The same incompetence hurt the Celtics, yes. Over reliance on Marcus Smart due to defense despite absolutely no offense and hilariously short rotations doomed the Celtics.... they them dumped Udoka and Smart and won it all.
Throw a tantrum if you like but if you refuse to call people who are garbage, "garbage" for some arbitrary silly ass reason, it just means you're a coward..... and when I see them, I point them out.
Both teams had an 8-man rotation in that series, per ChatGPT. It's simply that GS was the better team. Try again. Again, context matters. They didn't "dump" Udoka for lack of performance. Ignoring that fact is dishonest discourse.
Context matters, leaning on Steph Curry is different than leaning on Marcus Smart. While it wasn't for performance, if the Celtics don't dump Udoka, they don't win a championship.
Thread title is incredibly disrespectful. These are proven vets who are great in the locker room and it would a coup for us if we can bring them back on vet min deals. The Stay Ready Crew continues to stay ready.
Horrible news! The LAST thing you want to do on a team with the 3rd best record in the league is maintain any sense of continuity! Better to dump half the roster and bring in replacements who don’t know the locker room and the system, pray that they don’t upset the chemistry, and hope for the best. ESPECIALLY with players 10-15 on the roster, because they play so many minutes every night! Makes perfect sense!
Green: Valuable and versatile vet that can still contribute 15-20 mins on a given night. Championship experience and his bench mentoring/coaching shouldn't be underestimated. Tate: With Brooks gone, he gives Ime some of that vet toughness and defensive flexibility that he likes to use in certain situations. His ball-handling and improved shooting are a bonus. Holiday: Solid 3pt shooter who tries on defense. Probably the one of these three I thought we could upgrade because he offers nothing as a playmaker. Again, at vet minimum, coaching staff is comfortable with him and he's steady. Can't criticize Stone and Ime for keeping these guys for continuity. We'll still likely bring in a vet in the $10M-$14M range and that maybe why we're hearing the Cam rumors. Personally, I'd love to give Cam one more year, but Stone and Ime have better knowledge of the situation and his value than we do.
Great, these guys are valuable. Especially for their position off the bench. Guys like this can contribute or get hot and steal wins, as well as provide depth to hold things down/keep playoff seeding for injury insurance, you need that in an 82 game season. I appreciate that honestly.
All three guys are fringe rotation players in terms of their abilities--they're legitimate NBA talents, just not full-time rotation players (anymore, in the case of Unc). They will get playing time when inevitably some of the main group miss some games, and they'll play just fine.
Calling 3 guys who have been solid team players, good locker room guys, and nice deep bench depth coming all back for likely minimums "garbage" is absolutely pathetic. This is solid news and we really had to have the thread for it titled like this? I'm reminded why I don't post here much, even Reddit isn't this negative
... They aren't garbage for 12-15? If Tate or Holiday were any better they would not accept an undefined role with no guarantee of minutes. If Jeff were a few years younger he'd be demanding 15-20 mpg... like he was ... on a championship team. Lets look at the 12-15 players for the final 4 playoff teams (some teams only had 14 players) Tony Bradley Johnny Furphy James Johnson Ajay Mitchell Dillon Jones Ousmane Dieng Pacome Dadiet Tyler Kolek Ariel Hukporti P.J. Tucker Jaylen Clark Josh Minot Luka Garza Leonard Miller These guys are in no objective way a tier above Holiday/Tate/Jeff/Dante
Keeping these guys and moving on from Cam tells us what we value. Tate, Holiday, and Green know their role, and they're willing to fill it. Cam has visions of grandeur but no will to do the work (or at least that's what it looks like to me as an outsider).
As I said in my initial post here, the issue isn't any of those players, the issue is that Ime is dumb enough to put them in rotation over better players. If I had any faith in Ime's player management abilities at all, these guys would all be quality depth at the end of the bench.
