Celtics team

As I watch todays game of basketball, I wonder why we pay tons of money to watch a group of guys who can't shoot, can't run, and definitly can't play tough. Todays players in general don't seem to have the passion or the focus to play the game correctly. These guys have enough trouble scoring from the foul line let alone, god forbid take a bank shot. All these guys want to do is slam it through the rim or flail away from the three point line. Whatever happened to putting 100 points on the board and still play tough defense. I feel sorry for Paul Pierce because he may wind up being the Archie Manning of basketball. A fine career and nothing to show for it except a few personal records. Such a shame for a fantastic player. He never seems to have enough around him to help become a consistant winner. I wonder at times how committed is the current group owners to winning Championships. They trade players like Joe Johnson and Antoine Walker and receive what. When was the last time the currant owners drafted a real franchise player. I know this is a new day, but Celtic green is still all about pride and championships to lot of us. Time for change in a big way.

I lay most of the blame on Danny Ainge. When he arrived in Boston he completely tore up the team and sold us all on his 4 year plan, which now we see has been a failure. I think he drafts well for the most part, getting guys like Jefferson, Green and West, but he's made some huge mistakes like Blount which have put us in horrible shape with the salary cap. I have no faith in his ability to trade players as we saw tonight just how bad of an idea it was to trade Blount and Davis for Wally, and the Telfair trade has not worked out either. And he's never once signed an impact free-agent, probably because players see what kind of shape the C's are in and have no interest in coming here. Wyc and the ownership committee has shown that they'll pay the luxury tax for players they think are worth it (LaFrentz, Blount) so I can't put much blame on them.

But getting rid of guys like Joe Johnson, Chauncy Billups and Antoine Walker ended up being huge mistakes. Danny's obviously decided to build through the draft but he's also going to have to bring in a top tier veteran to play alongside Pierce and with this draft coming up the C's could potentially draft another franchise player (Durant, Oden) which would put them into better shape for the future.

As far as playing tough...well some of the blame for our soft play needs to be placed on Doc, hell, he is their coach. And as much as the Celtics want to run and play up-tempo they just don't have the players to do it consistently. As long as Delonte is playing at the point the C's are gonna be forced to play halfcourt.

Im still not sold on Ainge's plan, but with a chance for a lottery pick in such a deep draft Im at least hopeful for the future, and maybe Danny can make a move for Gasol, KG or JO in the offseason.

The league has definitely changed since the glory days of the Boston Celtics. Like you said there aren't a lot of guys around that are willing to play hard nosed defense. When Bruce Bowen is considered one of the better defenders in the league, you know there isn't a lot of good defense being played. He would have been a run of the mill defender back in the day, but these days he's a commodity.

I'm not even an old school ball fan either. I grew up on some of the old school days, but most of my bball watching has been this new wave, but I can still see the difference.

Artest, Wallace and maybe D-wayde are the only 3 guys I can think of that are above average defenders. Seems like players now can either play decent defense or they cant play any defense, not too many great defenders around, although it looked like Tony Allen was on his way before he went down.

Whoa whoa whoa, Artest and Wallace are one thing, but D-Whistle? I wouldn't say he is anything special in the defensive category and surely not in the same league as Artest and Wallace. Kobe is a much better defender than D-Wade, as well as other guards in the league.

Raja Bell has the physical/dirty play of some of the old schoolers, just without the defensive capability. If refs stopped giving him so much slack he'd foul out of every game he's in, but at least he has some attitude, mind you I HATE him.

Raja Bell
Tayshaun Prince
Bruce Bowen
Gerald Wallace
Trevor Ariza
Trenton Hassell
Shane Battier
Caron Butler
Antonio Daniels
Ruben Patterson
...

It's tough to find good defenders, but they're out there...

^ I might put Marcus Banks on that list too.

I know he's injured right now, but I'd add Tony Allen.

Caron Butler?

I guess I need to catch some more Wizards games, never knew he was a great defender.

Butler has turned into a pretty good player, surprised the hell outta me, never really thought he was a great defender, but I dont watch the wizards too much.