The growing importance of the Memphis Grizzlies pick to the Boston Celtics

https://www.celticsblog.com/2019/9/26/20882823/boston-celtics-memphis-grizzlies-nba-draft-pick-importance?fbclid=IwAR1SFZNYOU0PReFoEANSNTral3dybn6x2t9daAjNfq8qlTi0P0mJf2Byvq0



The growing importance of the Memphis Grizzlies pick to the Boston Celtics



The Boston Celtics are running out of chances to find a championship centerpiece.




By Greg Brueck-Cassoli@GregCassoli  

Sep 26, 2019, 8:00am EDT




Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports



The Boston Celtics are going to be good this year. They’ve got plenty of talent, a smart coach, and an opportunity to reset their chemistry after a decidedly tumultuous season. Boston’s opportunity to establish a healthier culture comes thanks in large part to the departure of Kyrie Irving.

The mercurial star is replaced by Kemba Walker, a smilier albeit slightly less talented substitute at the point guard position. The Celtics are hoping that the boost they get in morale from swapping Irving out for Walker will be enough to make up for any difference in talent, and there is some reason for hope in that regard. If the former allowed for a higher ceiling in Boston, it’s only incremental from what the latter can provide.

The Celtics’ greater concern should come with regard to the series of events that followed Irving’s decision to leave town. Al Horford - a defensive stalwart and offensive hub - opted not to sign on for another year in green, joining the Philadelphia 76ers instead. Boston did not find a replacement, or anything close to one for that matter, to what Horford provided over the course of the past three seasons. Nor did it do itself any favors in attracting elite-level talent.

Irving and Horford are championship-caliber sidekicks, enticing enough to lure the kind of player teams need to build around should they want to win a title. As recently as eight months ago, Anthony Davis was meant to be their man. The versatile, impossibly long pogo stick of a forward is good enough to be in the conversation as the game’s very best, a prerequisite on most championship teams.

The NBA’s biggest stars dominate the postseason. Since 2010, just two teams have won a championship without LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant, or Steph Curry featuring as their best player (twice that team included both Durant and Curry). That’s four players that have had their hand in a combined 80% of the NBA’s championships in the past decade in a league that includes 450 roster spots each year.

The two outlier champions include a Lakers squad led by end-of-his-prime Kobe Bryant and the 2010-11 Mavericks team that featured Dirk Nowitzki playing at the absolute peak of his powers, both of whom rated out as near the top of the league in individual talent.

Obviously titles aren’t won exclusively by stars, but they’re almost never claimed by teams filled with players that top out as good, or even very good. Transcendent talent is required nearly as a rule. Davis was meant to fill that role in Boston, but the Celtics lost any hope of adding him once Irving opted not to re-sign with the team. Now they’re stuck in something of a strange limbo.

Boston has lots of young talent. Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum are particularly intriguing. They function as mirror opposites on the wing. Brown is a terrifying athlete with a developing polish to his game. Tatum possesses a level of skill that far exceeds most players his age, and is growing into his body. Both could blossom into All-Stars over the course of the next few years. However, neither projects to be the kind of world beater you could build a true contender around.

That doesn’t mean they won’t be good. The Celtics should be excited to have players like Brown and Tatum to build around, but they also shouldn’t expect that that duo will be enough to take them to the promised land.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for the Celtics, the team who hoarded draft picks for years, in the hopes of eventually drafting a blue chip, franchise-altering prospect or swapping in their treasure trove of selections for a megastar. Neither opportunity materialized, and now Boston has just a single remaining draft pick from their asset accumulation days - owed to them by the Memphis Grizzlies, top-6 protected this year and unprotected in 2021.

That Memphis could be quite bad across the next two seasons is a fact not lost on the Celtics. A universe exists in which the Grizzlies wind up forfeiting the first overall pick to Boston in two years time. Such an outcome is exceedingly unlikely, particularly given the new flattened lottery odds, but it’s not entirely out of the question.

A world in which Boston can add a high-end talent to Brown and Tatum as they enter their primes is tantalizing for Celtics fans. It’s a long-term dream, but one that would be well worth the wait.

Whether or not the Grizzlies cooperate with such aspirations is another matter entirely. Memphis will most assuredly be bad this year, but in the 2020-21 campaign, with Jaren Jackson Jr. entering his third year in the league and a full year of development under Ja Morant’s belt, it’s possible the Grizzlies could at least claw to semi-respectability.

