My thoughts on the state of the team.

["Noah Evans" <ishbak@conknet.com>]

Seeing the (unexpectedly) woeful Celtics this year, I can't help but wonder
if we're squandering our talent with Pitino's current gameplan. With
Battie's resurgance, shouldn't we be starting him? A lineup of

PG: Anderson
SG: Pierce
SF: Walker
PF: Battie
C:  Potapenko

wouldn't send any chills through the elite teams in the east but it would
certainly do better than our current --undersized-- lineup with Mercer at
SG. Anderson and Walker's lack of defensive prowess, coupled with the
current starters lack of size(i.e. leaping and effort, it's not how tall you
are, it's how tall you play, ask Barkeley) and shotblocking make it close to
impossible for us to stay competitive. Moving Walker to SF would allow
Walker to move out to the perimeter(which hides his lack of defense a bit
more-- not as many layups for the oakleys) and puts a shotblocker and
passable defender in the middle to go with our big body(the combination of
Battie and Potapenko would be like a poor man's Ratliff and Geiger). That
would make us at least passable at man to man defense --instead of
horrible-- and help the offense a bit as well.
	Putting Battie in the starting lineup would really help Walker out on
offense. Walker would get to muscle opposing SF's in the post instead of
better built PF's(remember how Walker destroyed weaker forwards(Garnett and
Camby for instance) last year?). Pierce would also benefit, getting to post
up shooting guards instead of small forwards.
	Putting Mercer on the bench would even help Mercer since his shooting
deficiencies would be less obvious in our pressing unit(he really does hurt
Antoine and Vitaly when he's in, other teams don't have to pay as much for
doubling down and harassing our post men), which is more transition
oriented(i.e. more easy dunks and layups for mercer) as well as making him a
bigger part of the offense when he's in(because he could have more of a
role(i.e. more teammates setting picks for his midrange jumper) in the
offensively impaired press team).

Thoughts?

Noah