Cue The Rumor Mill
With every NBA off season comes rumors about your favorite team acquiring a big name player who can fill a necessary void in their roster. Last year Celtics fans were taken for a ride during the Summer of Kevin Love when the all-star forward was seen hanging out with Rajon Rondo at a Sox game and made some positive comments about the city following his visit. Of course nothing ever came to fruition and he ended up joining forces with LeBron in Cleveland.
This year so far we’ve had a Lamarcus Aldridge sighting at Logan Airport, rumors of Demarcus Cousins, Kevin Love (again), Robin Lopez, and even a possible return for Paul Pierce. Most recently there have been reports that the Celtics and the Pistons are the leading candidates to land Tobias Harris, one of the more promising young free agents this offseason.
The thing about rumors is that they’re almost never true. They’re just hypothetical scenarios that are thought up by people in the media who have absolutely no affiliation with the front office of any team. But they are fun to talk about and sometimes they do have some substance to them.
In the case of the Celtics, I’m approaching this off season with a “I’ll believe it when I see it” mentality. Perhaps our confidence in Danny Ainge’s ability to land a big name, franchise-changing free agent and pull the team out of the gutter was a little skewed after the miracle summer of 2007, but Celtics fans really bought into the Kevin Love hype last year. To avoid disappointment, I’m taking everything I hear with a grain of salt.
What’s clear is that we need size. Anyone with a brain who watched the Celtics last year should know this. Right now we have some undersized power forwards and a seven footer who plays like a guard, can’t rebound, and gets his shot blocked by guys half his size (don’t get me wrong, I’m an Olynyk fan, but he still has plenty of holes in his game). Our best rim protector is currently Tyler Zeller. With all do respect to TZ, that needs to change. Now I know Danny watched the Celtics last season and I’m almost positive he has a brain so we can only hope that he’ll do the right thing this summer. Of course the draft was extremely disappointing and the only logical explanation is that he’s confident that he can get a major deal done before the season to bring in a post presence.
If not then I guess our plan is to load up on defensive guards (Bradley, Smart, Pressey, Rozier) and full court press our way to the playoffs. Bold strategy, we’ll see if it pays off.