Boston could make its own luck and simply trade the pick. Disgruntled superstars seem to become available nearly every year, and the Celtics have plenty of present-day talent on their roster to add to. This is where the calculus gets particularly complex.

Davis was meant to be the player Boston cashed all its chips in to get, the reason that passing on opportunities to trade for Jimmy Butler, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard all made sense. The Celtics bided their time and carefully collected talent that would have empowered him to be the centerpiece of a meaningful contender from the moment he walked in the door. When they failed to acquire Davis all of the team’s previous moves lost meaning, not in their entirety, but certainly to a degree.

Now Boston is stuck with an incredible array of players either currently capable of serving as the second or third best player on a championship team or ready to develop into such a role, all desperately in need of an organizing force.

The Grizzlies pick represents a long-shot opportunity for the Celtics to find the superstar they’re lacking, either via trade or through the draft. Playing the waiting game with it is likely the best option. Waiting and hoping for it to turn into a crack at the best player in an upcoming draft is a risky bet - Memphis could make the playoffs two years from now for all we know (highly unlikely, but you see the point) - but the variance in potential outcomes is what makes the strategy worthwhile.

Boston doesn’t need a bird in the hand. It needs the next MVP candidate in the bush. It isn’t likely the Celtics acquire that player with the Grizzlies’ pick, but exists in the universe of possible outcomes. Maybe it’s better that way. Well-laid plans have proven to be of little use to Boston in the past few years.



bob
MY NOTE:  The Memphis pick is Top-6 protected this year.  Next year it is completely unprotected.


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The Griz' pick is the last of that big haul of picks the team had accumulated.

It needs to return something big, via trade or draft.

Obviously too soon to say how the other picks worked out, but in combination, these "accumulated assets," as they were so often called, need to lead to a title. If not, the Ainge/Stevens years since Ainge's title in '07 - '08, are going to be judged as a waste.

I think a good part of the core is there, and developing. I believe that pick needs to lead to a legit big, by draft or as part of a trade, and things will work out nicely.

Greg Cassoli, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This team may be the world beater, not one exceptional player.

the article correctly points out that in the NBA you need  an ELITE all-NBA player to win a title now.

Will Tatum make the jump and become a top 10 player in this league?

Time will tell but if Ainge and company don't think he will, I expect they will try too move him at some point with other assets for someone who already is that player.

added my list of top 10 NBA players today, in no particular order:

A. Davis
J. Embiid
N. Jokic
G, Antetokoumpo
L. James
K. Durant
K. Leonard
P. George
J. Harden
S. Curry

Players in the next group for me:

D. Lilliard
K. Irving
R. Westbrook
K. Thompson
B. Beal
D. Mitchell
D. Booker
J. Butler
Draymond Green
R. Gobert
K. Anthony-Towns


those are the elite NBA players right now, IMO. None of the top 10 are coming to Boston, but some in the second tier may become available by trade in the next year or two (Beal, Mitchell and Towns).

now to my list of YOUNG players who may move into that top tier over the next few years:

TATUM
Jaren Jackson Jr
Zion
P. Siakam
M. Bagley
L. Doncic
RJ Barrett
B. Simmons
J. Murray
D. Fox
J. Morant

there may be a lot riding on Jason Tatum's every widening shoulders in the coming year or two.

dbrown4 wrote:May have to disagree with you slightly, kdp59, and your agreeing with assessment of the article in that you need an Elite All-NBA player to win a title now.  As my wife always points out, you still need 4 more guys to field a team.  Not even LeBron can win a single game or probably score 1 on 5.  Ever.  I will agree that it is one way to win a title now.  

The Celtics have always prided themselves for as long as I can remember on putting the best 5 on the floor, regardless of status.  They have the banners to prove it.

I like your conclusion that none of the top 10 you listed are coming to Boston.  So true.  I'd even put Kyrie at about a 10.5.  Boston would much rather hang out in the 2nd and 3rd tiers and load up there to knock off the teams with the elite top players who don't see it coming.

Just curious.  During their respective eras, would you objectively put Larry Bird (Kevin McHale, Robert Parish), Paul Pierce (Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen) or Bill Russell (Good Lord!  Too many to list!!) on your top 10?  If so, then this article may be right in that an elite player is a necessary and sufficient condition for a title.

These teams just meshed together very well.  And we're back to Chemistry 101.  Danny blew up the lab over the summer.  Brand new class with a few familiar faces.  High water will cover a lot of stumps.  

db              

I think each Celtic championship team had at least one top 10 NBA talent at the time.

