Parquet Wishes and Leprechaun Dreams

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Hollinger's 2007-08 player rankings

John Hollinger has his player rankings for the upcoming season over at ESPN.Com (ESPN Insider needed for full access), and Celtics fans will be happy (indifferent?) to know that our three big names made the top 30:

9. Kevin Garnett - The long-expected Garnett trade finally came to pass, sending him to Boston in return for half of the Celtics' roster. It's possible the chance at contending could provide added ...

23. Paul Pierce - Pierce's PER isn't slated to change much, but the way he gets to it might change quite a bit. With the Celtics adding Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, there's less pressure on him ...

26. Ray Allen - Seattle traded Allen to the Celtics on draft day, putting him in a triumvirate with Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett that will give him his best chance at a deep playoff run since ...

The top five consists of Yao Ming (that surprised me), Dwyane Wade (we'll see how the offseason surgery affects his game), Lebron James (haven't seen his SNL [snltranscripts.jt.org] appearance yet), Kobe Bryant (will he sit out the season?), and Dirk Nowitzki (despite getting a lot of shit for the Mavs' first-round exit, I'm predicting a monster year out of the big German) ... As for the rest of our roster, you have to jump all the way out of the top 100 before landing on the next Celtic (Tony Allen at 104); as it's been said many times before, once you stop talking about the "Not the Big Three", the rest of our team has a lot to prove before anyone - outside of New England - starts seriously talking about championship contention.

Our remaining players break down like so:

109. Leon Powe
131. Eddie House
195. Rajon Rondo
259. Kendrick Perkins
273. James Posey
309. Dahntay Jones ...

And bringing up the rear, out of 328 players ranked in the league, coming up third to last (ahead of Yakhouba Diawara and Jason Collins) ... the indefinable Brian Scalabrine.

From Hollinger's description:

The fear in Boston is that the Celtics' offseason moves will require them to give Scalabrine more playing time.

Boy, you just got SERVED.

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