Re: 2014 Draft Lottery Day Thread

[bobheckler]

Wonder what mock draft looks like now?

112288

112288,

draftexpress has us taking Randle
mynbadraft.com has us taking Smart
nbadraft.net has us taking Vonleh
Hoopshype has us taking Vonleh


We don't need Randle, unless he's part of a trade for Love (maybe Sully's gone to Minny and Randle takes his slot).
We don't need Smart, unless he's part of a trade for Love or Asik.
I don't think Vonleh is an NBA center, he's a PF, maybe even a stretch 4. Therefore, we don't need him.


I'm not liking any of these guys. I could see us taking Gordon, so that would make Green expendable or I could see Danny going rogue and either taking Saric or Nurkic or someone out of the order that these mock draft boards are predicting.

Or, I could just see him trading down for more picks and/or players. I could easily see that happen and, quite frankly, I think that's what will happen if he can't cut the deal with Minny for Love or Houston for Asik for that #6 pick.


bob


.

[NYCelt]

On another note, Mallory Edens virtually guaranteed free agents will be flocking to Milwaukee.

[bobc33]

On another note, Mallory Edens virtually guaranteed free agents will be flocking to Milwaukee.

Perhaps a few middle aged men also......

[KyleCleric]

Bob,

Doug McDermott

[NYCelt]

Wonder what mock draft looks like now?

112288

112288,

draftexpress has us taking Randle
mynbadraft.com has us taking Smart
nbadraft.net has us taking Vonleh
Hoopshype has us taking Vonleh


We don't need Randle, unless he's part of a trade for Love (maybe Sully's gone to Minny and Randle takes his slot).
We don't need Smart, unless he's part of a trade for Love or Asik.
I don't think Vonleh is an NBA center, he's a PF, maybe even a stretch 4.  Therefore, we don't need him.


I'm not liking any of these guys.  I could see us taking Gordon, so that would make Green expendable or I could see Danny going rogue and either taking Saric or Nurkic or someone out of the order that these mock draft boards are predicting.

Or, I could just see him trading down for more picks and/or players.  I could easily see that happen and, quite frankly, I think that's what will happen if he can't cut the deal with Minny for Love or Houston for Asik for that #6 pick.


bob


.

Within a year...

draftexpress has us taking Randle.........starts for us at PF
mynbadraft.com has us taking Smart....starts for us at 2G (actually, immediately, see 'ya Avery)
nbadraft.net has us taking Vonleh.........starts for us at C
Hoopshype has us taking Vonleh

[NYCelt]

Bob,

Doug McDermott

Kyle,

Good player, but bad idea. The inevitable comparisons would be too much.

Regards

[KyleCleric]

Bob,

Doug McDermott

Kyle,

Good player, but bad idea.  The inevitable comparisons would be too much.

Regards

Comparisons to the guy taken 6th 18 years ago or to the guy taken 6th 36 years ago? Or just Wally?

[NYCelt]

Bob,

Doug McDermott

Kyle,

Good player, but bad idea.  The inevitable comparisons would be too much.

Regards

Comparisons to the guy taken 6th 18 years ago or to the guy taken 6th 36 years ago? Or just Wally?

Kyle,

Outstanding question. I was thinking of the 6th pick 36 years ago.

Although I must admit, your throwing Wally into the mix was perfect and cracked me up!

Regards

[steve3344]

I was as nervous as this writer as our pick was approaching.  And then screamed a four letter word starting with F while pounding on the coffee table.

Good piece:

http://www.boston.com/blogs/sports/columnists/kaufman/2014/05/whats_next_for_celtics_after_lady_lucks_latest_col.htm

[Sam]

Exactly what I did, Steve, except I pounded on my desk.

Sam

[112288]

If the Celtics go in the same directions as 2007-2008 and rebuild through trades, they'll need to secure a legit center and a shooting guard/forward before they attempt to even consider Kevin Love.

Love would have to sign a max deal with us before we ever attempt to trade for him.............I am not into wasting talent we have nor draft picks on a rental for 1 year hoping he like the clam chowder.   He like LA/West Coast teams and he wants to play for a contender. Does not sound like Boston/New England to me.  Only way is to show him a winning scenario is what we had to do with KG.

More likely, I think Love could go to the Clippers with a swap for Griffin. A win win for both teams unless Griffin has a no trade clause, or Golden State for David Lee and another player.


112288

[112288]

Mike Gorman shared his opinion on the Kevin Love trade rumors this morning:

“The thing I’ve always heard about Kevin Love is that he wants to go back to Los Angeles and he wants to play, after five years or however long it’s been in Minnesota, in a warm weather climate. That kind of eliminates us here in Boston.

“He also says, because he’s never made the playoffs, he wants to go to a team that’s gonna be in the playoffs right away. That would be optimistic. You’d like to see the Celtics in the playoffs next year, but when you had 25 wins or whatever it was this year I’m not thinking you’re gonna make that big of a jump of 20 wins necessary to make the playoffs.

“On that sense I don’t think it backs up that Kevin Love will come here,” said Gorman.

112288

[sinus007]

Hi,
Now I know how to get pick #1. You don't have to tank, you don't have to be lucky, what you have to do is hire Mike Brown and then fire him at the end of the season (sorry TJ, your team blew their chance firing him at the beginning of the season). Or, just rename your team to "ClevelandCavaliers".

