Bye James

Unfortunately, James Posey signed with the New Orleans Hornets. In my book, this is a huge blow to the Celtics. They lost a key contributor on offense and defense. Posey is the type of player that all coaches like. He is a hard-nosed defensive player, he always plays at full speed and he is able to hit the open shots. He is a gritty player who epitomized the Celtics team this year. Posey was directly responsible for the Celtics championship this year. He played great defense against the likes of Kobe and LeBron and he hit some of the most clutch threes that I have ever seen. I really like Posey. He seemed like the kind of player that Red would have loved. If my sources are correct, the main reason that he left was over another year on his contract. The Celtics weren't willing to give him a fourth and the Hornets were. If the Celtics think that Posey is going to break down and that is why they wouldn't add the fourth year, they are misinformed. Posey may be heading toward the twilight of his career, but he still has at least 5 years left in his body. He didn't play all that much early in his career and didn't start to peak until the championship year of the Heat. His career broke late while others broke early. On the flip side, this is great for the Hornets. It gives them someone to defend Kobe and Manu. It also gives them a quality bench player that can score and give a break to the starters. The Celtics will miss his contributions but they have positioned themselves to be able to make up for them.

The Celtics recently re-signed Eddie House and Tony Allen. They also added Bill Walker and J.R. Giddens in the draft. Walker and Giddens are both scorers. Giddens has the ability to be a slasher type, who can hit the jumper and take it inside if he wants. Walker is an undersized player who plays great down low. He can power through smaller defenders and out quick the bigger ones. The re-signing of House is awesome. He was one of my favorite players during the year. He is fearless; he will take shots and make a majority of them. He is a great compliment to Rajon. Rajon is the quick ball handler who is always going after the ball. Eddie is the scorer who has to be watched when on the floor. He also brings heart and intensity to the team. The re-signing of Allen was a good move in my book as well. He seemed a step slow last year, but it takes two years to recover from torn knee ligament injuries. Hopefully he can return to the form of before he blew out his knee. He is a slasher who needs to improve his shot and he is a competent defender albeit not as great as many think he is. All in all, the loss of Posey is big, but Danny Ainge has made moves to counteract the loss of him and get younger at the same time.