Posted by Finestrg:

Posted by djsunyc:

no brainer trade for boston.

if you have pierce + ray, you go get yourself kg and make your run for the next 3 years.

if ainge is able to get ray + kg in one offseason while keeping pierce, that's pretty impressive.

and it's something we should've considered - ALL IN was the way for us to go. we should go after artest.

I was thinking the same thing. But I wonder if when KG to Boston goes down the price for Artest goes up. Isiah might really have to start thinking about sending Lee to the Kings for Ronnie - something he's be reluctant to do so far. I'm afraid that's what it'll take fellas. Should we do it? Considering that I don't see how Lee will ever get the PT he needs to continue developing here anymore (Randolph's our 4 and only 26 and Lee's not a 3 or a 5), I'm leaning toward pulling the trigger on this now. Now Geoff Petrie's said recently that he's not interested in moving Ron but it makes a lot of sense. First, they have options for replacing Artest at SF: Abdur-Rahim (who I always saw as more of a 3 than a 4 anyway), Kevin Martin, John Salmons, Francisco Garcia, etc. Plus, they don't have anyone like Lee on that roster. Kenny Thomas has always been a little on the small size for a 4 and not the most athletic and even though they just picked up Mikki Moore, he's more of a shooter, like a Channing Frye, than a traditional athletic/power/rebounder type of PF. Lee would be perfect for them. If we made this trade, I'd like to have them include Justin Williams too. This is a young athletic shotblocker that could fit in nicely for us. Physically, he's a little thin right now but he goes a legit 6'10" with a tremendous wingspan so, unlike Lee, he can play some 5. He could bring the missing shotblocking element and I think I like his overall athleticism a little more than Randolph Morris. But yeah dude, time to start seriously thinking about bringing Artest home now if this Boston thing goes down. Absolutely.

Posted by bigbeast:

Posted by Finestrg:

Posted by djsunyc:

no brainer trade for boston.

if you have pierce + ray, you go get yourself kg and make your run for the next 3 years.

if ainge is able to get ray + kg in one offseason while keeping pierce, that's pretty impressive.

and it's something we should've considered - ALL IN was the way for us to go. we should go after artest.

I was thinking the same thing. But I wonder if when KG to Boston goes down the price for Artest goes up. Isiah might really have to start thinking about sending Lee to the Kings for Ronnie - something he's be reluctant to do so far. I'm afraid that's what it'll take fellas. Should we do it? Considering that I don't see how Lee will ever get the PT he needs to continue developing here anymore (Randolph's our 4 and only 26 and Lee's not a 3 or a 5), I'm leaning toward pulling the trigger on this now. Now Geoff Petrie's said recently that he's not interested in moving Ron but it makes a lot of sense. First, they have options for replacing Artest at SF: Abdur-Rahim (who I always saw as more of a 3 than a 4 anyway), Kevin Martin, John Salmons, Francisco Garcia, etc. Plus, they don't have anyone like Lee on that roster. Kenny Thomas has always been a little on the small size for a 4 and not the most athletic and even though they just picked up Mikki Moore, he's more of a shooter, like a Channing Frye, than a traditional athletic/power/rebounder type of PF. Lee would be perfect for them. If we made this trade, I'd like to have them include Justin Williams too. This is a young athletic shotblocker that could fit in nicely for us. Physically, he's a little thin right now but he goes a legit 6'10" with a tremendous wingspan so, unlike Lee, he can play some 5. He could bring the missing shotblocking element and I think I like his overall athleticism a little more than Randolph Morris. But yeah dude, time to start seriously thinking about bringing Artest home now if this Boston thing goes down. Absolutely.

No way do you trade a quality player like Lee for Artest, when he will be a free agent this summer. Theres no need to panic. Artests trade value will come down by Febs trade deadline and like I said, We can possibly get him for free next summer.


And theres still plenty of time available for Lee to impact the game for us. He can still get 25-28 mins per to help this team win. No need to panic. The least we can do is let it play out on the court and see where we stand amongst the comp in the east. Hard to get a great read on paper.

Monday, July 30, 2007
Celtics would be better with KG, but he's probably not enough
By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider

Can the Celtics compete for a title with a triumvirate of Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce? Seems like they should, right? But if they're going to, Danny Ainge's work is far from done. By trading Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair and Gerald Green to the Wolves to get Garnett, as has been reported as likely to happen, the Celtics' team president would be denuding the rest of the roster. Right now the opening day roster would consist of the "Big Three" and not much else -- you're basically looking at a glorified version of the Washington Wizards, folks.

Let's look at what that means by the numbers. I have a model I use for preseason predictions, and today I used it to plug in the projected PERs for the big three, plus those of Rajon Rondo, Kendrick Perkins and Leon Powe. Then I added an estimate for what Tony Allen might do in his return from knee surgery and rounded out the rotation with three "replacement level" players with a PER of 10. After all that I came out with … 46 wins. Which is nice, and in a sad commentary on the East puts the Celtics into the mix for a spot in the Finals. But at the same time it probably isn't something worth mortgaging the franchise over.

Obviously, Ainge can still change this, but the key is that he has to keep making moves. If you're going to go all in, Danny, go all in. Presumably he would have secured ownership's approval to use his cap exceptions and go way over the luxury tax before consummating this deal. (And if he didn't? Enjoy the Scalabrine era, KG.) If so, Ainge will need to use those dollars wisely to fill in the many holes left in his roster with decent players.

The big needs I see are a second point guard, a low-post defender and a wing stopper. Between his midlevel exception, his biannual exception and the veteran's minimum, Ainge needs to convince the few remaining quality free agents to sign up at below-market rates and take a shot at the ring.

If he does that (and, possibly, if Tony Allen comes back from last year's knee injury at full strength), the prospects improve significantly. If Ainge convinces, say, Ime Udoka and Brevin Knight to split his midlevel exception and persuades P.J. Brown to play for the veteran's minimum, then you're looking at another five wins or so. At that point you'd have to install the Celtics as the Eastern Conference favorites, although Boston still would fall far short of the elite teams in the West.

But until then, Ainge's work is far from done. Even in the watered-down Eastern Conference, the proposed trio of Pierce, Allen and Garnett doesn't guarantee dominance. I suppose there are Celtics Kool-Aid drinkers out there who will tell you that Glen "Big Baby" Davis and Gabe Pruitt can fill the void, and we won't know for certain whether that's true until the games start.

But the history of second-round draft picks says don't hold your breath, and after making moves for Allen and Garnett, probably giving themselves a two- or three-year window to contend, it seems foolish for the Celtics to leave their fate in those players' hands.

But in the end, Ainge may come up short regardless of how many more cards he plays. The idea of cashing in all your chips is to leave yourself with a team that's truly great. The Celtics with Garnett are merely pretty good, and at this late stage in the free-agent market, I'm not sure they can get much better.