For our second player vs. player debate we decided to tackle some new teammates up in Beantown. Coming tomorrow: first installment of overall rankings/profiles.

DM: Two guys sitting on the edge of the first round are new teammates Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. So which Celtic should you draft first? Both of them come with health question marks, as Allen missed 27 games last season — the second time in four years he’s missed a large chunk — while Pierce suffered his first major injury (well, y’know, in season) and missed 35 games. With Pierce at 30 and Allen at 32 on opening night — and both players having logged very heavy minutes throughout their careers — there’s reason to be at least a little worried. When it comes down to deciding between the two, I’ll just go by the numbers and take Allen. He was 8th (per game stats) to Pierce’s 28th last year and was 11th to Pierce’s 14th in 05-06. His acclimation to Boston shouldn’t be too rough and it’s not like Pierce won’t have to get acclimated to having two new teammates himself. What ultimately gives the nod to Allen is that you are guaranteed one of the most dominant 3-point shooters in the game if you take him. He’s averaged 2.7, 3.5 and 3.0 3pg in his last three seasons and you can pretty much count on 3 per game. Yes, Pierce his 2.3 per game himself last year, but Allen will be the team’s main long-range threat this year.

BV: There are two reasons to take Ray Allen - three pointers and FT%.  Unfortunately, that may be all there is to like this year.  For maybe the first time in his career, Allen is playing with three “plus” rebounders for their position - Garnett, Pierce, and Rondo are all excellent rebounders for the positions they play.  So you can see his rpg drop from 4.5 to say, 3 even.  He’s also going to take a hit in assists - as good as Rashard Lewis was, he certainly was a passer, so Allen was generally the #2 passer on the floor at all times in Seattle.  Now, he’s maybe the 3rd or even 4th best passer on the floor.  So that could drop to 2.5-3 apg.  Finally, you have to assume his points will drop at least a bit, maybe to 22 ppg or so.  Looking at that, 22/3/2.5, huge plusses in FT% and 3’s, you know who that reminds me of?  Allan Houston.  I think I have to take Pierce because he’s got a more well-rounded fantasy game.  He’s a better rebounder, he’s generally gotten better defensive numbers (last year was an exception), and perhaps most importantly, at the end of a close game, I think the ball is in his hands.

DM: Look at Pierce’s numbers last year. They dropped in every single category except for 3s, where he saw a huge jump from 1.4 to 2.3. With Allen around now you can probably expect that number to drop back to the 1.5 range. Granted, a line of 25.0/5.9/4.1 is nothing to sneeze at, but Pierce has a lot of miles on him. It’s easy to see him being more of a facilitator in Boston than a main guy. I was always a big fan of Pierce and thought he made a great late-first rounder/early second-rounder because he did a little bit of everything, played a ton and was his team’s unquestioned #1 option. Now that he’s a bit older, has more help and performed at a 3rd round level last year, I’m not as enthusiastic.

BV: Yes, his numbers dropped last year but that’s due more to the fact that he had a career year in 2006 and that he had to deal with a major injury for the first time last year.  Oh, and he was playing for a team that was intentionally tanking games.  Yes, he’s a bit older but not as old as Allen, and I think he’s still the emotional leader of this team.  Plus, here’s a little secret - he was actually more accurate than Allen from three-point range last year.  I think he out-rebounds RayRay by 2.5-3, out-assists him by 2-2.5, gets .5 more steals and .5 more blocks, and scores around the same number of points.  I don’t think the disparity in threes is as big as some think it will be, and so that leaves FT%, which, granted, is a big bonus for Allen but not enough to overcome everything else.

DM: I’ll admit I’m not as adamant about taking Allen before Pierce as I was about taking Arenas before Nowitzki. And there’s a lot of speculation involved here since we can’t really know how the Allen-Garnett-Pierce trio will work together. If you go by the thinking that they are all classy veterans that want to win, you’d think that there won’t be any meshing problems and that they will all simply do what they do. And last year Allen was a top-10 player while Pierce was a top-30 player. It’s as simple as that. I’m not going to overthink this one too much.