Your Morning Dump… Where the Celtics have come down with ‘positional congestion’

Alan Draper

Sports Editor

July 27 2017 4 min read

Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big story line. Because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

Depth is great, but too many players vying for minutes at the same position is typically a sign of a bad NBA roster.

If you have a surplus of good wings who all deserve to play, you don’t have one player who clearly owns the position. Less is more in that scenario.

Here, let’s delve into several crowded positions the draft and free agency failed to sort out.
[…]
The Boston Celtics’ positional congestion arises out of too many enticing options rather than several mostly unworthy or imperfect candidates duking it out.

Isaiah Thomas will undoubtedly start at the point, but beyond that, head coach Brad Stevens can get wild with lineups.

Prediction: Smart, Hayward and Crowder start with Thomas and Horford. Brown sees minutes at three positions, and Morris closes more than a few games at the 4.

Bleacher Report — Position logjams NBA teams need to solve

This writer at Bleacher Report prefaces a list of five teams with positional logjams by saying that too many solid players staking claim to playing time is a bad thing. He then goes on to laud the Celtics for their positional versatility.

C’mon, dude, can’t have it both ways. This would be like posting an instagram video with an opening dialogue about the merits of healthy eating only to stop halfway through your list of your top ten favorite vegetables and eat an entire Entenmann’s Raspberry Danish (such. a. good. pastry).

Anyways, I’m with this guy, the Celtics glut of players on the wing is actually an enviable position for clubs around the league. I don’t think I agree with his predicted starting five, though.

Marcus Smart isn’t starting. They need his steadying presence as a floor general off the bench. I’ll go with: Thomas, Hayward, Crowder, Morris and Horford– perhaps put Baynes in for Morris and move Horford to the 4.

I would expound upon this more, but 7-11 is still open and I’m craving baked goods all of a sudden…

On page 2, who let these guys into the locker room?!?

https://twitter.com/Isaiah_Thomas/status/890276493833654272

This is cool and all, but let’s remember what happened to Tom Brady’s jersey…. These are strange and dangerous times and these Roma dudes look a liiiittle too comfortable in the locker room. These guys could be snatching up so much Celtics apparel– opening night is going to come around and during a timeout in the third quarter, Eddie Paladino is going to flip on his mic and scream, “HERE’S THE CELTICS GREEN TEAM, FANS, AND ALL THEY WANT TO KNOW IS… WHO WANTS A….wait, what’s that? we’re out…. Fu*king AC Roma.”

And finally, I thought this was pretty cool

Cleaning out my childhood room over the weekend and stumbled upon a folder of camp letters to home that my mom saved. I went to an overnight camp when I was 11 that let us sign up to watch big sporting events like the NBA Draft. When I say I was with Paul Pierce from Day One, here’s your proof. Other highlights of this postcard:

Probably reached peak penmanship here. If you can imagine, it’s only gotten worse
The 97-98 Celtics were 36-46 and not good, yet I was irrationally excited for the 98-99 outfit, which then went 19-31 in a strike-shortened season. Yet, I was going to war with that starting five and I felt great about it.
I forgot about Jose Cruz Jr
Zan Tabak came over in a trade in the winter of ’98, played 18 games, averaged 3 and 3, and I was optimistic he could start in ’99. He did… in Turkey.

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