What the Doc Orders

They day after the draft, Doc Rivers spoke about the free agents on the Celtics and wanting them all back.

“We would like to bring our whole team back. Pose we love. With P.J. we just don’t know. I talked to him right after the season, and he just didn’t know. But I told him that he had to go home and think about it. I would like to have P.J. back – our goal is to bring everyone back – but he’s going to need some time.”

I think Celtics Nation would agree with Doc on both of these guys. Posey is a player we must try our hardest to re-sign (although with Giddens and Walker around, maybe it isn’t as necessary to break the bank) as he brought so much to this team. PJ Brown was a perfect pick up by Danny. Allowing him to sit out the entire regualr season until there was 20 games left. This allowed PJ to be fresh and back into the flow of things when the playoffs started.

Doc Rivers also would like to see the dreaded Sam Cassell come back to this team.

“Sam just didn’t have long enough (to learn the system), but we want him back, too,”

Sam’s job was to come in and give us a reliable ball handler, veteran leadership at the point guard position and some clutch buckets down the stretch. Looking back at it, he may have been a liability at times when it came to his ball handling and he definitely wasn’t a point guard for this team by any stretch of the imagination. To say he didn’t have enough time to learn the system is a respectable thought, but when you decide every time you step on the court that you are running your own system, something is wrong there. Eddie House was our backup point guard the entire season until Cassell got here and we played great basketball. When House replaced Cassell as the backup point in the playoffs, he played great, so I see Sam I Am as one free agent we can do without.

Tony Allen has been a roller coaster since his knee injury. Before it, he was playing great basketball in place of Paul Pierce. After returning from that gruesome knee injury, he hasn’t been the same. He definitely doesn’t have the same explosion as he used to and has lost a lot of confidence in his game. By season’s end, I made the decision that I would love to have Tony back. After the draft, now I’m not so sure if TA has a spot on this roster.

Of course Doc would want everyone back from his championship team, but who wouldn’t? After winning a title, free agents always seem to leave to get their money. Posey has played for peanuts compared to what he’s worth, so you can’t blame him for trying to get his money. If Tony Allen can get a significant pay increase on the market, he has to go take it as he is one knee injury away from being out of the league.

Ultimately, I’m hoping we can bring back James Posey and Eddie House, let Tony  Allen, Sam Cassell and Scot Pollard walk and assume PJ Brown will retire. That would allow us to give Gabe Pruitt some minutes as the third point guard and our one concern would be to find a veteran, backup center to play the PJ Brown role later in the season.