The summer has come and gone unofficially with Labor Day weekend in the rear view mirror. College football has started and the NFL season commencement will begin this Thursday night. The days are getting closer to the start of NBA training camps and before you know it, we'll all get our first looks at the 2010-2011 Boston Celtics. However, we're still in that NBA limbo month that is September. With that being said, it's always interesting to read what non-Boston fans have to say in regards to the Celtics.
John Schuhmann of NBA.com was the professor in Danny Ainge's GM summer school course, and NBA.com recently released the summer grades for all 30 NBA teams. Through the partial eyes of Professor Schuhmann, Ainge was given the final grade of a B. Certainly nothing to scoff at, but if I'm Ainge I'm relatively BS about a B. To be fair, there is no date as to when this report card was completed, so I'm assuming the addition of Delonte West was not accounted for. Otherwise, they probably would have received a B instead of a C for the back court. Just in case any of you were wondering, only three teams received the final grade of an A: Miami Heat (shocking), Oklahoma City Thunder (everybody's favorite "second team") and wait for it... WAIT for it... LA Lakers.
SLAM Magazine's Polladaday asked: Who will be the most important vet off the bench? At the time of this post, Shaquille O'Neal led all voters with 92 out of 250 votes, good for 37%, with Detroit's Tracy McGrady coming in second with a total tally of 78 out of 250 votes, good for 31%.
Finally, Mike Prada over at BulletsForever.com gave his own prediction for the Celtics. Mike sees the Celtics finishing with a 51-31 record, good for 3rd in the east. I don't think he's far off from his assessment, but I also don't think 51 wins will be good enough for third place in a top-heavy Eastern Conference. Mike also projects Jermaine O'Neal to fill in for Perk until he's ready to take his starting spot back. Check out the full review/preview here.