Bring knives to a gun fight!

Gary Washburn made some good points today on the Celtics Beat.
There are 5 players on this team that are from the 2019 draft class on this team. Edward’s, Williams, Langford, Falls, Waters. That’s 1/3 of the and from that 1/3 only ONE has been remotely useful-Grant.
That’s Danny’s fault. “Brad is bringing knives to a gun fight”.
He also talked about The C’s turning their noses up on vets like Trevor Ariza and instead keeping useless draft picks or picking up cheapees like Kornet.
Check out Celtics Beat on You Tube. There is an excellent panel discussing these topics. Worth the watch!!

Ktron wrote:Gary Washburn made some good points today on the Celtics Beat.
There are 5 players on this team that are from the 2019 draft class on this team. Edward’s, Williams, Langford, Falls, Waters. That’s 1/3 of the and from that 1/3 only ONE has been remotely useful-Grant.
That’s Danny’s fault. “Brad is bringing knives to a gun fight”.
He also talked about The C’s turning their noses up on vets like Trevor Ariza and instead keeping useless draft picks or picking up cheapees like Kornet.
Check out Celtics Beat on You Tube. There is an excellent panel discussing these topics. Worth the watch!!

ktron,

NOT a particularly good draft for us, was it?

Langford was #14.  He was the Sacramento pick we got from Philly in Danny's fleecing of them in the Fultz/Tatum trade.  He is, in essence, a freebie.  That pick was supposed to be better than it was but D'Aaron Fox had a tremendous impact on the Kings and they did much better than anybody expected them to, including Danny obviously.  It was thought that he dropped to #14 because of his thumb injury.  That injury was considered to be a one-time thing.  Well, it sorta was but he keeps getting injured anyway.  Could Danny have predicted that?  Not unless the whole "the thumb was a one-time thing" conclusion was wrong and I would expect Danny to have consulted with the medical staff about that.  Regardless, Romeo has some value, he's not a bad player.  He can play at the NBA level.  Romeo might be a very nice (and cheap) sweetener in any trade deal Danny puts together.  Helps make the salaries match, adds some value to the trade and minimal loss to us without having cost us anything to get him in the first place.

Grant Williams was #22.  I should try and find that write up I did about what reasonable expectations should be for draft picks that low.  Considering, he isn't that bad.  One could argue that Danny should always trade out of the first round when we pick that low for that very reason but Grant Williams was b2b SEC POY, the first player to do that since Corliss Williamson in 1995 and Corliss was another tweener, even back then.  Had a pretty darn good 12 year NBA career too.  I confess I have a massive blind spot when it comes to tweeners, I didn't see Williamson surviving in the NBA but he not only survived, he thrived (in the interest of full and fair disclosure I thought tweener Chris Mullin out of St. Johns wouldn't make it either.  See what I mean about "blind spot"?).  Grant was also a Consensus First Team All-American.  Those are pretty heady credentials for a player who played in the same Conference as the University of Florida, University of Kentucky, Vandy, Alabama, Arkansas, LSU and Auburn.  Some tough teams in that list with very effective recruiting programs (Calipari's UK, obviously elite).  And Grant was POY 2X.  I can see, if I don't use 20/20 hindsight, why Danny thought a plum dropped into his lap.

Edwards was a 2nd round pick that got his contract because he was a total lights-out gunner in his summer league.  It was fools gold, but it sure looked like the real deal back then, didn't it?  If Danny f'd this up it was for giving him a multi-year guarantee instead of the multi-one year contracts, renewable at the team's option, that he offered Ojelaye.  That mistake locked Danny into Edwards' contract, and his roster spot, for too long.  Edwards has one more year on his guarantee, at $1.7M, and then it's a team option.  Danny has multiple TPEs.  He could trade Edwards as part of a package and throw in some TPE $ so that the receiving team can cut him without taking the financial hit, the 2022-23 team option obviously not being picked up.  Furthermore, by including Edward's salary, and also including TPE money to get the other team off the hook, that increases the total value the deal can have and that could land a better player with a bigger contract. $1.7M contract + $1.7M TPE = $3.4M more salary from our side in the deal (GYSO, please sanity check these assumptions and conclusions. Thanks).

Waters and Tacko are two-way players.  By definition you cannot F that up because they don't occupy a Celtic roster spot, don't impact the team's salary or salary cap and any other player you might offer the two-way contract to instead are being offered that because they aren't NBA-ready either.


