Post by FLCeltsFan on Aug 15, 2015 18:46:19 GMT -5
Here is another of Lee's Summer Quandaries from the blog. There are lots more over there if you need some good reading in this slow time. Click on the blog icon at the top and it will take you right there. Hopefully these will generate some thoughts in this slow time.
SQ20 (Power) Forward Thinking
Deep in the bowels of the Waltham practice facility, far below the offices of Danny Ainge, Brad Stevens and the rest of the Celtics' brain trust, behind massive arched oaken parquet doors with diabolical leprechaun tested locks, Danny and Brad stand around huge wrought iron caldron, silently stirring an ever thickening brew that gives off an ominous and ghastly green glow with bubbles that slowly rise through the thick liquid only to pop with an eerie retort and produce a horrific odor of nameless terror and enchanted obsession. Any outsider present, although there would never be such, would surely quail at the overwhelming presence of malodorous plumes of smoke emanating from an ethereal spirit, both short and rotund and with an overtly pugnacious countenance. Ainge's paddle slows as it encounters some object impeding its progress, and with a deft adjustment Danny turns the handle easing the blade into a horizontal and laboriously pries the ensnared object from the depths of the ink black pot and teases it into the dank air. He proffers the still dripping clipboard to his coach who , in a voice scarcely above a whisper, reads the deeply etched words, “Why not all forwards!”
O.K., perhaps with slightly less melodrama, but can't you picture Danny and Brad sitting in Ainge's office kicking around the idea of position-less basketball when one turns to the other and says “If they are all forwards, this might work! Everyone is 6-7 to 6-11 and mobile. We can switch on every screen. Everyone can post up, shoot from the perimeter, or drive against the close-out or around a pick and roll. Every help defender is ready to alter a shot from the weak side. There is no weak link because they can all do everything.”
The other responds, “Well we might need one guard to handle the pressure and start the weave rolling, but if we make him a big guard with strength to play up, then it probably doesn't weaken the plan overall. Yeah, Marcus Smart is just big with a good handle trapped in a linebacker's body—he'll do!”
I might be about a bubble off plumb, and slightly off my rocker (certainly those who have known me through my life won't give you any strenuous argument), but don't be surprised if the preseason finds the Celtics putting Smart, Crowder, either Jones or Jerebko or even Mickey, along with (pick two from column four) some pairing from Sullinger, Olynyk, Lee, Johnson, and Zeller, And there you have it, a big guard and four forwards, the new position-less NBA.
More and more we have seen these huge two guards (think James Harden or Paul George) who often tower over their match-ups, the more typical 6-4 to 6-6 shooting guard. We have also seen Boston battle uphill, often giving up 2 or more inches at every position. Well enough of that. I say let's play downhill for a while. Let's do the leaning rather than the being leaned on. Let the Celtics play from the position of power and strength!
Has the mad scientist GM, Danny Ainge, really been prescient in his penchant for gathering half a team of forwards? It remains to be seen if Jerebko has the mobility to keep up with small forwards, or if Perry Jones can resurrect his career in that Mecca of lost NBA wayward souls in Boston. Are Zeller and Olynyk (or Lee and Johnson for that matter) adequate centers playing up from their, perhaps more proper, positions at power forward. You know, if I wasn't a diehard Boston fan, I think I would still be rooting for this aggregation of over achievers to grow in to a collection of just plain old achievers, and a group that continues to be greater than the sum of the parts.
Only 46 more days until camp.
SQ20 (Power) Forward Thinking
Deep in the bowels of the Waltham practice facility, far below the offices of Danny Ainge, Brad Stevens and the rest of the Celtics' brain trust, behind massive arched oaken parquet doors with diabolical leprechaun tested locks, Danny and Brad stand around huge wrought iron caldron, silently stirring an ever thickening brew that gives off an ominous and ghastly green glow with bubbles that slowly rise through the thick liquid only to pop with an eerie retort and produce a horrific odor of nameless terror and enchanted obsession. Any outsider present, although there would never be such, would surely quail at the overwhelming presence of malodorous plumes of smoke emanating from an ethereal spirit, both short and rotund and with an overtly pugnacious countenance. Ainge's paddle slows as it encounters some object impeding its progress, and with a deft adjustment Danny turns the handle easing the blade into a horizontal and laboriously pries the ensnared object from the depths of the ink black pot and teases it into the dank air. He proffers the still dripping clipboard to his coach who , in a voice scarcely above a whisper, reads the deeply etched words, “Why not all forwards!”
O.K., perhaps with slightly less melodrama, but can't you picture Danny and Brad sitting in Ainge's office kicking around the idea of position-less basketball when one turns to the other and says “If they are all forwards, this might work! Everyone is 6-7 to 6-11 and mobile. We can switch on every screen. Everyone can post up, shoot from the perimeter, or drive against the close-out or around a pick and roll. Every help defender is ready to alter a shot from the weak side. There is no weak link because they can all do everything.”
The other responds, “Well we might need one guard to handle the pressure and start the weave rolling, but if we make him a big guard with strength to play up, then it probably doesn't weaken the plan overall. Yeah, Marcus Smart is just big with a good handle trapped in a linebacker's body—he'll do!”
I might be about a bubble off plumb, and slightly off my rocker (certainly those who have known me through my life won't give you any strenuous argument), but don't be surprised if the preseason finds the Celtics putting Smart, Crowder, either Jones or Jerebko or even Mickey, along with (pick two from column four) some pairing from Sullinger, Olynyk, Lee, Johnson, and Zeller, And there you have it, a big guard and four forwards, the new position-less NBA.
More and more we have seen these huge two guards (think James Harden or Paul George) who often tower over their match-ups, the more typical 6-4 to 6-6 shooting guard. We have also seen Boston battle uphill, often giving up 2 or more inches at every position. Well enough of that. I say let's play downhill for a while. Let's do the leaning rather than the being leaned on. Let the Celtics play from the position of power and strength!
Has the mad scientist GM, Danny Ainge, really been prescient in his penchant for gathering half a team of forwards? It remains to be seen if Jerebko has the mobility to keep up with small forwards, or if Perry Jones can resurrect his career in that Mecca of lost NBA wayward souls in Boston. Are Zeller and Olynyk (or Lee and Johnson for that matter) adequate centers playing up from their, perhaps more proper, positions at power forward. You know, if I wasn't a diehard Boston fan, I think I would still be rooting for this aggregation of over achievers to grow in to a collection of just plain old achievers, and a group that continues to be greater than the sum of the parts.
Only 46 more days until camp.