good read about why staying the course may be the better move

Maybe this was written by someone here, I don't know but.......


http://www.celticslife.com/2014/05/predicting-2014-2015-boston-celtics.html

My Prediction on the 2014-2015 Boston Celtics Roster




First things first: Like most of you, I consider myself to be diehard Celtics fan. I am 34 years old. I have rooted for the Celtics since I was very young, through the lean years and the good years, so I’m not some bandwagon fan, and I’m not some guy who doesn’t remember how Larry, McHale, & Parrish played. However, I’m also not old enough to really understand how Hondo played, or Russell, or anyone else before the 80s. I can only get a feel for them through reading stats, stories, and watching film.

In any event, I say that to give you some perspective and to reveal any bias I may have. I do not claim to be objective.

In shaping the 2014-2015 Celtics Roster, our starting point has to be a discussion of which players are currently under guaranteed contracts for next year. For that information, I have prepared this graph, with information provided by www.basketball-reference.com. Here is the graph:





Player Name

2014-2015 Guaranteed Salary


Rajon Rondo

$12,909,091


Gerald Wallace

$10,105, 855


Jeff Green

$9,445,000


Brandon Bass

$6,900,000


Joel Anthony

$3,800,000


Vitor Favarani

$2,090,000


Kelly Olynyk

$2,075,760


Jared Sullinger

$1,424,520









Total

$48, 750,226











Now for a few noteworthy additions:
•There are several players with non-guaranteed deals. The only one I see returning is Chris Johnson, who the team holds an option that pays $915,243.
•There is then the issue of restricted free agents. There are several directions the Celtics can go here. However, the first issue that will need to be dealt with is what to do with Avery Bradley. According to multiple reports at the time, Bradley turned down an extension in the range of 4 years at $6 million per year. He turned that down at the start of the 2014-2014 season and decided to gamble on proving he was worth more this past year. He partly succeeded, but mostly failed. His game showed marked improvement, especially on the offensive end of the floor, but he failed in that he was again shown to be injury prone. I think most fans would agree that whether we keep Bradley depends on what the market dictates. If we get him for $6 million or less per season, we keep him. If someone offers more, we let him walk. My first guess involving the roster is that I guess that the market will be tough for Bradley and he resigns at about $6 million per year.
•That then brings us to the only other Free Agent that I see the Celtics considering re-signing. That would be Kris Humphries. “Hump” won over almost all of us this season in Boston, and showed there is still a place for him as a good, solid, rotational big in the NBA. That being said, I think someone offers him more than the Celtics should play, given the plethora of Power Forwards with guaranteed contracts on the Celtics.

This brings us to the next part of our discussion, the salary cap.
•According to www.cbssports.com, currently, the projected NBA salary cap for 2014-2015 is $63.2 Million. The all-important Luxury Tax Threshold is projected at $77 Million.
•This means that as of now, assuming Bradley re-signs at $6 Million, and Hump is not retained, the Celtics salaries for next season would be $54,750,226. Leaving the Celtics with some decent wiggle room when it comes to available monies for next season.
•However, the Celtics will be on the hook for $2,736,100 in salary to be paid to their #6 overall lottery pick and $1,395,400 to the paid to the 17th pick that Boston is owed from the Brooklyn Nets. (Salary information provided by www.basketballinsiders.com).

