Is the sky falling?

I gotta tell you, I don't see it. I watched the first quarter...the lowest scoring first quarter of the year...this morning and what do I see...? Well, Pierce is missing in action..somethings bothering him, obviously and I see sloppy execution all over the place and a lot of nice bounces for the Grizzlys and a fired up Grizzley team that is motivated to take it to the C's but I don't think, based on what I see, that this team is finished. I've taken the position so far this year that finding themselves and their groove would be a long process and that any corner turning would come later rather than sooner, but I still choose to believe that they can and will find their groove before this season is over and with a few breaks can still go deep into the playoffs....call me a glass half full C's fan today.

The sky has fallen (not the WNBA Chicago Sky, Celts could use Sylvia Fowles on the boards). If you knocked your toothpaste off the sink, you'd be Crest-Fallen. It's like the Pacino late 60's flick, "Panic In Needle Park," and the C's can't get a fix on fixin' this mess-MD!

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

It's the "second season" that counts. We still have 1/4 to go in the first one.

bob

Bob: I think Burt Bacharach wrote that to try to keep the clouds away after Angie Dickinson left him and he was left with Carol Bayer Sager!-MD.

bobheckler wrote:Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

It's the "second season" that counts. We still have 1/4 to go in the first one.

bob

Bob,

Good one!

I must be getting old because that takes me back to elementary school!

Regards

NYCelt wrote:

bobheckler wrote:Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

It's the "second season" that counts. We still have 1/4 to go in the first one.

bob

Bob,

Good one!

I must be getting old because that takes me back to elementary school!

Regards

nycelt,

That song came out in 1970. You were in elementary school in 1970? And you're bitching about getting old?

bob

geesh when i hear it I think of college and Butch Cassidy riding a bike or was it Catherine Ross.

beat

beat wrote:geesh when i hear it I think of college and Butch Cassidy riding a bike or was it Catherine Ross.

beat

beat,

Paul Newman was pedaling and Katherine Ross was sitting on the crossbar.

Oh, to be a crossbar...

bob

far cry better than the bike seat !

" I'll cook your food, I'll stitch your clothes. I'll patch you up when you get shot....................but one thing I won't do. I won't watch you die. I'll pass on that if you don't mind.'

Sam talking to DA and Doc.

beat

(really just from memory not an exact quote from the movie.)

Title of this thread is "Is the Sky Falling" I guess this is the right thread to begin to discuss what to do about this team to improve it going forward. Personnel changes will clearly need to be made if the Celtics are going to return to being in serious contention for a ring in the upcoming years, and such changes are affected in a major way be the salary cap. I have started educating myself on how this works. If anyone else is interested, here is the relevant link (be forwarned: its very complicated):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Salary_Cap

And here is a mostly up to date list of Celtics salaries. Note that Ray Allen is being paid $18,776,860 this year and since his contract is up at the end of the season, presumably that dollar amount is freed up to spend on other talent.

http://www.altiusdirectory.com/Sports/nba-boston-celtics-roster.html

And finally, here is a list of the top FA available by position:

http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?STORY_ID=13175

gyso wrote:pumpsie,

For some more links to CBA stuff, see the thread:

Collective Bargaining Agreement Q and A

There is some good stuff there.

gyso

According to your numbers, even when Allen's salary drops off the books the team is still on the hook for very near $65M which puts it at risk for the luxury tax. That is scary: if Allen goes there is no money to hire a high quality shooting guard to replace him. Its pretty clear to me that in order for the team to really improve, either KG or PP AND Ray Allen have to be off the books.

Pumpsie, those numbers are correct. Now you're realizing why major changes are not necessarily at the team's discretion. That's one reason why it's so important to hope that the the recent malaise is an aberration (albeit a disappointly lengthy one) and to withhold gradiose ideas until the season and playoffs have ended and Danny Ainge, Doc and the ownership have a better idea of precisely where they stand.

In the meantime, it may be fun to speculate, but most of the speculation represents tilting at windmills as far as reality is concerned. Among other things, regardless of how far they go this season, it will be important for all players to make the best possible showing in the next few months in order to maximize their potential trade value.

