mean that Posey at the 4 would be even worse this year up to this point).
Eddie, Powe and Posey were very effective last year....the addition of PJ only made it that much better.
plus, the criticisms of small ball were totally undressed after we basically won game 4 of the Finals because of it...had we lost that game, who knows how that series would have gone..
They were good in spots. Our second unit suffered quite a lot. Posey and House at times bailed us out with their 3point shooting, but it's also true that our offense sucked through periods of time because we only had shooters on the floor, not scorers.