Methinks Something Big This Way Cometh

Jay King @ByJayKing
about 11 minutes ago
Danny Ainge agrees the Celtics have less clarity now: “Less clarity. Very well said.” “I’m very excited about what the possibilities are over the next month.”

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John Karalis
John Karalis @RedsArmy_John
about 11 minutes ago
Danny Ainge says he can't talk about anything that's been reported yet because nothing is official.... "Wish I could tell you everything I know, but I can't"

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Jared Weiss
Jared Weiss @JaredWeissNBA
about 6 minutes ago
Danny Ainge asked for his approach to getting bigs: Well we have them measured out and we know how big they are. And we want to get guys that are tall.

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Scott Souza
Scott Souza @Scott_Souza
about 5 minutes ago
#Celtics Danny Ainge mentioned Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Gordon Hayward, Robert Williams as players who have been around facility. Said Terry Rozier has not been around, but that he's a hard worker & knows he's working hard somewhere. @CelticsCLNS @CLNSMedia



bob
MY NOTE:. It could all be bravado, of course, but Danny knows he can't go to war next year with the squad he has left.  He's clearing cap space even to trading the very affordable and effective Baynes.  These statements make it pretty clear he has a big free agency off-season planned.    Not "my job is to answer the phone and keep an open mind", which we've all heard him say as trade rumors swirl but he's not itchy to deal,  but "I know what needs to get done and I've put in the work to see it happen".  He MUST know that with the loss of Horford, Baynes, Kyrie and maybe Mook we become one of the youngest teams in the NBA, if not THE youngest.  You don't win with youth, you build and backfill with it.  Championships are won by grizzled veterans who are not awed by anything they see because they've already seen it all.  He MUST know that with the loss of Horford and Baynes we effectively have no front court.  Neither Robert Williams nor Daniel Theis are NBA starting centers, certainly not by October 2019 when the regular season will start.

You can talk directly to free agents @ 12:01am on July 1st.  You can talk to their agents before then but you cannot call the players themselves until then.  10 days from now. Something big this way comes in 10-14 days.  It could be sooner, in trades.  Or the trades might be agreed to in principle pending the free agency (e.g.  Washington waits to see who they can land as a free agent before following through on a pre-arranged cap-clearing trade with Boston for Bradley Beal).

Last off-season I thought Danny might do no more than tinker around the edges.  He had Hayward and Kyrie coming back, why swing for the fences?  This year the fences are all he's looking at because he knows he's not in the catbird seat anymore.  Singles and doubles aren't gonna cut it and he knows it. Two years ago he traded for Kyrie (HUGE blockbuster trade out of nowhere) and signed Gordon.  There could be a similar series of events from 2 years ago, with Danny doing a major trade (Rozier and Brown plus picks for a big contract player?) in June and then use that as a final lure for the big free agent in July, just like Kyrie and Gordon.  We know Danny likes doing things that worked once again.  He stockpiled picks and players and traded for Ray Allen and then KG.  We know how that turned out and so does Danny.  He tried to repeat that with the Brooklyn trade.  Develop young players, stockpile picks and then package them for a game-changer like Kyrie.  Be "cash rich" and stay ready for a buying opportunity.  It's his Modus Operandi.  We now have too many picks, too much youth.  That's the negative way of looking at it.  The positive way is to view us as rich with low-cost contracts that cap space constrained teams covet.  Who are those teams?  Which teams are salary-capped out but aren't going anywhere? They are the ones I believe we should be looking at and discussing on this board over the next week-and-a-half because they are Danny's natural trading partners.



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I put this in a thread yesterday when a report came out that the Celtics may be buyers for a team looking to dump salary:

Whiteside from Miami fits that salary dump idea.

K. Love from Cleveland

Ibaka from Toronto, if they resign Leonard.


Ibaka and Whiteside are both expiring deals, so if they attach a future first with them, I guess maybe.

Love has multiple years on his inflated deal, though Danny seemed to like him in the past.

Okc is way over the cap and tax line, but hard to see them just dumping S. Adams.

Plumlee from Denver..maybe if they are looking to get some cap room.

all those big men fit that criteria.

another that I missed yesterday could be

Jonas Valanciunas who has a $16M player option with Memphis now.


of course Ainge now has cap room to maybe sign a big man like:

Vucevic
Cousins
Lopez
Jordan
Lopez

Nearly 100% of what gets posted on a board like this is a guess. An opinion formed by the poster without actual knowledge of all the facts.

This time, may be slightly different.

Love or hate what the tenure of Ainge and crew has done to the Celtics, the present position doesn't leave much question.

The team has virtually no bigs.

They don't have them, they didn't draft them, at least two are departing. Theis and Williams are not (yet) a starting front-court.

They're going to go out and get bigs. No mystery. No debate. They have to.

The only guesswork on our behalf is if it will be by trade or the FA market. I'm thinking it will be shopping for FA time. And that's coming soon.

do we need two at least?

kdp59 wrote:do we need two at least?

I’d think so. Can use cap space for one, room exception for another (or more cap space).

Just to be clear, when I said "something big" I was referring to big deals, not necessarily big players, although I'm sure at least one of them will be.

I hope its not Beal to be honest.

kdp59 wrote:I hope its not Beal to be honest.

I wouldn’t think so.

Let's sign Vucevic. He's awesome. Also wouldn't turn down Adams.

