Danny Ainge made the right decision not to give Posey the contract he signed in New Orleans. It was fairly common knowledge that Ainge felt that is Posey wanted a 2 year deal he would have been in Boston and might even have been here if he wanted a 3 year deal. But 4 years at that money for a declining older player was too much.
Turns out Ainge was right.
In a little over a year Posey was awful. Just awful due to the decline of his game. He would have made no difference to titles in 2009 because KG got hurt. Thereafter, Posey was no good and wouldn't have helped in 2010 any more than Rasheed Wallace did. Perk's injury cost the C's in 2010 and by the time the playoffs rolled around that year, Posey was already playing poorly. So his presence in 2010 would have made no difference.
After 2008-09 Posey wasn't relevant as a difference making player and paying him 3 more years at some $20 million would have been nuts.
Let me ask you this, then - when the team was assembled, Danny felt that we had a 3 year window. If that's the case, why, when he originally signed Posey in 2007, didn't he give James a 3-year deal? Ainge knew how valuable Posey was in the Heat's title run, so that just doesn't make sense to me to give a guy a two year deal with a player option for the second.
I also disagree that Posey deteriorated quickly as a player after he left Boston. It wasn't him on the decline so much as it was New Orleans as a team. Remember, when Posey signed with them, they were, kind of like the situation with West and the Pacers, considered to be the power of the future in the west, after losing to the Spurs in game 7 (at home, haha) in the second round in 2008. Everyone expected them to take that next step in 08-09, but instead, they ran into the Chauncey Billups-led Nuggets, who annihilated the Hornets in 5 games, beating them by 58 POINTS IN NEW ORLEANS in game 4 
. Go back and look over the box scores - Posey did a pretty good to great job on Carmelo that year, just as he did to Lebron in 2008 for us. He was hardly washed up.
After going 49-33 in 08-09, the Hornets went 37-45 in 09-10, largely because of Chris Paul's injury and the firing of Byron Scott after just 9 games that year, meaning that they had to learn a whole new everything on the fly, which has never been a recipe for success. Posey also played, on average, 6 fewer minutes than he had in 08-09, so you have to factor that in to your assessment of his play.
To your point about how he would have helped no more than Sheed in 2010, uh, Rasheed Wallace was huge in the playoffs that year. We would not have beaten Cleveland or Orlando without him, so if Posey could have given us the same, I think we win it all. Remember, too, that when we lost Powe and Posey, we lost two big game players, two scrappy players, two guys who did a lot of the necessary dirty work in our title year, and we never replaced that. Even if Posey had declined as much as you said, he still could have guarded those 3/4 players in Rashard Lewis, Odom, and Jamison, in his sleep, and his rebounding would have been a big help against, well, everybody, lol. I just think that you're grossly underestimating the effect that he could have had on that 2010 team.
Plus, even if his contract was bad, it's not even close to Gerald Wallace's, and, like I said, could have been exchanged for David West in a sign and trade. You do know that West originally only signed with the Pacers for 2 years and $20 million, right? It's not like he said, "This is my last contract." He kept his options open, and had he signed here, I don't think that Ray would have left, especially for Miami, because we would have beaten the Heat that year. Our team might look very different right now.
excellent! thank you!
as much as I think Ainge is a genius he was wrong about posey. even if he did decline a bit following the championship, he was better than anything else we tried replacing him with.
only in hindsight does Danny look right choosing house over posey. without knowing the future posey was the right option.
I don't think that he does, especially because he traded House at the 2010 deadline. To me, the only way that we could have come close to replicating what Posey brought to our team would have been in the 09 offseason. At the time, here's what I wanted: 1). Draft Wesley Matthews. 2.) Sign Rasheed Wallace. 3). Re-sign Stephon Marbury. 4). Trade Perk, Baby (in a sign and trade, obviously), and Tony Allen, preferably to somewhere like Utah (who needed to win that year because of Boozer's impending free agency) for the 2010 Knicks pick. I doubt that they would have given that up, but it never hurts to ask. If not the Jazz, then trade the three guys to Detroit in a sign and trade for Sheed, giving us more financial flexibility (ie, retaining the mle). Dumars liked Davis, Perk is the classic Detroit big man (a thug, but also a great defender and rebounder), and TA as an expiring contract (Perk was up after 2011, so the Pistons are hardly handicapped in terms of cap space.). Of course, I'd also have asked for Detroit's 2010 1st round pick, but even if we threw ours in to such a deal I doubt that Dumars goes for it, and it likely would have been top 10 protected, meaning that we never would have gotten the chance to draft Paul George, which is why I wanted Utah's pick.
