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1 day ago

Avery Bradley Likely Done For Season

On the back of a horrific game six performance, Gary Washburn of the Globe piled on with more bad news: Avery Bradley is almost certainly done for the season. Washburn: A source close to Bradley told the Globe that it’s in the “high 90s” percentile that Bradley will be shut down and will perhaps need [...]

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3 days ago

Game 6 Will Be Wednesday Night at 8pm on ESPN

After the Thunder finished up their series by routinely dismantling the Lakers last night to send them packing in five games, a time has been announced for the C’s-Sixers Game 6 on Wednesday night. It will tipoff shortly after 8pm on ESPN. Looking ahead in the postseason, if the C’s do win Game 6, and [...]

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3 days ago

Highlight: Rondo Leads The Break

I love this decision-making from Rajon Rondo. While leading the break, you can see him eyeballing Ray Allen, who runs the wing and spots up on the arc. The Sixers have a 1-2 disadvantage but are mostly concerned about Allen’s three balls, which allows Mickael Pietrus to make an unmolested baseline cut behind the defense. [...]

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4 days ago

Celtics-Sixers Game 5 Tips off at 7pm

A note to all you local C’s fans out there that may be attending the game tonight at TD Garden. The game will start just after 7pm and will be broadcast nationally on TNT. However, unlike most TNT regular season games during the season, the tip will not come 15-20 minutes after the scheduled start [...]

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12 days ago

(Video) Rajon Rondo Continues To Dominate In Postgame Interview

Rajon Rondo is a tremendous player, but he tends to have a little bit of an issue scoring the ball late in games. I won’t go as far as saying he is scared, but he does pass up shots and defer to teammates in crunch-time….well a lot. Last night though may have been his coming [...]

3
12 days ago

Video: Full Kevin Garnett Reaction After Game 1

Garnett followed up his season-best effort against Atlanta in Game 6 with a new season-high in points and another sensational double-double, as well 60 percent shooting (12-of-20) from the field. Over his past two contests, Garnett is averaging 28.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, two steals and four blocks a game. After the game, KG was candid [...]

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I Want to Party Like It’s 2001

On the morning after A. Sherrod Blakely broke the news that Shaquille O’Neal signed with the Celtics, I was listening to 98.5 The Sports Hub morning show, Toucher and Rich, on my way to work.  While sifting through Fred Toucher’s endless complaints about taxes and government and Bret Favre and whatever else is sticking in his craw at that moment, I caught an interesting rhetorical question: Can you imagine if this was 2001?

If you’re a “what if” guy and a Celtics fan like I am, then you love this question.  What if this were 2001 and the same cast of characters were on this Celtics squad.  Fred Toucher posed this question to no one in particular so I pretended it was posed to me and decided to find out what this Celtics team would look like if the year was 2001.

I initially wanted to use the same extrapolative math John Hollinger used to estimate how many games this new-look Miami Heat team would win this season but unfortunately he didn’t explicitly state how he arrived at his conclusions.  I am not a math guy- hell, I’m not even a stats guy- so I decided to simply look at every one’s player efficiency ratings and draw meaningless, and probably merit-less, conclusions.

Behold, your 2001 Boston Celtics:

Ray Allen         22.9
Kevin Garnett         23.9
Paul Pierce         22.3
Rasheed Wallace     20.9
Shaquille O’Neal     30.2
Jermaine O’Neal     17.5

That right there is a diesel team.  You will also notice some glaring omissions.  No Rajon Rondo, no Marquis Daniels, no Nate Robinson, no Glen Davis…the list goes on.  These guys, of course, were not in the league in 2001 (and in Rondo’s case, not old enough to drive).  I thought about replacing these with veteran minimum type guys but I decided it wouldn’t really affect the end-game.

So what is the end-game?  To compare this team to other current teams that would have been great in 2001.  Here are just a few teams I researched:

2001 Los Angeles Lakers


Kobe Bryant         24.5
Paul Gasol         19.5
Lamar Odom         18.9
Ron Artest         13.6
Derek Fisher        14.0
Theo Ratliff         16.3

2001 San Antonio Spurs


Tim Duncan        23.8
Tony Parker        11.7
Antonio McDyess    22.0
Richard Jefferson    13.4

2001 Dallas Mavericks


Dirk Nowitzki        22.8
Jason Terry        17.3
Tyson Chandler    13.0
Jason Kidd        19.4
Shawn Marion        21.0
Brendan Haywood    13.7
Tim Thomas        16.4

The Celtics are far and away the best team (as in, have the best PER) but the Dallas Mavericks are not that far behind and have more options.

Some more food for thought: Tracy McGrady and Michael Finley will likely be added to a roster this season.  What were their additions mean to the 2001 teams?

Michael Finley 18.2
Tracy McGrady 24.9

The answer is “a lot”.

Have I missed any other team?

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