NESportsfan12 wrote:Let's sign Vucevic. He's awesome. Also wouldn't turn down Adams.

I love Vucevic’s game. He will be a huge asset for any team that signs him.
The issue for Boston will be who will be Boston’s long defensive player who can guard Giannis, AD, Siakam, etc? Last year it was Horford and Baynes who handled those responsibilities.
Vucevic is a very skilled offensive player but has always been considered a weak defensive player.
If Orlando re-signs Vucevic, Boston should make a big push to trade for Bamba or Jonathan Isaac from Orlando. They are long and athletic players who are very effective on the defensive side of the ball.

Whiteside opted in to his contract, so he won't be floating around and I cannot see Riley giving Danny anything, too much history there.

Brad was optomistic last night in his interview but would not address or could not address anything to do with lBaynes other than to say that everyone knows how he feels about him. He said the past year was tough, he feels rejuvenated and is looking forward to putting this team together and moving forward. Let the past stay in the past, you know Brad he won't dump on anyone. Wyc was optomistic also, so you all may be right, something BIG is going to happen one way or another.

I felt bad for Baynes, but hopefully they will buy him out and he can get with a team where he will really make a difference. Is there any chance he could resign here or is that against rules.

Interesting off season to say the least. Who would have ever thought we would have been in this position at the beginning of last year. It seems pretty obvious he wants to keep the two J's, and Smart, after that, it is a crap shoot.

What rule did they change to let teams talk on June 30th at 6:00PM??????

RosalieTCeltics wrote:Whiteside opted in to his contract, so he won't be floating around and I cannot see Riley giving Danny anything, too much history there.

Brad was optomistic last night in his interview but would not address or could not address anything to do with lBaynes other than to say that everyone knows how he feels about him. He said the past year was tough, he feels rejuvenated and is looking forward to putting this team together and moving forward. Let the past stay in the past, you know Brad he won't dump on anyone. Wyc was optomistic also, so you all may be right, something BIG is going to happen one way or another.

I felt bad for Baynes, but hopefully they will buy him out and he can get with a team where he will really make a difference. Is there any chance he could resign here or is that against rules.

Interesting off season to say the least. Who would have ever thought we would have been in this position at the beginning of last year.  It seems pretty obvious he wants to keep the two J's, and Smart, after that, it is a crap shoot.  

What rule did they change to let teams talk on June 30th at 6:00PM??????

Rosalie,

Since the Baynes trade won’t be completed until July, Boston can not reacquire Baynes this season, even if he is waived. Teams can now talk directly to free agents starting on 6/30 at 6PM EST. The league will make this a huge night on ESPN with live updates. This is much better than staying up until midnight or 1AM to see what players are committing to teams.

I can remember walking around my house at 1:30 in the morning waiting for Ray Allen to leave the Celtics. A sad day for me as I was a Ray fan for a long time. This makes more sense, frankly, once the draft is over, I think they should just be able to get all of this over with. You know they are talking one way or another, mostly thru agents

Speaking of something big ....

Tacko Fall on summer league team

KyleCleric wrote:Speaking of something big ....

Tacko Fall on summer league team

Sounds like they signed him to a contract

This is how bad it is in Boston these days, talk about being the but of every conversation, listen to this

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/did-kyrie-irving-call-into-a-boston-radio-show-to-defend-himself/1tjtr8vquksbvzkcrlkqs41tj


Sent from my iPhone

My son heard someone on ESPN talking about Irving, he said that it all came down to not liking living in Boston. Hey Kyrie, wherever you go, there you are. One unhappy guy

tjmakz wrote:

NESportsfan12 wrote:Let's sign Vucevic. He's awesome. Also wouldn't turn down Adams.

I love Vucevic’s game. He will be a huge asset for any team that signs him.
The issue for Boston will be who will be Boston’s long defensive player who can guard Giannis, AD, Siakam, etc? Last year it was Horford and Baynes who handled those responsibilities.
Vucevic is a very skilled offensive player but has always been considered a weak defensive player.
If Orlando re-signs Vucevic, Boston should make a big push to trade for Bamba or Jonathan Isaac from Orlando. They are long and athletic players who are very effective on the defensive side of the ball.

I agree - Vucevic is a damn good player - PER of 25 this, year, 20 for his career. I also think he is a little underrated on defense. Not sure why people think this guy is 2nd tier. He would also fit well with the way Brad wants to play.

gyso wrote:

KyleCleric wrote:

KyleCleric wrote:Speaking of something big ....

Tacko Fall on summer league team

Sounds like they signed him to a contract

That would be big!!!

Like we were saying last night; can't hurt to look.

If he should be able to catch on, just imagine the marketing opportunities for Boston area Taco Bell stores.

Taco night with Tacko. Fee taco with every Tacko block on Taco Tuesday.

NYCelt wrote:

gyso wrote:

KyleCleric wrote:

KyleCleric wrote:Speaking of something big ....

Tacko Fall on summer league team

Sounds like they signed him to a contract

That would be big!!!

Like we were saying last night; can't hurt to look.

If he should be able to catch on, just imagine the marketing opportunities for Boston area Taco Bell stores.

Taco night with Tacko. Fee taco with every Tacko block on Taco Tuesday.

It's tough for someone so big in the NBA. If he doesn't make it here, he'll still make a ton of money in Europe. If Cs are thinking of using him for the season, they'll need to figure out how to create that role for him.