We passed along the report, earlier in the day that Tony Allen was headed south and now multiple outlets are reporting that this is a done deal for 3 years at 10 million dollars. Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe brings us a quote from Memphis GM Chris Wallace confirming the news:
“All I am at liberty to say is that we have come to terms with Tony Allen,” Memphis general manager Chris Wallace said, “And expect to sign a contract soon.”
Without TA, it’s time for Danny to get creative in how he wants to fill a competitive bench here, especially at the wing position where Doc Rivers would love to keep the onus off of Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to carry the load during the regular season. I expect some wheeling and dealing from Ainge to fill those gaps, but for now it’s tough to say goodbye to the guy most of us were trying to push out the door this time last year.
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sorry to hear….but TA is replaceable. he is a great 1on1 defender but thats it. and he has reached his ceiling. he doesn’t have the bball IQ to develop further.
danny must have something cooking….his not matching can not be only about cash. and hoping bradley will get some extra PT to develop.
and thanks and congrats to tony.. he played his butt off in the playoffs and deserves every penny.
Avery Bradley is their guy. He had ankle surgery, but is gonna be ready by training camp. Knowing Danny, it might just leave TA and get nobody else. Avery Bradley shows great potential
.. what happened to the “Bird rights”, or did Danny agree to part with TA?
i loved tony and i hope this is the best contract he gets…tough to find another guy who could cover kobe 1 v 1.
Ainge was slow playing Tony thinking he always had him in his back pocket. Tony got tired of waiting.
Bird Rights are when you can sign your own player even if going over the cap. Danny did not want to go over the cap and commit three years instead of two my sources said
G,
Bird Rights just means they can pay him more. It doesn’t mean they can match the salary or anything.
I think Ainge is looking to have the least amount of players possible on the roster come 2012 when Garnett comes off the books which is why Ray and JO signed 2 year deals with, as of now, only Paul and Rondo being under contract come 2012 and Bradley with a team option. He’s going all in these next 2 years then building this team around Rondo in 2012. It’d be interesting to see what he does with Perk and Baby next off season but looks like he’s only looking to hand out 2 year deals right now.
That’s what i’ve been saying……Avery Bradley is likely to replace TA.He’s a great kid and he can definitely contribute off the bench next season.Bradley can ball folks and he might surprise some of y’all on the defensive end.
Now let’s go get Raja Bell or Brewer.
We’ll stil need a backup for PP.
So if memphis is signing TA why dont we work out a sign and trade for brewer since TA is clearly replacing him.
Yup now we need 2 wings instead of one. Looks like our only returning bench guy (assuming Nate gets offered some money, and I think he will) will by Baby
Raja Bell is a quality player but there is nothing to be surfacing with the Celtics and Bell. Bell looks like either to be joining the Mavericks, Magic or Heat according to Yahoo.
I’ll say it again and again until he signed to an NBA contract. Josh Childress.
Experienced enough to play in the NBA and young enough to stay with the team past 2 years.
And for all his warts, I’m going to miss Tony. He really would help on the defensive side against the Heat.
The only guy I would want as our defensive specialist off the bench is Ronnie Brewer. Although TA is still a lot better than him.
Oh yeah, if we do a sign and trade with Atlanta to give them Nate, and we get Childress, it’d be an upgrade over TA. He’s great on D, and good on offense.
Danny has gotten high marks to now. I hope he knows what he’s doing regarding T Allen. Are there that many great defenders out there? What’s Mr. Ainge up to?
Childress would be great and I like Brewer as well. Has anybody heard anything on Richard Jefferson? Do you guys think he’d be willing to take the vet minimum to play for a contender???
what about shannon brown is he on the market?
I also wouldn’t mind Matt Barnes or Josh Howard for a couple of years.
childress would have to be acquired vis s&t and he’s going to command 4 year deal, not sure if danny wants to cut into the 2012 cap, even though they probably won’t be able to sign free agents that year anyways
i like damien wilkins, he’s a plus defender on a good team(when he was playing for seattle) he’ll be cheap, and he’s taller than TA.
POWE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bad news suns about to acquire barbosa for turkoglu and acquiring childress with sign and trade i don’t really care about barbosa but i really wanted childress
Childress to the Suns
this has made us weaker vs. the Heat
I wouldn’t say it specifically makes us weaker vs the Heat. It makes us weaker as a team, UNLESS we can nab a good replacement.
