Green 18? – Looking At The Potential 2009-10 Boston Celtics

With the signing of Rasheed Wallace expected to be made iron-clad official on Wednesday, it’s hard for us not to look ahead at what the 12-man roster could look like for the 2009-10 season. If you’re a Boston Celtics fan, you gotta like what could be playing at the Gahhhhhhhhhden this winter.

• Kevin Garnett
• Paul Pierce
• Ray Allen
• Rajon Rondo
• Kendrick Perkins
• Rasheed Wallace
• Grant Hill*
• Eddie House
• Brian Scalabrine
• Tony Allen
• Gabe Pruitt
• Bill Walker
• JR Giddens – NBDL
• Lester Hudson – NBDL

*Rumored

At first glance, that top 8 is veteran-laden and tantalizing in so many ways; a great mix of defensive intensity and scoring in the right places. The major issue of course is health and age, especially considering Garnett is coming off an knee injury and the majority of the players are in the second half of their careers. If the Hill signing doesn’t happen, the goal with that roster spot seems pretty obvious: a ball-moving scorer off the bench.

I personally would love to see Nuggets F/C and unrestricted free agent Chris “Birdman” Andersen on this club, but my assumption is that he may be looking for more money than the Celtics can offer. My understanding of the NBA salary cap is admittedly not great, so I could be completely wrong here.

An element of concern is still the bench that while vastly improved by Wallace (and possibly Hill), it still has question marks. Allen can be a baffling player to watch, showing flashes of greatness while other times displaying head-scratching decision making. Scals is, well, Scals and this is Pruitt’s last chance at showing he can be a legit NBA point guard.

And this all assumes that Rondo is still with the Celtics at the beginning of the season. C’s GM Danny Ainge didn’t handle that situation well at all, but we’ll cover that later this week. Sitting here in the first week of July with the season tip-off about four months away, there is reason to believe that an 18th championship is a realistic goal for the 2009-10 season.

Then again, championships aren’t won in the middle of summer.

Josh Nason is the publisher and main writer for Small White Ball, a New England-based sports and media blog – part of the MVN Network. You can reach Josh at josh [at] smallwhiteball [dot-com].

Why The New England Patriots Need to Make The DeAngelo Hall Signing Happen

The Boston Globe speculated today that based on their interest from last season, the New England Patriots might be interested in bringing on impending free agent cornerback DeAngelo Hall if Washington doesn’t sign him the Friday free agency deadline.

It may be a panic button move on my part, but all I can think is “God yes, please do it.”

As a whole, Pats fans are pretty confident in the team’s personnel decisions, forged by years of quality decisions by the Bill Belichick/Scott Pioli braintrust. But when defensive backfield presences like Asante Samuel, Eugene Wilson and Randall Gay up and left after the ’07 season, there didn’t seem to be a big push to replace them with anyone of name or high value – surprising for such an important position.

Combined with the rest of the club getting older in key positions, there had to be a point at which the levy broke and this past season, it did. The Globe mentioned that out of 32 teams, the Patriots ranked 26th in 3rd-down conversion percentage against and 31st in red zone defense. And I’d venture to say that if you asked fans what they thought the team’s main weakness was, they would say the secondary.

The signing of Hall would be a big step toward helping fix that problem.

Currently, Ellis Hobbs sits atop the depth chart at corner but the 25-year-old is entering his fifth season and has only nine career picks. Personally, I think of Hobbs for one of three things: celebrating after nearly every play, getting burned or being checked out by trainers on the field. He is not meant to be a No. 1 corner, but the 5’10” Hall is.

The 25-year-old Hall will begin his sixth pro season after four years with Atlanta and a split ’08 with Oakland and Washington. The former 1st-round pick has 22 career interceptions in 72 career games. He is also durable as he’s only played less than 15 games once (his rookie season). And like so many others, there are concerns about his attitude but let’s face it – he was in Atlanta and Oakland which weren’t exactly bastions for fostering goodwill toward fellow men.

But we’re talking about the New England Patriots, seemingly the halfway house for bad attitude players like Corey Dillon and Randy Moss to become team guys that simply play and perform. If Belichick was to give his approval on Hall, that’s fine by me. It seems every season that the Patriots add one impact player on defense (Adalius Thomas, Jerod Mayo), but they have taken a few seasons off from adding to the defensive backfield.

Here’s to hoping they don’t make that mistake again.

Josh Nason founded the New England and media centric sports blog Small White Ball in 2007. He can be reached at josh [at] smallwhiteball [dot-com].