So, what's now - hunt for Love in full swing?

AK

[k_j_88]

Mike Gorman shared his opinion on the Kevin Love trade rumors this morning:

“The thing I’ve always heard about Kevin Love is that he wants to go back to Los Angeles and he wants to play, after five years or however long it’s been in Minnesota, in a warm weather climate. That kind of eliminates us here in Boston.

“He also says, because he’s never made the playoffs, he wants to go to a team that’s gonna be in the playoffs right away. That would be optimistic. You’d like to see the Celtics in the playoffs next year, but when you had 25 wins or whatever it was this year I’m not thinking you’re gonna make that big of a jump of 20 wins necessary to make the playoffs.

“On that sense I don’t think it backs up that Kevin Love will come here,” said Gorman.

112288

The Lakers are no closer to being in the playoffs than the Celtics.

The West is stacked. Phoenix, a 48-win team, couldn't even make the 8th spot.


KJ

[steve3344]

Pitsons disastrous lottery day:


Column: Detroit Pistons lost first-round draft pick through bad decisions, not bad luck


David Mayo | dmayo@mlive.com By David Mayo | dmayo@mlive.com

AUBURN HILLS -- Bad fortune didn't cost the Detroit Pistons a first-round draft pick.

Bad decisions did.

A new owner let fiscal philosophy override opportunity. A team president under fire wanted to dump a bad contract -- one of his own doing -- and swung a trade to facilitate it, but threw in a first-round draft pick to make it work.

None of it was necessary. The NBA amnesty provision could have fixed the problem. But the Pistons didn't take the sure thing. They decided to gamble instead.

Tuesday, the house raked the chips.

The story is old and tired by now, but for one last day, former team president Joe Dumars and his disastrous signing of Ben Gordon once again haunted the Pistons Tuesday, and team owner Tom Gores' stance against using amnesty to pay off Gordon offered its final indignity.

In some ways, given the Pistons' burgeoning rivalry with the Cleveland Cavaliers, it was the ultimate slap: Not only did the Pistons get bumped out of their draft pick, but it was the Cavs who leapfrogged them and landed the No. 1 pick for the third time in four years.

When the Pistons traded Gordon to Charlotte in 2012, built-in protections were designed to mitigate the damage of dealing away a first-round pick. Those protections were designed to allow the Pistons time to get good and make that first-round draft pick less appealing.

But the Pistons didn't get good. The draft pick continued to drip with value.

And yes, when the luck of the draw played against the Pistons, and they got bounced out of the No. 8 spot they occupied going into Tuesday's lottery and landed at No. 9, they were mandated to send that pick to Charlotte.

So the Pistons won't have a first-round pick in this June's NBA draft.

But it wasn't bad luck. It wasn't their failure to lose a few more games, regardless how backwards that sentence and the general train of thought accompanying it is.

It was a choice.

Now, what happened Tuesday isn't at all how the Pistons envisioned it two years ago, when the opportunity arose to dump Gordon's contract without using the one-time amnesty clause, a provision in the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement which allowed teams to pay off one toxic contract, under certain conditions, without any salary-cap hit.

Dumars, the Pistons' recently deposed president of basketball operations, has said he is philosophically opposed to paying players not to play.

Nevertheless, he would have amnestied Gordon, given the chance.

Gores was a new owner back then, though. He didn't sign off on the idea of paying Gordon $25 million to go away. The Gordon signing wasn't Gores' problem. It happened before he bought the team. He wasn't throwing good money after bad to fix it.

That's understandable.

So is the idea that amnesty, on the surface, is a horrible business decision.

But Gores bought every one of the Pistons' problems when he bought the team, including Dumars' decision to sign Gordon in the first place, and the CBA instituted shortly after he acquired the team gave him an opportunity to address one of those problems immediately. All he had to do was sign the check.

The Pistons gambled instead, thinking they could take the money from Gordon's contract, turn it into a big-name free agent, get this team back on the rails, make the playoffs, and send a pick in the mid-teens or high-teens to Charlotte.

Charlotte would have been perfectly happy with that, too, but it gambled the other way and bet that the Pistons had too much work to do and would give them something of value before the Gordon trade was completed.

The Pistons did exactly as they hoped last summer, and turned what once was Gordon's salary into Josh Smith.

But Charlotte won the bet.

So what happened Tuesday wasn't a matter of a team casting lots and losing.

Giving away a draft pick -- whether in 2013, 2014, 2015 or 2016 -- was a conscious choice.

The only variable was time.

The Pistons are going a new direction. Stan Van Gundy's hiring as president of basketball operations and head coach promises to infuse the organization with new energy. Gores, now a third-year owner, took advantage of the fact that there is no salary cap on front-office hiring, and spent big to acquire the best man he could.

Two years ago, with the Pistons at a crossroads and another chance to throw money at a problem to fix it, Gores didn't make the same decision.

He might make a different choice now, if given the chance.

Instead, he gets to hear about this one for years to come.

http://www.mlive.com/pistons/index.ssf/2014/05/column_detroit_pistons_lost_fi.html

[RosalieTCeltics]

Go to the Celtics web page, really neat. I am not good at this computer business, just thought you might like to see this!

Rosalie

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