I think we can’t focus on beating one specific team. Remember, Cavs and Orlando geared up to face each other again, and didn’t expect to get mauled by us. Yet neither of them got a chance to face off against each other in the playoffs. Not saying it will happen, but it’s possible that we won’t meet the heat in the playoffs, and still go to the finals. Although, I’d bet that we do meet.
Childress and Barbosa off the board. I like Damien Wilkins and think he could be an upgrade over TA actually, though I wonder if he won’t go home to play for the Hawks.
@ kyle Shannon Brown is a great athlete but he opted out of the Lakers to chase money and PT neither of which we are offering and his Bball IQ leaves something to be desired. He left Ray to roam on defense at least 2 times during the record setting Game 2 performance. He left Ray wide open when he was on fire not so smart.
bring ronnie brewer in!
Ainge falling a sleep at the wheel here? Childress to the suns for a second rounder? WTF? Childress was the perfect wing for us off the bench. Now the market is getting thinner and thinner and teams still have money. NOT HAPPY AINGE!
To those who say we could not have signed him for 34 mil your wrong. We could have had the hawks sign him and then send him to boston for a second rounder and then send sheeds contract.
Only thing i can think of is that the hawks did not want to make another eastern conference team stronger. Same thing with beasley to minny. If we were in the western conference we could have had beasley and childress for 2 second rounders. Crazy free agency. Darko gets a huge contract and quality players get sent packing for nothing.
Barbosa is also in that deal so he’s off the market.
Ainge needs to wake up!
I think that giving up TA was a terrible mistake. Similar to Posey, Danny just refused to give up an extra year, which in TA’s case is inexplicable as TA is not that old. TA has become an elite lock-down defender on a team that thrives on defense. I can’t think of anyone else in the league that has done such a good job defending against superstars like Lebron or Kobe. And there isn’t anyone that we can get that is as good a defender for the same price.
But there’s more. Over the past few weeks, I have tortured myself by going over the Lakers series, trying to figure out exactly why our rebounding was so inconsistent. I remembered Doc commenting earlier in the season that he thought that the reason why the Celtics were having troubles rebounding was because the perimeter defense was not doing its job and that KG and Perk were getting pulled out of position. As we all have seen, a major feature of the C’s defense is KG stepping out to stop penetration and another player rotating in to cut off the passing lane. This has been terrific for stopping penetration and has generated a lot of turnovers, but it does have a major weakness — with KG pulled away from the basket, and the rotator forced to step into the passing lane and front KG’s man, it’s a terrible arrangement for controlling the boards. Neither KG nor the rotator has any possibility of blocking out. In the case of the Lakers, I am not sure if they were doing this deliberately, but they were very quick to shoot or one-pass-and-shoot when KG stepped out, leaving Perk to battle with both Bynum and Gasol. The Lakers appeared to shoot poorly, but they effectively were using their shots as passes to their bigs.
What does this have to do with TA? Well, as TA was our best one-on-one defender, presumably his presence would have meant fewer threats of penetration, which in turn would have reduced opposition offensive rebounds, even if TA himself was not getting any boards. So I sat down and compiled a bunch of rebounding stats for all of the Celtics’ playoffs (terrible excuse for not doing real work). It turns out that there is a significant negative correlation between TA’s playing time and the number of offensive boards on the opposing team. The more time TA plays, the fewer offensive boards we give up.
Not to mention that the Celtics were 6-0 in playoff games in which TA played at least 18 minutes (although admittedly, this last stat may be a reversal of cause and effect).
I think that Danny blew it big-time. We’ve all been worrying about the C’s rebounding, but maybe this has less to do with the bigs, and more to do with perimeter defense. And we just let our best perimeter-defender slip away.
Im beginning to worry the celtics are going at this half-arsed.
We got the band back together, but dont/wont have any quality back-up singers.
We needed at least TA or Childress (I would have preferred both).
@Josh A
It’s clear now that Danny refused BR on TA. However, I don’t see Doc putting that much trust in Bradley. We know he’s gun shy when it comes to rookies in rotations. Most of us are scratching our collective heads because the price tag was so small, and all the other core pieces were addressed. TA’s defense loomed even larger for us now when you consider the perimeter threats building in Chicago and Miami. I guess we’re in this thing to contend for a title otherwise why would Doc have come back?