Where do we go from here?
•My next assumption/guess is that there are NOT major fireworks going off in Boston this summer. I realize I could be very wrong about this, but here is my reasoning. We are in a rebuild. These things take time. We all knew we were tanking this past season. It was our only choice. Next season, the goal will be to evaluate and see how many games we can win. (Thank God!). However, the goal will not be to contend for a Championship.
•The Celtics need to see how second-year coach Brad Stevens and Captain Point Guard Rajon Rondo perform together with an off-season and training camp spent together. They have to see how this plays out before going in any other definite direction. You don’t just dump Rondo for assets before knowing how great the Stevens-Rondo alliance could be with a healthy Rondo from the beginning of training camp. None of us know what to expect because we haven’t gotten a chance to see it in action. It would be stupid to act on incomplete information. Therefore, I assume Rondo will be on the roster to start the season.
•Next up, nobody is taking Jeff Green, Gerald Wallace, Joel Anthony, or Vitor Favarani off our hands without us throwing in sweeteners, and I just don’t see that happening. Therefore, we’re stuck with these guys for at least another year. (We could use the stretch provision on Wallace, but paying him money to sit at home doesn’t make much sense. It’d be better to hope against the odds that he has a rebound year and then we can give him away somehow).
•With all these guys eating up playing time, I don’t see the Celtics making any big moves on Free Agents that would bring the Celtics anywhere close to the luxury threshold. (Why pay that tax when you can’t win a championship?). Sure, plenty of people would like to see a move made for Kevin Love, but in my opinion, that is the WRONG move. Kevin Love will not put us in Championship Contender Mode. He cannot even make the post-season and he has been in the league for SIX seasons. Moreover, consider this comparison chart between Kevin Love and Jared Sullinger.


Freshman College Season (Per 40)

PPG

RPG

APG

BPG

SPG

FG%

FT%

3FG%


Kevin Love

23.6

14.4

2.6

1.9

.9

.559

.767

.354


Jared Sullinger

21.7

12.9

1.5

.7

1.3

.541

.704

.250






























NBA First Season (Per 36)


























Kevn Love

15.8

12.9

1.9

.9

.6

.459

.789

.105


Jared Sullinger

10.9

10.7

1.4

.9

.9

.493

.746

.200






























NBA Second Season (Per 36)


























Kevn Love

17.7

13.8

2.9

.5

.9

.450

.815

.330


Jared Sullinger

17.3

10.6

2.1

.9

.6

.427

.778

.269




•I’m not going to say much more about Kevin Love vs. Jared Sullinger, but keep in mind, Sully did this while very hurt and mostly playing out of position. There is every reason to believe that after this season he will be a similar player to Kevin Love and playing at a fraction of the cost. (Oh, and we already OWN him). We don’t have to part with ANY assets to land him. Put your blinders on to someone who is “already a star” if you want, but Danny Ainge isn’t that short-sighted. Kevin Love isn’t walking through that door, and we shouldn’t want him to.
•Likely the Celtics will draft on best available talent and try and give the young guys lots of burn. I see them going with Noah Vonleh, Marcus Smart, or someone in that talent range with the first pick. With the next pick, I would guess the Celtics would pick up a wing. Someone like TJ Warren, James Young, Rodney Hood, or P.J. Hairston. Any two of these guys will bring legitimate NBA talent to a Celtics team that really needs it.
•By giving these guys some running time along with a healthy rondo, a hopefully improved sophomore in Kelly Olynyk, and hopefully the great 3rd year jump by Jared Sullinger (especially considering this will be his first healthy year and he might be somewhat in shape for the first time), I think it is entirely the most likely scenario that the Celtics give that roster a shot without any other major moves.
•That roster should be in the conversation for a lower playoff seed, and at that point, more decisions can be made on how to grow the roster into a true championship contender.
•In 2015-2016, the Celtics will be a young roster, with hopefully a couple of studs with some playoff experience, lots of draft picks, and a LOT of cap space.

Final Prediction

In 2014-2015 the Celtics will mostly stay put. They are too locked into contracts that are unmovable, and they have not had enough time to see core players (Rondo, Sullinger, et al) play healthy. Therefore, more observation time is required. However, after that – our future is bright, and most importantly, we don’t have to root for losses again for another decade or so.




Jeremiah Shane Giles is an Attorney who practices law full-time at his own law firm. He is married to his beautiful wife Rachel, and they live with their two cats and one dog in a small town. He can be reached at jeremiahshanegiles@gmail.com.