Bob


.

bobheckler wrote:

Ktron wrote:Gary Washburn made some good points today on the Celtics Beat.
There are 5 players on this team that are from the 2019 draft class on this team. Edward’s, Williams, Langford, Falls, Waters. That’s 1/3 of the and from that 1/3 only ONE has been remotely useful-Grant.
That’s Danny’s fault. “Brad is bringing knives to a gun fight”.
He also talked about The C’s turning their noses up on vets like Trevor Ariza and instead keeping useless draft picks or picking up cheapees like Kornet.
Check out Celtics Beat on You Tube. There is an excellent panel discussing these topics. Worth the watch!!

ktron,

NOT a particularly good draft for us, was it?

Langford was #14.  He was the Sacramento pick we got from Philly in Danny's fleecing of them in the Fultz/Tatum trade.  He is, in essence, a freebie.  That pick was supposed to be better than it was but D'Aaron Fox had a tremendous impact on the Kings and they did much better than anybody expected them to, including Danny obviously.  It was thought that he dropped to #14 because of his thumb injury.  That injury was considered to be a one-time thing.  Well, it sorta was but he keeps getting injured anyway.  Could Danny have predicted that?  Not unless the whole "the thumb was a one-time thing" conclusion was wrong and I would expect Danny to have consulted with the medical staff about that.  Regardless, Romeo has some value, he's not a bad player.  He can play at the NBA level.  Romeo might be a very nice (and cheap) sweetener in any trade deal Danny puts together.  Helps make the salaries match, adds some value to the trade and minimal loss to us without having cost us anything to get him in the first place.

Grant Williams was #22.  I should try and find that write up I did about what reasonable expectations should be for draft picks that low.  Considering, he isn't that bad.  One could argue that Danny should always trade out of the first round when we pick that low for that very reason but Grant Williams was b2b SEC POY, the first player to do that since Corliss Williamson in 1995 and Corliss was another tweener, even back then.  Had a pretty darn good 12 year NBA career too.  I confess I have a massive blind spot when it comes to tweeners, I didn't see Williamson surviving in the NBA but he not only survived, he thrived (in the interest of full and fair disclosure I thought tweener Chris Mullin out of St. Johns wouldn't make it either.  See what I mean about "blind spot"?).  Grant was also a Consensus First Team All-American.  Those are pretty heady credentials for a player who played in the same Conference as the University of Florida, University of Kentucky, Vandy, Alabama, Arkansas, LSU and Auburn.  Some tough teams in that list with very effective recruiting programs (Calipari's UK, obviously elite).  And Grant was POY 2X.  I can see, if I don't use 20/20 hindsight, why Danny thought a plum dropped into his lap.

Edwards was a 2nd round pick that got his contract because he was a total lights-out gunner in his summer league.  It was fools gold, but it sure looked like the real deal back then, didn't it?  If Danny f'd this up it was for giving him a multi-year guarantee instead of the multi-one year contracts, renewable at the team's option, that he offered Ojelaye.  That mistake locked Danny into Edwards' contract, and his roster spot, for too long.  Edwards has one more year on his guarantee, at $1.7M, and then it's a team option.  Danny has multiple TPEs.  He could trade Edwards as part of a package and throw in some TPE $ so that the receiving team can cut him without taking the financial hit, the 2022-23 team option obviously not being picked up.  Furthermore, by including Edward's salary, and also including TPE money to get the other team off the hook, that increases the total value the deal can have and that could land a better player with a bigger contract.  $1.7M contract + $1.7M TPE = $3.4M more salary from our side in the deal (GYSO, please sanity check these assumptions and conclusions.  Thanks).

Waters and Tacko are two-way players.  By definition you cannot F that up because they don't occupy a Celtic roster spot, don't impact the team's salary or salary cap and any other player you might offer the two-way contract to instead are being offered that because they aren't NBA-ready either.


Bob


.

Bob, This class is what we ended up with and being that they were not lottery picks I don’t consider any of them to be complete busts..yet. I agree with you about Williams and Langford.

The panel that i watched today really didn’t condemn any of those players in that draft. One of the Main topics outlined was that they are who they are and they make up a third of our roster and thats a big reason why we are where we are.
So it really comes down to Danny Ray and the front office. They’ve got work to do. They need to give Brad more to work with. I’m in full agreement with you that we need some vets and that the Day Care Center needs to be shut down. The team needs to stop thinking that they can duplicate the Patriots approach to signing free agent vets. Pats have won Super Bowls. They could afford to be picky and snub their nose. Funny how that changed this off season after a year of going 7-9. They went buck wild this off season re-stocking that football team didn't they?
C’s need to not only make an attempt at signing the Trevor Ariza’s of this league, they need to get it done.

Carson Edwards also went to Purdue, my son used to walk by the house he shared with a few players every day on his way to the campus. He was also lights out in the NCAA tourney that year, carrying that team. I don’t know why his outside shot has not translated at this level? Baffles me as he’s a good kid, has a surprising burst, maybe his shot will start to fall next year, but 30% is just not acceptable.