Now, I'm sure that you're wondering about the center position. The perfect replacement for, and a significant upgrade over, Perk was the guy who should have been a Celtic for life - Ben Wallace. It's not just his defense that I loved, but he was an excellent passer, fast, quick, so intelligent defensively, relentless, and a great rebounder who always BOXED OUT
What a concept, right? He not only would have allowed us to outrun Bynum, Shaq, Howard, and Gasol, but also would have given us the ability to press, which we couldn't do, really, once KG got hurt. Pressing is the best defense against the triangle, because not only are the players forced out much further than they want to be (and the spacing has to be exact. I read about that in The Last Season by Phil Jackson, and those were his words not mine, even though I'm paraphrasing here, haha. Anyway, the spacing makes it extremely vulnerable to full court pressure. Checkmate.), and the taking of time off the clock eliminates the options that they have offensively, which we saw in 2008. Can you imagine Ben and Garnett on the same team?
Still, once he was waived by Phoenix, Wallace seriously considered retirement, but Hamilton and Prince talked him into signing with Detroit for the minimum, so I would have applied the same strategy to Ben as we did to Sheed - have the Big 3 and Danny and everybody go to Ben's house and beg him to sign with us lol, on a 2 year deal. Does that sound okay to everyone?
5.) In a move that was seemingly overlooked, Dallas traded Jerry Stackhouse to Memphis, who then released him, in a huge multi-team trade. As soon as he was waived, I wanted him. Yes, he was injured the year before, but he was a supreme 6th man for so many years, hit a bunch of huge shots, had plenty of big game experience, and, perhaps most importantly, was great at creating his own shot and getting to the free throw line, which we undoubtedly would have needed against the Cavs and Lakers when Pierce got hosed by the officials. Stack also loved playing against Kobe, and hadn't won a ring yet (and never would). 6). Sign Joe Smith. He killed us so many times, and, along with Ben, would have had so much intimate knowledge the Cavs. He was a dirty work type of player who could both post up and hit the mid-range jumper, and I just thought that he would have been a great fit here. 7). I'll give Danny a lot of credit for signing Marquis Daniels. That was a great move, and I didn't even know about him, lol, or, at least, had temporarily forgotten the guy. Oops.
. This is a hindsight move, but if we could have gotten Bass instead of retaining Davis for the mle or whatever, I think that we would have won it all. His ability to guard guys like Lebron and Carmelo is almost KG-like, in terms of lateral quickness, and although he's undersized, his great athleticism allows him to do what Baby never could - finish in traffic over size. Add to that the fact that he wouldn't have missed the first 2 months of the year for punching a friend in the face (thanks, Baby!) or whatever happened there because I can't exactly remember right now, his automatic mid-range game, great free throw shooting, professionalism, and the fact that he has never had a weight problem, and I think that he would have been a HUGE upgrade over Davis. 9). I still liked the Michael Finley signing. Yes, he was old and had an ankle problem, but I had no idea how great of a shooter he was until he got here. Had he been used instead of Ray in game 3, moving Pierce to the 2, we would have won, because Artest would have been forced to chase Finley through picks, and, like Lebron, that is his defensive weakness. His body simply can't negotiate a screen, and the separation would have been more than enough. On defense, sure, Finley couldn't guard 2s anymore, as evidenced by Shannon Brown blowing right by him in one of the first 2 games, but if we put Pierce on Kobe, having Finley guarding Artest would have been a non-issue, because Artest was never featured in their offense, he has no post or one on one moves to speak of, and Finley had the size to guard him.
So, my 2010 team, by the start of the playoffs, would have looked like this -
C - Big Ben/Sheed/Smith (in emergencies only, haha)
PF - KG/Bass/Sheed/Smith
SF - Pierce/Marquis/Matthews/Stack/Finley
SG - Ray/Marbury/Matthews/Stack
PG - Rondo/Marbury
What do you think?
Topic: In Hindsight, Could Re-Signing James Posey Have Ultimately Yielded David West? (Read 14880 times)