Charley Rosen, Fox's resident Celtics-hater and... as our favorite photo of him clearly shows... avid nudist, doesn't like what the Celtics have done this offseason.
Given all of the possible pitfalls, Danny Ainge's offseason moves have been seriously inept.Even when Darius Miles was at the top of his game, his defense was pitiful, his jumper was shaky, his game was marshmallow-soft and he was a total jerk.
The signing of Patrick O'Bryant to back up Kendrick Perkins provides little more than a sizeable warm body.
Unless Gabe Pruitt's game undergoes a stupendous improvement, or rookie J.R. Giddens turns out to be a prodigious talent — and considering that both Tony Allen and Eddie House are really 2-guards — the Celtics have no serviceable backup at the point.
None of the above is meant to predict an empty season for the Celtics. Rather, the intent is to roll out the reasons why a repeat is fraught with peril. After all, they're still the champs until somebody beats them.
Or, as is more likely, they beat themselves.
Yeah, sure, O'Bryant and Miles are crap shoots. What Rosen doesn't consider is that the Celtics are at a point where they're only allowed to offer $10 an hour. Ainge is playing a high-risk, high reward card here. Miles clearly had a ton of talent that was never realized. If he's healthy, and if he can get his mind right, he'll make Danny look like a genius. Same with O'Bryant... who is coming to the C's after being mis-cast in the Warriors run-and-gun style. Clifford Ray could earn the title "big man guru" if OB works out... and he's under no pressure to perform. With scaled-back duties and more back-to-the-basket play... maybe he'll realize some of that potential.
And what most people seem to forget here is that the Celtics never had a real "serviceable" back up last year, either. Sam Cassell was big for a few games in the Atlanta series... and that's about all. We tore through the regular season with Rondo and House... and it was the return of House that helped spark the C's in the ECF and the Finals.
Repeating is very hard to do... but I have no clue how much Danny could have done differently. He could have retained Posey... and 3 years from now we'd be trying to figure out how to dump his contract. So he rolled the dice with what little salary cap room he had. So its easy to say Danny didn't do much to improve the team... but you don't know what Miles, O'Bryant, and Giddens will bring. They're truly unknowns at this point... so we can, at best, take a wait-and-see approach.