Monday, September 27, 2010

Offseason Review, Part III: Re-signings

(With camp set to open tomorrow, I'm finally getting around to talking about the Celtics' offseason. Here are my thoughts on the players we lost, and here are my thoughts on the ones we added. In this post, I address the players we re-signed or extended.)

Paul Pierce: The Truth opted out of the last year of his contract and got one for four years in the $15 million per range. The deal will make Pierce a very highly-paid 37-year-old during the 2013-14 season, and one with a lot of miles on him, but really, the Celtics had little choice in the matter. There's too much invested in this team to take such things into consideration, at least when it comes to Pierce, who still can really play and has a couple more years left in him.

Ray Allen: In a word, ditto. Ray's performance was down a little bit from the 2008-09 season and he was pretty brutal in the playoffs, but there weren't a lot of other guys the team could have brought in that would have his impact at the shooting guard position. Two years, $20 million isn't a bad deal for a player of Ray's caliber.

My big concern with Ray is his durability. Including playoffs, he's now played in 1,123 games, averaging 37 minutes per. (Pierce has averaged roughly the same number of minutes per game, but in 985 games including playoffs. By the way, both Allen and Pierce have appeared in exactly 101 playoff contests, a surprising coincidence given that they only joined forces three seasons ago). Yet despite this fact, despite all the warnings about shooting guards breaking down at age 32 (Ray turned 35 this summer), Doc Rivers continues to ride him -- 36 mpg in his first two years with Boston, 35 mpg last year. And with the backup two spot an open question, there's no real indication that Ray will see more of the pine this year. He keeps himself in phenomenal condition, but there's only so much the body can take -- and one can't help but wonder if Ray's uneven performance in the post-season (which happened in 2007-08, too, by the way) is due at least in part to him wearing down.

If you look at his stats, you'll notice that last year, he hit "just" 36.3 percent of his three-pointers, a solid number for a guy who shoots five per game, but below his career average of nearly 40 percent -- and, in fact, the lowest mark of his career. Recognize, though, that for a guy who shoots 400 threes on the season, the difference between 36 percent and 40 percent is 16 makes. To put it in perspective, if every five games last season, Ray had one fewer miss -- one more made triple, one three that dropped instead of going in and out -- he'd be right at 40 percent on the season from deep. Without getting into standard deviation and variance, then, I think this shows that there isn't too much to worry about in this regard.

Marquis Daniels: This one surprised me. After Daniels went out of favor with Doc last year, we brought him back on a one-year contract for about $2.5 million. I like Daniels -- he's a good defender who makes up for his lack of shooting ability by being an excellent cutter and facilitator offensively -- but I was surprised to see money and a roster spot go to a player Doc seemed so reluctant to use in the playoffs. Perhaps the fact that we don't have anyone else on the roster to back up Pierce (Daniels can also play shooting guard) was the deciding factor.

Why Doc lost faith in Daniels is anybody's guess, one of those personnel decisions that have so often mystified me during the coach's tenure. Daniels put up unimpressive stat lines in the first month or so of the season, but was very effective in his role. He missed two months with an injury, then came back and played about the same as he had before the injury. There were high points and low points, but nothing about his performance hinted at what was to come in the postseason, when he had 13 DNP-CDs and played only garbage time minutes in the 11 games in which he did see action.

Nate Robinson: Nate came over at the trade deadline for Eddie House, Bill Walker, and J.R. Giddens, and never really found a rhythm with the Celtics. He had his flashes -- most notably when he wrapped up Game 6 in Orlando in the Eastern Conference finals -- but never really integrated into the offense and was used sparingly. He was the one guy on the bench who could have won Game 7 of the Finals for us; we needed a spark offensively, and I think Doc gave him two possessions in the second half before yanking him. Now that he's on the team to start the season, I'm hoping he finds a more solid role, as it's rare to find his caliber of scoring off the bench.

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