Being a Celtics fan this year feels a bit like the guy who has one foot in the ice bucket and the other foot in the fire and says ?on balance, I feel average.?

Coming out of training camp and through the first week or two of the season there was more pro-Celtics dynasty propaganda coming out of Boston than there was paranoid lunacy on the Glenn Beck show. Donny Marshall and the gang at Comcast Sports Net all but dismissed Cleveland and Orlando as viable threats to the Celtics cakewalk through the Eastern Conference. The only real question was how many games it would take to dispatch the Lakers en route to banner number 18.

Rasheed Wallace spoke about setting the all-time victories record for an NBA regular season. Doc Rivers and the players spoke openly about this being the greatest defensive team not just in NBA history, but maybe all of sports history. The only question remaining was whether this team would be better than the gold standard 1986 champions, perhaps the greatest NBA team of all-time. Odds are, they would be.

Heady stuff, to say the least. Sit back and enjoy a season for the ages!

The past two weeks have been a stunning wake-up call as the Cs have lost three times and have not looked good at all in victory or defeat. At times the team looks old and slow, it does not rebound well or battle for points in the paint. Already in November there is endless talk about how old and tired and worn down the team is. News flash: the season has five more months, plus the playoffs. If you are dragging now, you may well be comatose by April.

Yikes. This sure is a bummer. Celtics websites are rife with prospective major trades to right the ship. Is it time to start combing the draft websites like Celtics fans did endlessly from 2003 to 2007?

Put directly, what are we to make of the 2009-10 Celtics? It is almost banal to say that the truth lies between these two poles, but then the poles are so extreme it would be impossible to lie outside them. On the one hand, the Cs remain legitimate contenders. On the other hand, they are going to have to improve a great deal and be lucky to have any hope of winning flag number 18. The amount of improvement is more than a little daunting, and more than that required of other leading contenders. The Cs rank comfortably among the ten best teams in the league, but where they rank among those ten is not clear.

Much will be learned when the Celtics play seven road games in an eight game span during the first two weeks of December.

Nevertheless, there is one core problem facing the Cs that has crystallized, and it may prove insurmountable:

For all the talk about the Big Three, the foundation of the 2008 championship was Kevin Garnett. He gave the Cs a first-team all-NBA superstar in his prime. As long as KG remained in his prime, the Cs would be very serious contenders because of the balance of the Big Three. In the heady days of 2007 and 2008 we thought the KG era would last several years. Oh, the joys of youth.

If Kevin Garnett remained a top-5, first-team all-NBA player, like he was the past decade, this Celtics team would indeed be the odds-on choice to win the title. But KG isn?t close to that player. To some extent it is the knee injury that has reduced his effectiveness. But it is also age. Charles Barkley commented last year that ?at a certain point is a player?s career when he comes back from an injury, he doesn?t get healthy, he just gets older.? In some ways KG?s injury came after his game began to decline. KG?s rebounding and trips to the line both fell sharply by last season, and these are clear markers of a declining game. All the injury has done is accelerate and lock-in the process. The trips to the line and rebounds have continued to plummet in 2009.

This does not mean KG is some sort of bum. He is still 7 feet tall. He is still an extraordinary athlete. He is still a great defensive player. He is still a deadly jump shooter. He is a still a very good passer. He still has every possible intangible in the book. His basketball IQ is of Einstein dimensions. He is still, therefore, a likely All-Star and one of the 20 best players currently in the NBA. But he will not make any of the three all-NBA teams this season, nor should he. Unlike years past, KG won?t be getting many, or any, MVP votes.

And that?s the rub. In the past 55 years the best player on the NBA championship team was invariably one of the five best players in the game the vast majority of the time. Just consider that Bird, Magic, Moses Malone, Dr. J, Jordan, Olajuwon, Shaq, Duncan, KG and Kobe led 27 of the last 30 championship teams. They were all top five players at the times their teams won the titles, and in a majority of the cases were top three or even top one players. The last 30 NBA champions have had at least one first-team All-NBA player 25 times. (Two seasons the NBA champ had two first-team All-NBA players.) It has only had a second-team All-NBA player as its top guy twice and a third-team All-NBA player once. The two unaccounted for years: 1989 and 1990 with the Bad Boy Pistons.

Put another way: over the past 30 seasons, fully 25 NBA champions have had players finish in the top five of MVP voting. Another time a player finished 6th. Four times the champion had two players in the top five of MVP voting.

Before you say these are circular arguments, understand that voting for All-NBA teams and MVP is done after the regular season but before the playoffs.

The NBA does not reward teams that are balanced and have ensembles of equals, which is why the Atlanta Hawks almost certainly will not win the 2010 NBA title. The great teams are almost always built around stud superstars in their prime. That is not enough to guarantee a title; it is generally a necessary precondition.

KG is no longer a stud superstar in his prime. And that is the single most important barrier to the Cs winning a title.

It is not a coincidence that Orlando, Cleveland and the Lakers each are led by top five players. In fact, Dwight Howard, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant may be the three best players in the league.

KG?s decline, even forgetting the knee injury, has been a bit of a surprise. Superstars of his size, body type and talent tend to go deeper into their 30s before they drop from first-team all-NBA status. I anticipated a Robert Parish, Kareem-like primetime well into his mid 30s followed by a gentle decline. This is impossible to predict and it cannot be controlled by a player?s work ethic, Otherwise KG would have remained a first-team All-NBA player until he was pushing 40. I am willing to bet Danny thought he was getting more than one season of All-NBA play when he dealt for KG in 2007.

