This is not as straight forward an answer as it seems.

Last year

Randolph 23.6 and 10.1
Curry 19.5 and 7.0
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Totals 43.1 and 17.0

Randolph is 26 and Curry is 25. Lots of room for continued improvement.

Garnett 22.4 and 12.8
Pierce 25.0 and 5.9
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Totals 47.4 and 18.7

Garnett is 31 and Pierce is 30. At the peak or past it.
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Net difference Garnett and Pierce were + 4.1 and 1.7.

A lot of people think that the Celtics will win the East and get to the Finals.

Is Ray Allen and a bunch of retreads and rookies better than J. Crawford, S. Marbury and Q. Richardson plus the Knicks bench?

I doubt it.

Is Rivers a better coach than Zeke, who may not be the best President of Basketball Operations in the league. (LOL) but he certainly has done okay as a coach. His career coaching record is 164 -164.

I just don't see how the Celtics can be considered a contender if they may not even be better than the Knicks this year?

Zach Randolph Statistics - Basketball-Reference.com

Eddy Curry Statistics - Basketball-Reference.com

Kevin Garnett Statistics - Basketball-Reference.com

Paul Pierce Statistics - Basketball-Reference.com

Isiah Thomas Coaching Record - Basketball-Reference.com

The issue for the Knicks may be co-existense of two bigs in the post and their commitment to defense. If they can find a way to share the ball on offense and commit to playing some D they should be contending for the playoff spot. Celtics players have no problem deferring, but they're used to be leading scorers on their respective teams, so it will be interesting to watch.

It is a good question. I think by the end of the year both the Celtics and Knicks will be on the bubble between making the playoffs (#7 or #8 seed) and heading for the lottery. Both teams will be under the media microscope, though. It should be entertaining, at the very least, to watch these teams when they endure some rough patches.

What do you base that statement on?

The Celtics added two superstars this off season.

The Knicks only added one.

It seems to me that it will be easier to integrate Randolph into the Knicks offense and defense then it will be to integrate KG and RA into the Celtics offense.

Then again the Celtics only have only 3 Fantasy league players (Would anyone take any of the other Celtics on their fantasy team except as a fill?), so maybe the three will get along and ignore the retreads and rookies.

I think it's dependent upon NY's injuries this year. As it stands, the Knicks have a higher average of talent 1 - 12, however, the Celts are top heavy in talent and that could keep BOS ahead of NY this season. I give BOS the edge due to their top 3's ability to play at a high level more consistently than NY's.

Since the Knicks play zero defense, are almost entirely made up of selfish chuckers, and have the collective maturity of a 2 year old, I'm going to go with a no.

The Knicks always look a lot better on paper than they really are. Whats changed besides Randolph?

It would be a stretch to compare Randolph with KG. Rapdolph is a bit of a head case and not a good defender, there was a reason why Portland traded him.

The Knicks finished 9 games ahead of the Celtics last year.

The Knicks added Randolph 23.6 and lost Francis. 11.3 PPG

for a net gain of 10.3 PPG

The Celtics added an aging KG 22.4 (who has never played under 38 MPG except in his rookie year) and and even more physically aging Ray Allen (multiple ankle operations) 26.4 PPG = 48.8 PPG

and lost Al Jefferson 16.0 PPG, Wally Szczerbiak 15.0 PPG, Delonte West 12.3 PPG, R. Gomes 12.1 PPG and G. Green 10.4 PPG = minus (65.8 PPG)

Or a net loss of 17.0 PPG

That has to be made up from rookies and retreads assuming that KG and RA can score as much as they did last year when they were the single go to guys are their teams. Not very likely.

It is my opinion that the Knicks will again finish ahead of the Celtics this year.

I registered just to tell you that I think you're wrong.

Curry only getting 7 rebounds a game is PITIFUL and he's an outlandishly inefficient player ( NBA Random Stat: Player Turnovers by type from 82games.com ) as well as a below average defender for his size. Randolph is BELOW below average on defense and could do better than a hair over 10 rebounds.

Well let's break down the roster.

Garnett >> Randolph

Pierce >>>> Curry

Allen >> Marbury (Marbury, I predict, will be awfuler than usual)

Posey = Q Rich, depends on the team.

Rondo = Crawford (in 2 years, Rondo will be sick, watch... maybe give the edge to Crawford now, but the Knicks system is not working for him like it should)

The rest of the Celtics bigs (Perkins, Powe, Davis, Pollard) > remaining Knicks bigs (Lee, Morris, err.. Balkman? If he counts, so does Scalabrine) Just by a little bit because I like David Lee as much as everyone else does. The Celtics bigs have more experience.

The rest of the Celtics Guards > The rest of the Knicks Guards
You know, I actually had a < there instead of a > until I looked at the Knicks roster again. NY is worse off than Boston, and Boston is a little shaky there. Not only are the Allens & Rondo better than Marbury/Crawford, the rest of the C's guards win out too. Unbelievable, you keep talking about "rookies and retreads" when the Knicks are far younger.



Doc was coach of the year once, and was simply mired in a bad situation last year. For him vs. Zeke , I would call it a wash. A wait and see.

Playing Curry and Randolph together would be like trying to park 2 submarines in a kiddie pool. A little bit more difficult than playing a shooting guard, small forward and a power forward all at the same time.


Fantasy Basketball =/= Basketball




Paul Pierce was injured and only played 47 games last year. Tony Allen played 33. Wally Szczerbiak played 32. Al Jefferson missed 13.
Even Kendrick Perkins missed 10 games, a player who will be crucial for the Celtics success this year. Gomes and West also sat for about 10 a piece.

Last years Celtics + Pierce for 25 more games = >10 more wins. Add in a healthy Wally, Allen and Jefferson, who knows. It's not worth speculating, but the Celtics were better than their record in 06-07.

I'm not going to deny that they had a good offseason (on the basketball side of things).

But the Celtics had a better one.
Losing Al was hard, but he's never going to be KG, probably never even going to be Elton Brand. He and Chris Bosh have a similar ceiling.
Losing Wally was a sigh of relief. You wanna talk about bad ankles? Ray Allen could play on one foot all year and that ankle would be in better shape than Wally playing on 2. He was good when he played (sort of), but just couldn't do stay healthy. That being said, he still would have helped if he played quite a few more games.
Gerald Green is a good talent, great dunker, but bad NBA player. Doc Rivers devoted entire time outs to rehashing the ins and outs of the game with Gerald. Gerald had good days and bad days on offense, and just about zero good games on D.
Ryan Gomes is solid, but the Celtics just don't need him now.
Same with West. Only, they could use Delonte now.
You forgot to mention trading Sebastian ""Telfair, which was maybe the best move of the offseason.

The Knicks have 5 rookies on their roster, the Celtics have FOUR, one of them being the 2nd round sleeper Big Baby Davis, a good, smart, nearly NBA ready player.

I don't even know what you're talking about with "retread," please point out a few of the retreads on the Celtics roster and define what makes them such.

I overlooked Jerome James, Kelvin Cato (but what's his situation anyway?) and Malik Rose. So the Knicks have more experienced bigs. I still believe this will make a somewhat small impact over all and the Celtics are still bound to be the superior team. Curry and Randolph are going to suck up the minutes in the post, and the other guys will play the roles of reserves (which are never bad to have, and the C's should have more).

If I were offered Curry AND Randolph, or just Garnett for the same price, I would have to think long and hard about it.