Summer Quandaries 2 - From Whence Cometh the Magic This Year?

http://celticsgreen.blogspot.com/2016/08/sq16-2-from-whence-cometh-magic-this.html



SQ2016-2 From Whence Cometh the Magic This Year?







Each of the first three years of Stevens/Ainge leadership has provided us some mind blowing magic. A quick look at those Machiavellian masterpieces still sends chills up my spine. One might well argue that the worst season by record, was actually the best. Confession: this column was to be about finding contributors of magic in upcoming season; but the setup became longer and longer, so this will be a multiple day series before getting to 16-17.  Allows you think ahead, so fire up the little grey cells?

Year 1 BE (Brad Era)--Blow it up and start over. Trade the coach, and all the best/big-name players, trade the players just received, trade for exceptions and with exceptions, trade for picks, trade to absorb contracts since this year's record is expected to be a low ebb. Sign a relatively unknown NCAA coach who not only didn't play in the NBA but didn't even make a splash as a player in college. Generate a flurry of moves which would yield a Venn diagram that rival a bowl of spaghetti. Players remaining three years later: Avery Bradley and Kelly Olynyk. This first year features a trade that provides a contender (lock?) for the Worst of All Time (WAT) for the Nets franchise.

WAT Nets: The last (Allen fled earlier) of the second Big Three go into exile in Brooklyn in The Great Nets Heist for the swamp's number one picks for the next half decade. This move was so lopsided that future fans may think of the New Jersey franchise ending (actually they just went across the river where the mismanagement could get more immediate and massive abuse from the NY press.) Boston received players, picks, trade exceptions, and even signed Bogans to a salary-balancing, waivable contract extension (cut to picture of Ainge in sunglasses at poker table piling an ever-higher stack of chips.) As the season begins Ainge continues churning the roster, culling chaff and gathering additional assets. The combination of Danny's cutting away dead wood and making incremental increases with lateral moves, along with Stevens' instilling a new culture and making cotton purses out of sow's ears, eventually resulted in bad, rather than terrible, team record. (A result that is frequently damned as a severe failure at tanking.)

Along the way they created a new word, Boganized, as Keith Bogans was “excused” from the team after complaining about playing time. (Never has a non-playing contract made a greater contribution. Bogans was a salary dump and cap balance for Brooklyn, who Danny extended with a waivable contract to create an enhanced asset, part of the accommodation that along with the stars Pierce and Garnett convinced the Russian billionaire to gift Boston a treasure of unprotected first round picks. After serving as an example to/of/for/about non team-players for 13-14, in July he (or at least the waivable contract) was flipped to Cleveland who was desperately trying to clear space for LeBron James. So for Bogans' contract and a trade exception that would expire in another three days (we're talking . . . nothing, basically), Danny pried a serviceable center (for a team without 7-ft'ers other than rookie Olynyk), multiple picks, and additional salary dump throw-ins.

One of those throw-ins, Marcus Thornton, would go into Brad Stevens reclamation-project-machine and become part of the Isaiah Thomas acquisition in 2015 (but I'm getting ahead of myself, and yeah there is another WAT for 2015.) Speaking of that Stevens' reclamation magic, Jordan Crawford was Eastern Conference player-of-the-week!? in December 2013, moved a month later in a three team trade that returned 1st and 2nd round picks to the Celtics. It is like there is a recurring theme, Danny and Brad are turning chicken feathers into chicken salad.



bob



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