History suggests that KG?s decline may well prove catastrophic for the Cs? title chances.

The balance of the Big Three is aging, too, and there is good news and bad news.  The good news: Paul Pierce is still Paul Pierce. His game is pretty much at the same level it has been most of his career. But Paul was never good enough to be the best player on a championship team; he was and is ideally suited to being a number two guy, like he was in 2008. If Paul remains healthy, he is going to do his part.

An attractive aspect of the Big Three when the team was assembled in 2007 was that the Celtics? third best player, Ray Allen, would be better than just about any other team?s third best player. This is the bad news: Ray Allen has slid further from his prime than KG over the past three years. For much of his career he was one of the three or four best shooting guards in the league who was almost unstoppable offensively with a complete game. Ray Allen is now an above average starting 2-guard, but no longer an All-Star. And he is nowhere near a ?max-contract? talent. His next deal will be much closer to the MLE.

Again, this is a surprise. With his work ethic, his commitment to fitness and his general intelligence and professionalism, Ray always seems like the sort of tall shooter whose game would remain top-shelf into his mid-30s. Not so.

The most disconcerting aspect of Allen?s decline is his propensity to put his entire offensive game in the deep-freezer for long stretches in the playoffs. His month-long snooze almost drove the Cs from the playoffs in 2008 against Atlanta and then Cleveland. In 2009 his collapse against Orlando was little discussed, but devastating to the Cs chances. By all rights we should expect a similar dry stretch in 2010. Will the Cs have a Plan B?

Since 2007, it was tacitly understood that the key for success for the Celtics is to develop younger players to shoulder more of the load as the Big Three lessened their contributions. Both Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo have improved their games substantially, and that has helped the team remain as good as it is. Likewise, Danny has assembled a credible bench, and it is unclear just how good Glen Davis will play when he returns.

But that isn?t what should concern us. Titles are won at the front of the roster, not at the end of the rotation.

If the Celtics are going to win the NBA title in 2010 it is going to require that the transition from the Big Three Era to the Rondo Era be collapsed from a four year process to a four month process. It may not succeed, it may be asking the near-impossible of Rondo, but there is no other way.

Rondo had quietly asserted himself as the third or even second most important player on the team last season. Those who watched the games closely noticed that when Rondo was on his game the Cs were virtually unbeatable. Tim Welsh recounts that the Cs coaches thought that Rondo was more critical to the team?s success in the 2009 playoffs than Garnett; put another way, if the Cs had Garnett but not Rondo they would not have gotten past the Bulls into the 2nd round. The first five games of the Bull series, in particular, Rondo played some of the most mesmerizing basketball in memory, with triple doubles becoming routine.

The flaws in Rondo?s game are well known and frequently discussed: he cannot hit a pull-up jumper, a stock-in-trade for a point guard; he cannot make free throws, another mandatory part of the NBA point guard?s game; he rarely gets to the free throw line despite an uncanny ability to drive to the rim on anyone; he rarely finishes with his left-hand even though he usually attacks the basket from the left side despite having what seems to be a very good left hand. When one lists the flaws it is amazing that Rondo is even in the league, let alone considered among the best point guards in the NBA.

And that is why Rondo is so special. What he can do ? see the floor, make passes, run an offense, anticipate rebounds and get them, jumpstart a defense?he does very very well, and that is stuff that leads to victories. When Rondo is on his game, the Cs can play with anyone. They even dominate many teams. When he is off his game, the Cs simply cannot beat the great teams in this league. His physical gifts of speed, quickness, coordination, long arms and huge hands are rare. His mental composure is impressive as well, as is his understanding of the game. The guy is a winner. If he could overcome his flaws he would likely be one of the best five players in the league.

It is not at all clear that Rondo will ever overcome his flaws and get to the line 10 times per game and shoot 80 percent once he is there. He may never consistently hit the pull-up jumper that he can get at will anytime he so desires. And it is all but certain he will not overcome all his flaws in the course of this season.

But it is also certain that the only way the Cs can beat other good teams and win a title is with Rondo having the reins to the team. Rondo needs to play serious young stud minutes like every other star in the league: 36-38 mpg, and over 40 mpg in big games. Save the 28-30 mpg jazz for blowouts. He needs to be told to consciously get to the line 8-10 times per game, even if he misses the free throws. His ability to draw fouls is crucial when the team stagnates and will open up passing opportunities even greater than what currently exists. Ironically, a year ago Rondo announced one of his goals was to get the line 10 times per game. He understands how central that can be. He has to come through on it.

And Rondo has to be ordered to shoot at least five mid-to-long range jumpers or three-pointers every game. It doesn?t matter if he misses most of them. He has to get comfortable doing that, even if it costs us some games during the regular season. Because unless he gets to the point where he can make those shots on a regular basis, there is no way the Cs win flag 18 in 2010.

Even if Rondo is made the team?s centerpiece and told to force-feed his game to a higher level, there is no guarantee of a title. The Cs would have to win more as a rare ?ensemble? champion, like the 1989, 1990 and 2004 Pistons, where a superstar-less team of high-quality veterans somehow overwhelms the other teams. With Rondo in charge this Cs team could produce a formidable ensemble team that could break the mold. It will take luck. But to even be in a position to get lucky, the Cs need Rondo to embrace the role as first among equals, and the team?s single most important and, dare I say it, best player. If Rondo plays at the level of the first 11 or 12 games, the Cs have no hope this season. I think he has it within him to rise to the occasion, or at least I hope so. We need to find out. And we don?t have any time to waste.

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