Season Preview Celtics

[KG-MVP21]

Paul Pierce is in for one wacky season.



The Boston Celtics have more or less overhauled their entire rotation since the start of last season, leaving Pierce as the only firm anchor from year to year. As it stands today, this roster probably has too much youth and too few basketball minds to really compete this season, but it'll be very interesting to see how this roster dictates the future of the NBA's most storied franchise.

A lot of that future will lie in what direction this team ultimately goes in with regards to its point guard slot. As it stands right now, ex-Blazer Sebastian Telfair looks like a lock to get the starting spot on November 1st, but anything after that he'll have to earn. Right now, the team has four small guards who will be vying for minutes at the one, and the Celtics anticipate giving each and every one a chance to take control of the position. All are guards who expect to get regular minutes this year, especially last year's starter Delonte West, who had such a solid year last season that he might force Wally Szczerbiak out of the starting lineup so he can play the big-guard position alongside Telfair.

So that leaves rookies Allan Ray and Rajon Rondo to essentially make the most of their backup minutes this year and prove they belong in an NBA rotation. Rondo is a guy the Celtics fell in love with leading up the draft, so much so the bypassed Marcus Williams to nab him. Ray was a late addition to the team, but nonetheless factors into their plans going forward. Neither one is a natural playmaker, and neither is West for that matter, meaning that as it stands Telfair is the only guard who looks to have an early edge at running the team's offence for the foreseeable future. The catch is that Telfair has a tendency to operate outside of the system, opting to make unnecessary passes for the sake of flash rather than simple fundamental passes that demonstrate an ability to read the whole game, not just the play at hand. He has trouble effectively running an offense for long stretches, which may force the team to go in another direction as the season progresses if Telfair can't keep the team motoring along.

The point guard battle is so central to the success of this team because right now the only player on the floor who can create his own shot is Paul Pierce, and while Pierce can often keep you in a game with his effort alone, last year proved you cannot win that way. Pierce is at his best when he has effective playmakers running the show for him like Kenny Anderson or Gary Payton. The responsibility is taken off of his shoulders to set the team's offense and he can freely operate within the Celtics game plan rather than having to operate it himself. Pierce, for all his talent, isn't always the best decision maker with the ball in his hands, which isn't really a knock against him, it just means that the team needs a steady floor general out on the court to maximize Pierce's talents. With that said, one of these guards is going to have to pick up that slack to make sure Pierce's prime isn't put to waste.

The next factor that this team has to balance is how to mix the young guys on the team with the veterans. Players like Kendrick Perkins and Al Jefferson will no doubt be given every chance in the starting frontcourt with Pierce, but both desperately need to display some measure of consistency that they lacked last year in order to stay there. If they can't, Theo Ratliff and Brian Scalabrine will be forced into playing increasingly heavier minutes as the season wears on. Now, if this were a playoff-bound team that wouldn't be such a problem because you'd already know which young guys can be counted on and where their games would need to be augmented by veterans, but when you are in the early stages of rebuilding, you want to make sure the young guys get a chance to show you what they can do, while at the same time throwing vets out there to grab a couple of wins so that the team doesn't get too used to losing.

?Yes, we're too young right now, and there are going to be winners and losers when it's time for minutes,? acknowledged the Celtics director of basketball operations, Danny Ainge. ?To find appealing veteran players is hard, But I don't want veterans just because they're veterans,? he said. ?Right now, I like my players.?

What the Celtics want to avoid is what happens to a lot of bad teams, who live and die by their youth. They insist they have to develop them for the future, but often they do so without providing them any veteran leadership along the way. The key is in using the vets as augmentation to your youth, though, not as a replacement when they don't cut it. If your youth can't learn to win games on their own, then they aren't the future of your team, and shouldn't be kept around just for the sake of trying to prove your detractors wrong. There are already many critics out there who say that Ainge is overvaluing his young personnel, so how quickly the young guys can come on and prove that they can lead the team to some victories is paramount for the future of this organization, both on the court and off. If it turns out the only way these guys can get wins is to ride Pierce, Szczerbiak and Ratliff into the ground, then the future of this team (and its management) will be short lived indeed.

