positional assessment

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

It looks to me like the Celtics are just not in condition. 
Pitino usually wins by having a better-conditioned and
better-prepared team than the opposition. The lockout has
really hurt the Celtics because, ordinarily, Pitino would have
been abusing league rules and forcing his players through
individual workouts all summer as well as a sadistic training
camp. As it is, he has a bunch of young, unprepared, out of
shape players. 

By position:

1) Anderson seems out of shape. Offensively, in my opinion, 
he is making decent decisions. I didn't see the Washington game
though. The problem is that he can't seem to sink that 10-foot
open jumper or the contested layup that the defense gives him. 
Last I checked he was 4th in the league in assist:turnover ratio.
He's generally impressed me with his passing in transition.

2) Mercer is taking it to the basket more, which I like. But he 
can't seem to finish consistently. Maybe he'll be able to finish
when his injury fully heals. Right now he's still very 
one-dimensional in the half-court set: shooting off the screen. 
It's a great looking shot but not particularly high percentage 
and it doesn't get his teammates involved at all.

3) Pierce is clearly the best player on this team so far. I love
how he's always anticipating where the ball's going to be.

4) Walker is being physically dominated by opposing power forwards
this year. I would speculate that this has to do with a lack of
strength training during the lockout, which Pitino is reportedly
furious about. He's just not able to keep the dominating PF's off
the offensive glass.

5) Ugh. Declercq seems the most effective, if you can call it that.
It's more like he makes the fewest lame mistakes.