As you can all probably tell, the staff at UB has been pretty busy with their daily lives. We'll all post when we can, but forgive us if you don't see posts about certain events right away. We might be attempting to do well at out $35,000-$50,000 education.So the Celtics made a couple trades this week, eh? Let's make a pros and cons list. Generally works for Michael Scott.
Pros:
This makes the Celtics more versatile offensively. Jeff Green can definitely score, although his shot selection is questionable at times. He can also play both forward positions. And on a number of teams, he would be a starter (he's started 261 of his 289 games with OK City Franchise).
This might have us match up better against Miami and New York. But we also beat Miami 3 times without Green., so that's not really a factor at all in my mind.
On a lesser extent, this makes the trade for Ray Allen a complete success. Ray was acquired for Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West, and our draft pick in the 2007 draft, Green. Currently, we have 3 of those players, and Wally has been out of the league for a few years.
Cons:
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We did need some sort of help; some type of scoring punch to back-up at forward. And yes, we did live without Perk for much of this season. But how much do we really trust Shaq and Jermaine to be healthy? Can they defend Dwight, Bynum, and Pau? Granted, the road to the finals may not include Orlando this year, and the Finals might not be against the Lakers.
Secondly, the other trades made. Yes, you could make a case for why or why not the Perk trade is beneficial. But what is the reasoning for trading 3 players, including two rookies, for two 2nd round draft picks. There are sources saying that they expect the likes of Troy Murphy, Rip Hamilton, and Jason Kapono to hit the waiver wire. Great, but what if they don't? We can definitely get by without them; when healthy, the C's will have 12 players on the active roster. But health has been a major issue not only this season, but the past 3 years with this aging group.
I'm not upset about losing Harangody, Semih, or Daniels (or Nate really). Ultimately, they can be replaced. Hopefully, Danny has a plan in place to replace them and to piece this team together.
Exactly how does that trade give them a better matchup against the Knicks and Heat?
ReplyDeleteYou know how you beat small, high scoring, fast break teams? Slow it down, play good interior defense, and rebound. Trading Perkins just makes the Celtics more like the Knicks and Heat, not more likely to beat them. So now the C's have to play a brand of basketball more akin to those teams style, but with worse players (Wade and James > Allen Pierce). It also makes their matchup against the Magic much more difficult. Perkins is one of about three guys who can handle Dwight Howard on their own. You think KG can D up Howard? No way.
I also just hate the type of player Jeff Green is. I hate guys without a position. If you want to play him at the 4, you need a true center out there with him (like, oh say, Kendrick Perkins) which currently isn't found on the C's roster. So you've got to play him at the 3, which is what they are going to do. They got him as a backup swing man due to Marquis' injury. However Green can't shoot the 3 point shot at all. But he thinks he can, which is far worse. This season he is shooting 30% from three, and his past two season totals for 3 point attempts were 247 and 312. So now you have a player who is too small and too poor on the defensive end to play PF and not good enough on the perimiter to play SF. Thats not versatility. Thats called not being very good at anything in paticular, but being ok at everything.
In certain situations the C's could be throwing out a lineup like Rondo, Allen, Green, Davis, Shaq. In that lineup you only have one guy who can threaten from the perimiter, to go along with pretty bad interior defense and rebounding.
The way I see it is that the Celtics had one of the top true centers in the league, and they traded him for a run of the mill player that you can find on any team. Green is talented, but where exactly does he help? With Perk you could say he's going to beat the shit out of people down low, he's going to rebound on both ends, and he's going to give 10 tough points a night. What's Green going to do? He's going to score a little bit. Thats all. He's not going to play D, and he's not going to rebound. I can find 100 of those guys, but it might be 10 years before the Celtics find someone new to hold down the center position.
I think my opinion on the trade isn't really clear. I disagree with the trade that was made. When I say "This might have us match up better against Miami and New York," I'm referencing all the talk from various sports networks/websites. Essentially that point is debatable, because like you said, it makes us more "like them". But does it make us better? We'll have to wait and find out.
ReplyDeleteI think that Jeff Green coming to Boston could be a good thing. For one, he won't be starting, and won't be relied on for the scoring punch that he needed to contribute in OK City. He'll be learning from Pierce, which will help him mature and develop. But I disagree with the pieces that we used to get that type of player. Like you said, we could get someone to score off the bench anywhere. You don't trade your starting center to do that.
Talking about Orlando, I think Danny figured that they would not be the force to be reckoned with in the East as in previous years. Which I guess is sort of agreeable; they are not as strong as before. But it still doesn't make sense. If the seeds stay as is, Atlanta and Orlando play in round 1, to take on the C's. If Orlando wins, can we rely on Shaq to cover him? Danny is able to, apparently. We might have to.