The Celtics have definitely given themselves options for the future, and the question now is which of these options make themselves valuable enough to keep around to help reconstruct this once proud franchise back to supremacy.

PROBABLE STARTING FIVE

PG ? Sebastian Telfair

It says a lot about this guy that the Blazers, after anointing him the future and savior of their team two years ago, have since traded him away for draft picks and Raef Lafrentz. He was never able to grasp how to run an offense effectively, and couldn't stay consistent enough to keep a starting position in his two years in Portland. This year, though, Telfair has a clean slate. His roster is far less dysfunctional and self-obsessed, and he has a coach that, while no where near as good as Nate McMillan, will allow him a bit more time to find himself than he was afforded in Oregon. Now it's up to him. Telfair is in complete control of his destiny, and if he wants to make the most of that, he's going to have to grow up a lot and realize that representing the streets may be what got him here, but it sure isn't what's going to keep him here. If he can start to apply some of his talents to fundamental basketball, he'll be in good shape.

SG ? Delonte West

After last season, I think he easily deserves this spot over Wally Szczerbiak. He showed an ability to score the ball and keep his level of play high with increased minutes He's not a pure point guard, though, and sliding over to the two-guard spot should help him immensely since he won't have to worry about dictating the team's offense. The great thing about a guy like West is his adaptability. He doesn't need to be fed to impact a game, and he doesn't seem to feel as though he deserves more than he's getting. If he can beef up his defense and learn to get off his shot over taller defenders, he could make himself a very valuable role player for this team, be it starting or coming off of the bench.

SF ? Paul Pierce

I find it hard to believe that last year was a career season for Pierce when he didn't even make the playoffs. I know that statistically he was out of sight, but with an increased role in the offense that's what should be expected of someone with his talents. I highly doubt that when his career is done, Pierce will look back at last season and call it a marquee year, no matter how many times other people insist it was. However, I'm not saying that Pierce took any kind of a step backward last year. He showed resilience last year that sets him apart from many in his generation, because when the going got tough, he worked harder and did whatever he could to keep his team in games. Last year's Celtics were a terrible team, and the only thing that kept that afloat was Pierce. While your Carters and McGradys of the world demand trades in these scenarios, Pierce demanded an extension on his contract, to make sure that he'd be there to turn this thing around. That kind of dedication deserves to be matched by management, who now has the task of putting the pieces around Pierce to help him win games. And hopefully that happens sooner rather than later.

PF ? Al Jefferson

I really want to like Al Jefferson. He's a great rebounder and an active body in the paint that has all the makings of a solid forward in this league. However, last year was a major step back for him as he couldn't seem to keep himself healthy and in the lineup, and then this summer he looked to be absolutely unimproved over his rookie season two years ago. Now, I'll be the first to admit that Summer League demonstrates very little about a player, but to watch Jefferson's teammates coalesce and play off of each other and improve each other's game and then see Jefferson holding them back, it was upsetting to see him unable to match their level of play. This is pretty much a make or break year for Jefferson. Presumably he's going to be healthy coming into camp after successful ankle surgery, and he has to remind people why he was supposed to be the future of the Celtics frontcourt. Sure, Antoine Walker's second stint in Boston might have set Jefferson back a tad, but his decline since then is completely his own doing.

C ? Kendrick Perkins

A very pleasant surprise last year, Perkins was absolutely destroying at the centre position before he got injured midway through the season. He was able to come back and still be effective, and this year he has to show that he can be depended on game-in and game-out to provide the kind of effort it will take to prove that the team has its centre position locked up for the foreseeable future. Perkins has a great mentor on the team now in Ratliff, who can really help him with his footwork and defense, two areas where he could use the most improvement. As far as upping his per game stats, that's just got to come from him working more consistently each and every game. He showed the team last year what his potential is, now it's up to him to live up to it.