____________________________________________________________________________

Many of us here have at times seen the same outcome (especially after the lotto balls).

the salary and cap implications are also right on with what has been bandied about here. he doesn't have Pressey's non-guaranteed deal listed or Bogans (who will not be here one way or another).

his projected roster is:
Fav
Vonleh?
Anthony
Sully
Bass
Kelly
Green
Wallace
Bradley
Young?
JOhnson
Rondo
Pressey


But if he is 100% correct, I can still see at least one move for a Center. by his calculations we have about $8-10M in cap space (before re-signing Bradley). so we can sign a FA center straight up or absorb more salary in any trade.

then Sign Bradley under Bird rights, I believe to go over the cap. even then we would be around $70M not near the $77M luxury line. I think the Celtics owners will have no problems paying about as much as this year, even for a roster that is not ready to compete yet.

First, I agree with the author about Kevin Love. Making a trade for him isn't worth the assets.

Second, the Rondo-Stevens dynamic will be hard to fully gauge until a legitimate team has been built. We can sit here and critique players, but it's only within the context of a rebuilding vacuum and doesn't reflect nor extrapolate results under any other circumstance.

Third, the author referenced the possibility of a center being acquired. I think Gortat would be a great addition to fill that role, and it can be done so without giving up any assets nor breaking the bank.




KJ

kdp,

First, my compliments on a really good job of setting a context for your observations. I'm a big devotee of setting contexts, and yours was excellent

i have some difficulty figuring out which are your words and which are Mr. Giles' words. You mention a graph that you prepared, followed by what I assume are Mr. Giles' comments. It might be a little easier to follow a post like this if your views and someone else's views were more clearly delineated.

As for content (which is the important thing), I just want to mention that, while Bradley's offense may have improved, I believe his defense slipped some this season. More specifically, he wasn't feverishly hounding guys who were bring the ball upcourt as he did in previous years. Some have said the dropoff in his defense could be due to his having to exert so much energy on his offense. (1) That's a tacit agreement with my feeling about the fact of dropoff. (2) Regardless of his offense, there are a load of shooting guards with good offense, and many are taller than Avery. His uniqueness up until this season has been based pretty much on his defense. If, for whatever reason, his defense is falling off a bit, what does he offer as a long-term building block for the Celtics?

I agree with you in not expecting more than medium-to-low-level acquisitions by free agency. The salary cap is too daunting. But I've said for months that I feel the best way for them to build is via trades, so they know what they're getting (as opposed to the possibility of over-the-hill, overpriced free agents or untested rookies), and they trade value out for value in to leave the cap figure virtually unchanged. The trade exception is an expiring asset too, and I'll be surprised if Danny doesn't figure out way to use it.

I don't necessarily think rebuilding must be accomplished slowly. That wasn't the case when Russell came aboard, when Cowens came aboard, when Bird/McHale/Parish came aboard, and when KG and Ray came aboard. I agree that it should not be done recklessly, but I believe one of Danny's primary talents is to assess risk realistically and—with the context of reason—move forward with dispatch.

Finally, one of the contraindications of moving slowly is a reminder of the past season, when things moved pretty with a few players improving their games but the entire squad developing very little systemic coalescence, pretty bad chemistry, and virtually no identity.

Sam

sorry about that Sam,


The entire top of the piece was from the link, down until his signature/bio.

after that I put a line across for my 2 cents below.

it's easier to read at the link also.

nothing really new in the piece , except maybe he put the salary and cap issues together with player options.

always good to put them together, IMO.

Ainge can go a lot of different ways for sure this off-season...from continuing to rebuild with draft picks all the way got getting an all- star player of two....or perhaps something in between.

I am not sure on the rules for using a trade exception, but I thought someone said it can't be used in multi-player trades.
Does that mean it can only be used for one player?

do cap implications stay in place for any trade using it? ( in other words do we have to take back close to the $10M back in salary)

depending on the answers to those questions , the trade exception could bring us an asset or not be worth much at all.