A great post by eja117 on Celtics Green. A look at what we have and how it stacks up against the rest of the league. I honestly believe that Perk is going to be a top 3 center. He has a work ethic that is second to none in the league. He practices hard (as evidenced by the fact that he dislocated his shoulder in practice) and he plays hard. He has advanced an amazing amount so far without much playing time. The key to how quickly he develops further will be how much playing time he gets this year. If Doc goes small like he has been saying he will and keeps Perk on the bench, I believe that will be a big mistake. We need the defense and rebounding in the middle to start the fast break and Perk is an excellent outlet passer. Al, if healthy, has a chance to develop into a top player as well. I expect both to make significant strides this year if given the playing time.

I've been thinking about Perk and how good he can become and what stands in his way. This is basically his senior year in college. So he'll basically peak 4 years from now. At that point he will pretty much stop getting better. He'll be 26 and will be set for about 5 years of being as good as he'll ever be. So by then the following guys should be gone or greatly diminished. Shaq Ilgauskas Rasheed Wallace Brand will be no spring chicken Zo Ben Wallace Duncan (exact same age as Wallace) McDyess Guys that will still be young Emeka D Howard Kaman Oden Durant TT Alridge Al J KG and Jermaine ON will only be like 32ish Amare Barganani Dirk Bosh Can Al J or Perk be as good as those guys? I think they have a shot at being better than some or equal to some, but not all. So then you have to consider our swing men. A lot of guys will be getting old by then but a lot of guys won't D Wade and Lebron are going to be around forever In addition there are many other youngins like Melo, Brandon Roy and Randy Foye. I think GG and maybe even TA can put up a fight against these guys but even if everthing we hope for comes true we can't possibly expect GG to be better than Lebron or D Wade. That leaves us with pgs. Can Rondo or Sebastian do it? I think we actually have a shot in heck at this. Chris Paul will dominate this field for a while Tony Parker is still young Jameer Nelson is good But Bibby, Nash, and Kidd are actually getting older. I have to wonder what will happen if we have say the 8th best player at every position and the 5th best 6th man and ok bench. Looking at who is at the bottom of the top (I'll use my fantasy rankings for this) here is what we'd have. Ilgauskas Elton Brand Ak 47 Jason Richardson Mike Bibby Those guys are ranked 7th at their positions. Look at the drop off to eight Eddy Curry Chris Webber Peja Richard Jefferson Kirk Heinrich That team would have been blown out of the water in the finals this year, maybe even by the Mavs. The heat this year according to Lindys had the #1 center, #1 pg (he's a sg now), and the #6 pf. The Mavs had the #3 PF, and #10 pg. What would be far more realistic and hopeful for us would be like the equivalent of the #6 center (Emeka) #11 or 12 pf (Zach Randolph, Donyell Marshall) #9 sf (Rashard Lewis), # 13 0r 14 sg (Joe Johnson, Eddie Jones) and #10 pg (Jason Terry) Then a Gomes and a Ricky Davis type coming off the bench. Would that team give us shot at the championshp? Absolutely not. Not even close. Our big hope is that we end up with something along the lines of #3 center (Ben Wallace), #7 pf (Elton Brand) #6 sf or sg (Vince Carter or Rip Hamilton) and #7 pg Bibby. We could just end this by bringing in KG. That is a ticket straight to the conference finals for years to come. Instead we probably missed our shot and McHale will hope Foye is the next Wade, and if he is he might just win a championship. We're in the position of maybe the Clippers now. Nice team. Will never win anthing. Or even worse, amybe Paul's Hornets. One great guard that will keep us from ever getting anything good in the draft so we'll be mediocre for a long time. Too good to get a top pick, too bad to win anything. If the team doesn't take serious strides this year it's time for someone in the front office to grow a sack and get this done already. [More] source: eja117 - Celtics Green Discuss this topic on the Celtics Green Forums!