Blog

Two quick observations:  1) Megan Fox is smokin’ hot, and 2) when you take a peek under the hood, you learn that our Boston Celtics have been reconfigured in hopes of making another championship run.

Now that that’s off my chest, I hope everyone is cool with the way Danny Ainge reshaped the roster during the offseason.  You couldn’t ask for much more, all things considered.  Yeah, we lost Ray.  Can’t win ‘em all.  But really, I think we’re going to be better off without Jesus Shuttlesworth and his penchant for OCD behavior permeating the locker room.  Enter the fun-loving Jason Terry, a man who is more than willing to play the part of super sub.  Give me Terry any day of the week – the man has been all about the Celtics since signing, and he even has the ink on his arm to prove it.  And just in case you’re not all the way up on the roster changes, let’s take a quick look under the hood:

Key additions: Kevin Garnett (re-sign), Jason Terry (FA), Jeff Green (re-sign), Brandon Bass (re-sign), Courtney Lee (sign-and-trade), Jared Sullinger (draft), Fab Melo (draft), Chris Wilcox (re-sign), Keyon Dooling (re-sign), Kris Joseph (draft), Jason Collins (free agent)

Key subtractions: Ray Allen, Greg Stiemsma, JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore, Ryan Hollins, Sean Williams

When you trace the genesis of Ainge’s offseason reconstruction, it all begins and ends with KG.  It was Garnett’s stellar showing in the playoffs that convinced Ainge to fine tune the roster for another run, rather than take a wrecking ball to it and start from scratch.  Of course, Ainge had to first wait for KG to announce his intentions – and thankfully, the Big Ticket decided that there was still unfinished biz on the basketball court.

Once that hurdle had been cleared, the focus shifted to Allen.  And with Ray dragging his heels and feeling dissed, Danny wasted little time locking in on Terry.  Adding Terry may prove to be far more than Plan B; he’s a clutch player with a winning pedigree, but more than that, he’s the antithesis of Allen.  He’s friendly, approachable, anything but stodgy and uptight.  He’s going to loosen up that locker room, make basketball fun again, and give the team a certain level of swagger that’s been missing for a while now.

But pump the brakes and back up the truck; the draft produced what looks to be a gem in Sullinger, and possibly a diamond in the rough in Melo.  And who knows, Kris Joseph may eventually prove himself to be the steal of the draft.

Okay, back to the future – it looked like Bass was as good as gone, but the Celtics culture convinced him that Boston was the place to continue his career.  Chris Wilcox re-ups on the cheap, Ray flees for Miami, Courtney Lee arrives via a created sign-and-trade (jettisoning a host of assets, including Moore and Johnson), and Jason Collins is signed to help provide muscle in the middle.  Who would have thought that Stiemsma would play as well as he did, increase his value on the open market, and then signed with the Timberwolves?  Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.  Would have been nice to keep him in the fold, but I’m telling you now, Collins is going to help this team…and help it a lot.

I feel for Mickael Pietrus; he wants to remain in Boston but it just didn’t work out.  I’m happy for Keyon Dooling, because he is a solid bench player who is going to help us again this season.

The whole Jeff Green situation seemed to hang in the air longer than an uncontested Air Jordan trip to the hoop, circa 1984.  But thankfully, Green will be in green and will make mad green while doing it.  There are some that think we overpaid for his services.  I’m not one of them.  The man is a Swiss Army Knife baller.  He can do a little bit of everything, namely taking some of the regular season burden off Paul Pierce’s back.

So, what to make of the changes?  It’s all good, baby.  No, we didn’t land Dwight Howard, but Ainge got the most out of what he had to work with.  And when you look at the rebuilt engine that will drive this edition of our Boston Celtics, you can rest assured that there is more horsepower under the hood than there was last season.

In fact, it may be just enough to drive this team all the way to Banner 18.