Balls to the Wall

No one was very excited about our offseason moves last year. We lost James Posey and PJ Brown, and Sam Cassell returned in name only. On the other hand, no one was particularly down last offseason either. We had just finished dominating the NBA Finals, after completing a regular season in which we posted the third best record in franchise history. We could stand to drop a notch or two in quality, a betting man might have wagered, and still mount a serious run at back-to-backs. Indeed, the depleted and smaller Celtics started the 2008-09 season 27-2. Bot not much went right after that, and the season ended in injury and defeat.

The question then became where were the 2009-10 Celtics headed: another offseason on the cheap or an offseason that vaulted us back to the top the oddsmakers charts?

The early rumbling sounded promising. Danny Ainge said that his only concern was building a championship team for the upcoming season, while Wycliffe Grousbeck said he was willing to open his wallet and incur luxury tax to make it happen. Both Ainge and Wyc talked of a two-year championship window. Good, but we'd heard it before.

Only this time they meant it.

The offseason isn't over, but it's plain to the least trained eye that thoughts of transitioning to a post-KG era are over. All eggs are being placed into the next two years, balls to the wall, and pedal to the metal. I'm sure we'll hear detractors say "only if we'd done this last year" we could have resigned Posey and repeated. Of course, without KG we don't repeat. Even with KG and Pose we might not repeat.

But if we sign Pose last year, do we get Sheed this year? Not so sure. And if losing Pose meant getting Sheed, I'll take the tradeoff.