The Boston Celtics are getting the band back together. The band that made it all the way to Game 7 of the NBA finals. Good band.
Next year, the band may not be good enough -- there is an arms race in the East. And Paul Pierce knows it (as reported at ESPNBoston).
“I thought it was a great move picking up Jermaine [O’Neal], giving us an inside presence in case Rasheed [Wallace] retires, but sometimes I’m looking at all the players signing and wish we would get on the ball a little bit,” Pierce said. “I trust in Danny [Ainge] to put a good team around us, but I’m sitting here watching all these good players fall to other teams.”
Tony Allen is gone, and Boston is going to miss him. They needed his defense and athleticism off the bench. How much was he on Kobe at the end of last year? Pierce realizes it.
“We got a lot [to add] right now,” said Pierce. “We lost TA, we don’t have Nate [Robinson], we might not have Rasheed. We gotta add a bench. We got our work cut out. We need perimeter defense and we need to add a backup point guard to help out [Rajon] Rondo, if Nate doesn’t come back. And we need another big.”
They did get Nate Robinson as the backup for Rondo, but the point remains valid:
Boston is pretty much the same team it was last year, one year older. Is that good enough now?