I was NOT saying the Celtics should make any trade, just that IF Ainge and company don;t think Tatum or Brown even can reach that elite level, then they may look to move them if a top [layer becomes available.

Your comparisons of Tatum to George and Brown to Leonard make a lot of sense. I hope they both reach that elite status and are still here when they do.

dboss wrote:The Memphis pick is still in play.  They however are a bad team and are likely to be 6th or worse.  That pick becomes unprotected in 2021.  2021 is projecting to be a solid draft class.

What should Boston do?  2020 is loaded with PG's and limited bigs.  If we get the pick this year do you go after a young PG that can be developed to replace KW down the road in 3 years?  Do you package your first rounders and target Wiseman?

Memphis is currently tied for 5th worst. Even if they lose that tiebreaker they'd still be 6th worst and the pick stays with Memphis this year.


bob


.

bobheckler wrote:

dboss wrote:The Memphis pick is still in play.  They however are a bad team and are likely to be 6th or worse.  That pick becomes unprotected in 2021.  2021 is projecting to be a solid draft class.

What should Boston do?  2020 is loaded with PG's and limited bigs.  If we get the pick this year do you go after a young PG that can be developed to replace KW down the road in 3 years?  Do you package your first rounders and target Wiseman?

Memphis is currently tied for 5th worst.  Even if they lose that tiebreaker they'd still be 6th worst and the pick stays with Memphis this year.


bob


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Doesn't the lottery decide who picks where?  If Memphis stays 5th or 6th in the regular season standings, a team or two could leapfrog over them in the lottery and push them back to 7th.

Only 4 teams get picked in the lottery and the rest of the teams are sorted by record and tie breakers in the first round.  If Memphis is #4 and get leapfrogged by 4 teams, they will at worst end up 8th.  It use to be 3 get picked, but the rules changed for 2020.

I didn't know about the rule change from 3 to 4, but I looked it up just to be right for once.

dboss wrote:

gyso wrote:

bobheckler wrote:

dboss wrote:The Memphis pick is still in play.  They however are a bad team and are likely to be 6th or worse.  That pick becomes unprotected in 2021.  2021 is projecting to be a solid draft class.

What should Boston do?  2020 is loaded with PG's and limited bigs.  If we get the pick this year do you go after a young PG that can be developed to replace KW down the road in 3 years?  Do you package your first rounders and target Wiseman?

Memphis is currently tied for 5th worst.  Even if they lose that tiebreaker they'd still be 6th worst and the pick stays with Memphis this year.


bob


.

Doesn't the lottery decide who picks where?  If Memphis stays 5th or 6th in the regular season standings, a team or two could leapfrog over them in the lottery and push them back to 7th.

That is true.  So they could finish 4th worst and end up at #9 for example.  It is all about the ping pong balls and the odds.

If Memphis finishes with the 4th worst record, the furthest they could move down is to 8th.
The ping pong balls determine who gets picks 1-4. The odds that 4 teams with worse odds jumps ahead of Memphis in spots 1-4 is minuscule.  
If Memphis finishes with the 5th or 6th worst records, the odds are pretty good that the Memphis pick will be pushed back to 7th. Of course, Memphis could also get picks 1-4 and have the pick to Boston pushed to 2021.

Based on the Celtics present roster I think that it is fair to assume that they will be a serious contender over the next few years - but favored to win it all ? - who knows what wheeling and dealing will take place over the next few years that will play a serious role in the winning capacity of the other contenders.

 swish

Hi,
I wonder which '20 or '21 will be better?
My bet is on '21.

AK

Chris Forsberg

@ChrisForsberg_
Grizzlies win for third time in last four games. #GrizPick watch intensifies with eighth worst record in basketball at moment. Celtics get Memphis pick this year if it’s 7 or worse (unprotected next year)





bob
MY NOTE: Unless it's part of a trade chip for a specific player this year by the trade deadline, there's no rush to move this, I think, UNLESS you think Memphis is going to get better next year.



.

dboss wrote:the 21 class is suppose to be strong.

The 2020 class is loaded with PG which we do not need.

The Celtics will have 3 picks this year so maybe they can package them together to make a run at a specific draft pick.

I have a gut feeling Memphis finishes outside of the bottom 6.

If I was looking to add a piece it would be at the 4.

And who would that pick be?

It may be a good spot (6-10) to take a big wing or potential ball handler who can defend multiple positions. We could use someone to develop at those spots