NBA Preview: Beantown

Fab Melo is too stupid to read that jersey.

Welcome back to the 2nd installment of our 30 part series: Better Know an NBA Team (apologies to Stephen Colbert).  Much like our previous installment, the Atlanta Hawks, we see a team that has changed greatly in the last year, yet still manages to just piss me off all the time: the Boston Celtics.

Yes, the one redeeming factor of the Celtics, former Sonic Ray Allen, has moved on, signing with the Heat to shoot threes and, presumably, go out to stud for his twilight years.  This would leave the Celtics with a gaping hole at shooting guard, if it weren't for the tremendous development of Washingtonian Avery Bradley and the signing of equally Washingtonian Jason Terry.  At this point, it's perfectly reasonable to assume the Celtics have some sort of conspiracy to sign all the Seattle-area shooting guards possible.  Brandon Roy, be careful.



Avery Bradley's overall stats don't look nearly good enough to justify letting Allen go, and Terry is getting old and is less a Jet and more a Hang-Glider, despite his continued production (37% 3PT FG, 15.1 PPG).  However, Bradley exploded, relatively, during the last bit of the season, averaging 15 PPG and a steal in April despite wearing an incredibly stupid half sleeve.  At point, Rajon Rondo continues to appear really good (11.7 APG, 1.8 SPG), despite not really being very good at easier skills (60% FT, 24% 3PT FG).  Even with his stupid skill set, Rondo is among the better point guards in the game, and he will be sure to tell you that.

Speaking of douche bags, Kevin Garnett is back after flirting with retirement.  One can only assume that Garnett realized yelling racial slurs at nursing home attendants didn't have quite the impact of doing so in the NBA, and so we will see another year of Garnett's solid post play (now at center!), made all the more annoying by his constant complaining and preening.  Seriously, the guy is just awful.  You know who else averaged 16 and 8?  Frank Brickowski.  Shut up about it, it's not that big a deal.

You may have noticed I have only focused on a few players for the Celtics.  Frankly, the team gets a lot less interesting after that.  Paul Pierce is here once again and will continue to be an above-average small forward, scoring and providing everything you would expect from a 36-year-old Luol Deng.  Rounding out the big man rotation are a handful of hilarious people, with Brandon Bass doing his best Big Baby impression and Jason Collins continuing to be in the NBA for whatever reason.  Finally, Fab Melo and Jeff Green remain on the roster, with Green presumably there to teach Melo how to read and write, Stand and Deliver style.

The Celtics will once again be a solid, middle-of-the-pack playoff team that gets vastly overrated by the media.  At this point, they aren't really built to be anywhere near good enough to beat the Heat, but expect everyone to say that they have the best chance to until somebody realizes that a team employing Jason Collins cannot, by NBA rules, be good at sports.