(This is an afterthought that I added with an edit.) Another reason to hope for the team to gather momentum as the season wanes and the playoffs loom is to look as attractive as possible to mid-level free agents who could represent at least useful role players for reasonable dollars.

Sam

According to one of these links, "The 2009-10 salary cap has been set at $57.7 million." Yet, if you add up all these salary numbers ( I did it on a calculator and one's fingers get tired of all the zeros...its staggering how much some of these guys make), the total team salary figure is $84,045,133 as it currently stands and without Allen's salary of $18776860 its $65,268,273-well over the 09-10 salary cap figure noted above. I am just wondering what exception and on whom they used it that allowed them to go so far over the cap.
Assuming this is true, its going to be very tough to attract real talent here next year or even the year after as Garnett is signed through the 2012 season.

bobheckler wrote:

beat wrote:geesh when i hear it I think of college and Butch Cassidy riding a bike or was it Catherine Ross.

beat

beat,

Paul Newman was pedaling and Katherine Ross was sitting on the crossbar.

Oh, to be a crossbar...

bob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_5l6rIUu4A


Such a great sequence.



I had completely forgotten about the "comedy interlude" in the middle of the song. It makes you feel like you're watching a different movie all of a sudden. I love the bull chasing them around at the end, though, which I had also completely forgotten about. Need to eat some walnuts I guess.

The Celtics are in trouble when it comes to next years team.
They almost have to re-sign Ray Allen.
If Boston can't get younger and more athletic, they will have to wait until Pierce and Garnett's contracts expire.

This season is what counts now. Suppose for a moment that the Celtics play every game, throughout the rest of the season and the playoffs, as they did last night. Suppose they have so many guys in good health that they have to sit a veteran. Suppose they win the championship. Would the comments on this thread be a relevant then as they might seem now? What if they look so great by the end of the playoffs that affordable free agents are just lining up on Causeway Street with blinders on and contingency plans to go into banking if the Celtics won't accept them?

Yes, no one has to explain to me that a long shot that is. But I hope I don't have to explain in return that no one on this board is enough of an oracle to know for certain what kind of shape this team will be in and what the possibilities and needs will be come June.

That's precisely why all the conjecture is premature. At the end of the playoffs, Danny and the rest of the hierarchy will determine what they have and what they need, and they'll do their best to fill those needs. It's fun to play make believe, but the reality will not come into view until several months from now.

Sam

Nice try, PG, but do you really believe it's going to be "very tough" to get talented free agents to want to come to Boston and play with Kevin Garnett?

As Oddball said in Kelly's Heroes, "Will you knock it off with those negative waves? Why not talk about how beautiful it is out here? Why not try to say something righteous and hopeful for a change?"

The CBA happens to be a fascinating subject to me but you managed to seize on the most boring aspect of it.

Are you aware that there might - probably will - be a lockout in 2011? There was a lockout in 1999 when the players refused to negotiate, until the owers played hardball, forcing the union back to the table.

Are you aware that, as negotiations currently stand, the players want to keep the status quo and the owners want extreme changes, including a hard cap with limits on length of contracts and guarantees? That the salary cap that was set for this year wasn't carved in stone and that the players most likely are going to have this year's salaries cut by as much as ten percent? If you're making $20 million, does it hurt to lose $2 million?

Forget about next year. There even could be a major contraction, i.e., teams folding, with surviving teams pulling players' names out of the proverbial hat. How's that for positive thinking?

Tyrone, its not going to be tough to attract FAs to come to Boston if we don't have to pay them to play here. From what I can see, there is very little cap room to do so. What you consider "boring' others might find of interest. If there is a lockout that would certainly change reality here, but for now, it is what it is.
And Sam, you are right: this is all conjecture; but its fun to speculate what the team COULD do, given the restrictions placed on it by the salary cap and the CBA. Maybe this belongs on a different thread. I think its fair game to exchange ideas on this subject somewhere on this board. And no, it doesn't matter if another ring is won or not this year. The team still has to try to improve next year.

