07-08 Everyone playing well

08-09 Everyone playing badly, no center

I’ll try an anecdote instead…..

I lived in Boston from 2001-06 after college. I saw the last decent Walker/Piece team, and then a whole bunch of crap until “The Trade.”

My concern is that on this board we tend to speak of Young, Blatche, and McGuire the same way that Boston fans played up..

Gerald Greene
Orien Green
Sebastian Telfair
Delonte West
Marcus Banks
Ryan Gomes
and (perhaps) Ricky Davis

at the same time we also spend an inordinate amount of time deriding Songalia and Stevenson the same way that Boston fans ripped the reprehensible Marc Blount, Raef LaFrentz, and (perhaps) Ricky Davis.

What is most interesting in this equation is that the player that most Boston fans fawned over and considered untouchable, Al Jefferson, reminds me quite a bit of our JaVale McGee.

My point with the collection of stuff, Pierce went into sulk mode for five years, being forced to play with a bunch of youngsters and veterans with undefined roles, and Gary Payton’s corpse. No one had a role, and there were calls to give Gerald Greene his minutes, on the basis of nothing more than “potential.” Which was unfair to ask of Greene, and thus perhaps unfair to ask of NY and Blatche.

Our bench, arguably was weaker two years ago with Ruffin, Booth and the rest, and yet the team made the playoffs. And I think a lot of this has to do with roles being assigned properly. Or maybe this team is just terribly constructed. All I know is that Butler and Jamison are making the Paul Pierce face, and that worries me to no end.

But hey, maybe we can package Etan, McGee, Young, and Blatche for a perennial all star.

Maybe someone like Vince Carter?

all star I could find to easily make the trade machine work. But would trade all the potential in the world for 4 all stars and the hope of signing a Jamario Moon or Leon Powe on the cheap…

I think you have to keep in mind that the injuries to Gilbert and Brendan (and maybe DeShawn) have stretched almost everyone on the team out of their natural role. If Brendan was still healthy, Blatche would go back to being a backup where his minutes could be better monitored and JaVale would go to being an energy guy that could come in for 5-10 minutes a game and provide an alley-oop threat and shotblocking. And if Gilbert was healthy, Caron and Antawn could go back to being the 2nd and 3rd options and Mike, Juan, and Nick wouldn’t have to force as much and DeShawn could go back to being a guy that just lingers around the perimeter who can take open shots when they’re available.

I’ll agree that the lack of a defined role for most of the players on the team has hurt their overall performance but I think that’s a byproduct of not having enough players to fill all the roles. Last year, everyone just had to pitch in a little extra to cover Gil’s role as the top offensive option. Caron took on the role of initiator, Antawn upped his rebounding, Brendan improved his FT shooting, Roger steadied his 3 point shot and Antonio ran the show effectively. That covered all of Gilbert’s roles.

Now with Gilbert and Brendan out, they have to fill Gilbert’s roles on offense and they have to take on Brendan’s defensive roles. You’ve got to have a communicator to get people in the right spots defensively, a widebody that can clog the lane and help people get rebounds, a solid shotblocker, and someone that can body up the other team’s best big man. That’s a lot of roles to cover for a team that’s missing 2/5ths of its starting calibur talent because of injuries and another spot is in flux because the starter is battling through hamstring issues and a shooting slump. It’s hard to get a team to fill all the roles that an NBA team needs to be successful when you’re trotting out 2 starters and a bunch of bench players and I think the record shows that. Once we get one or both of those guys back, a lot of the role issues on this squad will work themselves out.