@Buckets
Concur about incoming contracts not extending past 2012. TA’s dollar amount was small enough, but that and his durability may have been mitigating factors for Danny when it came to adding more luxury tax money.
everybody needs to calm down with the childress deal…the suns have his rights….he still has a deal in greece….doesn’t mean he’ll be on the floor for them…
…and now the rumor is Josh Howard
only a s/t would work or the Sheed contract
are the Wizards looking for a salary dump or Nate Robinson teaming up with J.Wall?
is Howard still on dope?
I’d take Josh Howard for a couple years at the minimum. Can’t be worse than Marquis can he?
@Perry
I don’t think a sign and trade or sheed’s contract is even necessary. I’m sure Howard is unrestricted because the Wizards declined they’re team option to pay him 11+ million.
they could reacquire james posey, 2 yrs left on his contract, NOH wanting to shed salary, could get a lottery protected 1st round pick to boot.
@Ray
I’m glad to see you’re doing something constructive with your time. I accept your rationale, and will expound on it. First, did you calculate how many times Perk and Kevin rebounded the ball with one hand? Don’t think they’re teaching that style in the summer league.
The Celtics seem to put a premium on guards getting back to rebound, but you can’t expect to control a game when your PF rebounds in single digits. What was KG’s number in game 7 — 3 rebounds?
Without looking it up, I would guess when Pierce averages 7+ boards a game the percentages are high in terms of wins, but those nights are few and far in between. So your point is well taken especially with the perimeter threats unfolding in the south east.
Used to be our defense was good enough to cheat a little to form a triangle, then rotate back in time to challenge the shot. Tony Allen played a big role in that department. After Posey left the perimeter defense never got back on track to where it was before. Tony Allen helped stabilize that area in the playoffs, so like you I don’t understand why Danny passed on his BR outside of TA missing a slew of games every season. But so what? They’re already over the cap, and it’s not like they won’t be paying a luxury tax this season anyway.
@Buckets
You’re right he is unrestricted and is coming off an injury. Don’t believe he played as a Wizard after being traded. Not sure if he would accept anything less than $8m over 2 years even though his reputation has taken a huge hit.
Howard did play 4 games for the Wiz averaging 14 pts. Over the past two years he’s played a total of 87 games. Every discernable stat is in decline.
Numbers are great from 10ft or less, about 40% over 16ft — shoots the 3 well. Not a bad rebounder, good wingspan.
Not sure if he would be ready to start the season, but for a fading veteran I would take him over Richard Jefferson, and he’ll come in a lot cheaper.
The only way I can imagine Ainge letting TA walk would be if he had something (or someone) else waiting in the wings to replace him. Danny’s too smart and too good at what he does to just let our best defensive stopper walk away.
All I know is this is GREAT NEWS! This guys basketball IQ was below the retarded level. Everytime he dribbled the ball it was bad news for the offense. His defense was good, but you take that and his offensive game and combine them and you have a really bad basketball player.
We need T-Mac, Rudy and Nate to round out our free agency signings.
We also need either Dwayne or Lebron to get hurt sometime before we play them in the playoffs. If not hurt, which I don’t want for anybody, than an injury that doesn’t make them 100%.
You wonder if Danny had this in mind all along, knowing that some teams may want TA with his D.
He claimed Gafney, who is pretty much the same kind of player. A defense first guy with good athleticism and MUCH more length than TA. Kind of like a poor man’s Childress/TA. He may have more offensive consistency than TA too, plus he runs the floor well.
Plus he wont take the kind of commitment in years and $ that TA wants.
The Celtics are a TEAM based defense, and though TA is an outstanding 1v1 defender, part of this comes from the C’s team defensive gameplan.
I don’t see Tony doing as well defensively after leaving. I love him on the defensive end but simply a body on offense.
Gafney and Bradley I think are the replacements for his role. Bradley can guard PG’s and SG’s, Gafney: SG’s and SF’s. And the 2 of them will likely cost what TA would on his own.
Time will tell but I think Danny is making the best long term decision for the team.
Thanks for the highlight reel dunks and Kobe stoppin D TONY!
Also it makes you wonder if Danny is thinking about Davis next year with the picking of Luke. Kind of fills the same role. Interesting picks to think about.
I definitely think Rudy is a great pick up if we can grab him. He’d help stretch the floor.
If we can’t resign Nate then we’ve gotta get back House. He can stretch the floor along with Rudy, and Luke has a decent jump shot too. Davis can still bang inside and allow Rondo room to go to the basket and finish or kick it out.
Might be an intriguing mix of players for that type of second unit.
Depth might be the key this year.