Pumpsie Green wrote:According to one of these links, "The 2009-10 salary cap has been set at $57.7 million." Yet, if you add up all these salary numbers ( I did it on a calculator and one's fingers get tired of all the zeros...its staggering how much some of these guys make), the total team salary figure is $84,045,133 as it currently stands and without Allen's salary of $18776860 its $65,268,273-well over the 09-10 salary cap figure noted above. I am just wondering what exception and on whom they used it that allowed them to go so far over the cap.
Assuming this is true, its going to be very tough to attract real talent here next year or even the year after as Garnett is signed through the 2012 season.

Pumpsie-

The short answer is that when teams get $20m or $30m over the cap, it is mostly due to two things: resigning players with their Bird Rights when they go off their rookie contract and to players getting raises in their deals year after year. For example, next year, Rondo goes from $2.6m (last year of his rookie deal) to $9m, and KG goes from $16.4 to $18.8. THat's an increase of $8.8m for just those two players.

Add in MLE and LLE signings, which for the Cs this year added $7.8m to the payroll, and you can see how it all adds up fast.


The other thing is that when you make trades and you're over the cap, the traded players' salaries have to be within 125% + 100k of each other. With bigger $$$ deals, this can add up. You can trade players out making $20m in salaries and take back $24m in salaries. You just added $4m to your payroll. And if you take back long-term salary commitments while giving up expiring contracts, which is a great way to acquire talent, your payroll is going to get much bigger in subsequent years.



As to the Cs specifically, even in the unlikely event of Pierce opting out to sign as a FA somewhere else this summer, the Cs would only have around $9-10m in capspace once you factor in cap holds for roster spots and draft picks. They won't get anyone elite with those $$$$, so they're better off keeping the KG-PP-RA-Rodno-Perk core together and building around it with the MLE and vet min signings.

The only caveat to that is if they can find a sign and trade deal that makes sense involving Ray Allen. They might be able to make a lopsided deal talent-wise in return for giving someone financial relief, but I doubt it. That was much more likely to happen at the trade deadline, and obviously didn't.

Their other big card will be if they don't work out an extension with Pierce, and he doesn't opt out, he becomes an expiring $21m contract next year. If next season starts out as a train wreck, they could look at moving him to a team that's looking for cap relief in order to get some combination of young talent and future draft picks back, as the Rockets did in moving Mcgrady's deal this year.

BSH, thanks for the clarification. I am just getting started learning how all this works, and as a Celtics fan, I am not liking it very much right now. It seems to me that until PP and KG are off the books we are going to have pretty much the same roster, with the exception of draft picks, which we can sign even if we are over the cap.
Guess we will just get used to the way things are now plus a few minor tweaks here and there.
PS: I can't see PP going anywhere soon, if ever.

Pumpsie, you missed my point. Any team wants to improve next year. But first they have to know where improvement is most needed. That will be better ascertained at the end of the playoffs than now, when we're all hoping the last game wasn't an aberration but we're not sure. That's the point. We're not sure of (a) what the most glaring needs will be and (b) how much trade value each player will prove to have by the end of this season.

Just as a tiny example of the unknown, should the Celtics try to sign Nate Robinson for next year? Too early to tell. THAT is the point!

As I've said many times, sure it's fun to conjecture. It just doesn't mean much of anything because it's based on the present. And the present may bear little resemblance to the way things stand in June.

Sam

It is hard to imagine what will happen next year. Right now I can only live in the moment of the current team and their quest to win a championship.

Despite the issues that we have seen this team has as good a chance to win the championship as any team.

If the Celtics can show a resurgence on the defensive end through the remaining games I think it will bode well for the upcoming playoffs. Some games the damn ball just is not going in the hoop but defense is a different sort of animal. Playing solid defense always keeps you in the game.

dboss

Sam,

I understand your loyalty to the Celtics but your optimism for the playoffs is off base. Yes, Boston can beat a Pacer team at home or they could beat a good if they are shooting the ball extremely well.
The playoffs are a long and hard grind. Boston can't get hot enough to make 12-15 3 pointers every game.

I can't see anyway how Boston doesn't get significantly worse over the next few years.
Rondo is the only player that has any trade value when you consider their salary. Being over the cap, they can only sign a Rasheed Wallace type player.