Jesus Shuttlesworth in the house
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by user KitchRich
So after weeks of speculation of who they would pick with the #5 pick or who they would trade for, the Boston Celtics choose to trade the pick, along with guard Delonte West and guard Wally Szcerbiak to the Seattle Supersonics for guard Ray Allen and the #35 which turned out to be Glen "Big Baby" Davis. Uh, ok. Anybody who watched a single Celtics game last year was struck by two things: 1) how young the Celts were and 2) how little defense they exhibited. With this draft night move, the Celtics addressed the former issue while completely ignoring the second issue.
Let's be honest here, this move was made simply to placate star Paul Pierce. Pierce can see his NBA career going down the tube as year after year, the Celtics continue to get younger and consequently worse in the standings. There's no right answer to the Celtics problems. Getting the #1 or #2 pick would have been a wonderful solution for a team that worked hard to get the second-worst record in the 2006-2007 NBA season but like most things the Celts do nowadays, they screwed that up too. Oden and Durant were off to the West Coast and the Celtics were left wondering how they could possibly make the fans care anymore. The Allen deal puts some (not many) fans in the seats next season but he certainly doesn't have the draw of a Kevin Garnett-whose name was thrown around in trade talks for weeks.
Allen is 31 and coming off a career year (26.4 points a game). He also had surgery on both ankles at the end of the year and he's not known as anything but a shooter/scorer. He plays shooting guard and Pierce plays small forward but are they different players? Not really. Will their egos stay in check as both will undoubtedly want the ball in crunch time. Who knows? Is Doc (who many say is one of the worst coaches in the NBA) capable of handling these two? Probably not. Expect a lot of old-school NBA scores this season, of the 115-110 variety.
As for the departed: D. West is a solid player, who plays hard all the time-a rare thing in pro sports. He's not flashy and he gets hurt more often based on his style. He'll be missed. Wally was a disaster after being traded to the C's two seasons ago. He's a shooter plain and simple. He can't rebound, he can't pass, he can't play defense, you get the point. The Sonics picked Jeff Green with the number five pick, an all-around player, who would have looked good in Celtics green and white. Personally, I was hoping the Celts would take Corey Brewer-a great defender and athletic wing-but you can't expect Danny Ainge to do anything right. Bottom line, we still have Al Jefferson (crossing fingers and toes) and as Bart Simpson would say, "that ain't not bad." Plus, just listening to Celtics TV commentator Tommy Heinsohn confuse Allen Ray and Ray Allen will make another unsatisfying season slighty more bearable.
