What the Celtics Should Do When the Lockout Ends at LinesMaker

What the Celtics Should Do When the Lockout Ends

PBT is work­ing its way through what every team in the NBA should do when the NBA lock­out ends. To see all the teams we’ve done so far, click here. Today, we talk Boston Celtics.

Last sea­son in Boston: The Celtics won 56 games, entered the play­offs as the three seed and smacked the Knicks around in the first round. For a lot of teams that would be a good sea­son. In Boston it started the “end of the dynasty that wasn’t really a dynasty” talk. Every­one seemed to focus on two things. One was the trade of Kendrick Perkins to the Okla­homa City Thun­der at the dead­line for Jeff Green, and how that impacted chem­istry. Sec­ond is how eas­ily Miami knocked the Celtics out of the play­offs in five games in the sec­ond round.

For the record, the Perkins traded is not what cost the Celtics against Miami — they needed offense in the paint against the Heat, some­thing Perkins would not have pro­vided. The loss to Miami hap­pened because the Heat were bet­ter at the time. Which is an issue because they are also younger and likely to be even bet­ter next season.

Since we last saw the Celtics… they have seen very lit­tle change — which is news itself. Boston is keep­ing its core together — Kevin Gar­nett, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo — plus keep­ing Doc Rivers in charge. They are going to make one more run at a ring. Then it is tran­si­tion time.

The Celtics did draft E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan John­son from Pur­due back in June, both poten­tially good play­ers. How­ever, nei­ther is going to play a sig­nif­i­cant role as a rookie on a con­tender. And the Celtics fancy them­selves contenders.

When the lock­out ends, the Celtics need to… fig­ure out what to do about Jeff Green, find some help in the paint and find a way to get a lit­tle more ath­letic. Then go sac­ri­fice a goat to the injury gods, or do what­ever else it takes to keep this team healthy for a season.

About the deci­sion to make one more run at it with this core, Jeff Clark is the man behind the fan­tas­tic OG Boston hoops site Celtics­Blog, explains it for us.

For what seems like the third straight year, the Celtics have one more shot with the Big 3. With Gar­nett and Allen on the final year of their deals there’s a sense of final­ity this time. Next year, if they are still in Celtic green, it will likely be because they are back on a steep dis­count, or some­thing went wrong with the grand plan. But we’re get­ting ahead of our­selves. When this mess of a labor sit­u­a­tion is resolved, they have to bring out the duct tape, wires, and bub­ble gum and hope it looks more like McGyver and less like uncle Cle­tus’ pickup.

Those guys need help and Celtics fans dream big, but this will be help on a bud­get for Boston. They are shop­ping at Pay­less Shoes, not the Nike store. If Green accepts the qual­i­fy­ing offer ($ 5.9 mil­lion, and the Celtics hope he does) they will have $ 66 mil­lion in salary on the books and seven play­ers under con­tract. Again Jeff Clark explains:

Regard­less of what kind of CBA the sides agree on, the Celtics won’t have much money to throw around. They will hope that the same goes for other teams as well since they are hop­ing against hope that Jeff Green gets no other rea­son­able offers and accepts the qual­i­fy­ing offer. “Big Baby” Glen Davis is the other free agent and they’ll prob­a­bly wait for the mar­ket to set his value. He’d help the team, but I don’t think Doc will shed any tears see­ing him move on.

Per­son­ally, I’m not the world’s biggest Green fan. Oh, he’s a nice player. But the expec­ta­tions are con­sis­tently higher than the result and his defense has lacked. I’d say Boston wouldn’t miss him, but in a down free agent year there are not a lot of viable replace­ments for him float­ing around. So hope he takes a one-year offer, then the Celtics can let him go.

Defense is still the call­ing card for the Celtics and KG is still the anchor of that defense. But he needs help on the front line — that is what Perkins did bring. Ide­ally they’d get a lit­tle offense out of that spot too, but what they need most is defense and rebound­ing. Clark of Celtics­Blog does not paint an opti­mistic picture.

The biggest need the team has, how­ever, is find­ing some help in the mid­dle. They need some­one that can rebound and defend and get out of the way on offense. Names like Kwame Brown, Jason Collins, and Joel Przy­billa don’t exactly quicken the pulse, but they will likely be avail­able in the dis­count bins that we’ll be shop­ping at. The other hope is that some amnesty casu­alty decides to spurn the Heat and sign with the Celtics instead.

Finally the rest of the squad will be filled with rook­ies (like 1st round pick JaJuan John­son), young play­ers (like last year’s first rounder Avery Bradley), old faces (prob­a­bly Delonte West), and maybe even some old flames (Danny has always had a thing for guys like Yi Jian­lian, Robert Swift, and Josh Howard). Will it be enough to get the Celtics another shot at a ban­ner or will it just be a “bridge year?” Only father time will tell.

Father time is the key. If healthy and rested, with some help in the paint, the Celtics are a con­tender. But they are a now a team that is in the sec­ond tier of con­tenders — they need every­thing to go right for them for it to work. There is no mar­gin for error any­more. And it can be a long sea­son when you need every­thing to go right.

But count out Boston at your own risk. There are a lot of ban­ners up in that city for a reason.

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• What the Wiz­ards Should Do When the Lock­out Ends…
• Djokovic Ends Sea­son With Record Haul
• Djokovic Ends Sea­son With Record $12.6M

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