A Question of Priorities

http://celticsgreen.blogspot.com/2013/09/sq1330a-question-of-priorities.html


SQ13#30—A Question of Priorities?
Monday, September 30, 2013
by Lee Lauderdale   2:00 AM


I admit to being a frustrated arm-chair GM.  Second to actually watching the Green play, my most obsessive thinking is conjuring up moves to strengthen the team.  Sometimes this is coach oriented like development of players, leveraging strengths, covering weaknesses, or complementary rotational pairings.  More often, especially in the off season and around the trade deadline or draft, it is all about structuring, restructuring, tweaking, leveraging, boosting, acquiring, upgrading, converting, and/or balancing assets and the roster.  It would probably be best described as trying to channel Danny Ainge; but in truth I think it is more of a vain attempt to Vulcan-mind-meld my thoughts into his consciousness.

This offseason (and I suspect most of the first half of the season) has, and will be, especially agonizing because after the huge transformational trade, there is little to be done until the dust settles. The current roster needs to “prove” itself into keepers and trade fodder.  The league needs to play itself into contenders (buyers), pretenders (delusional and desperate buyers), and tankers (sellers).  Individual teams (buyers—the more desperate and delusional, the better) need to lose key players creating a frenzied need for the Celtics larder of seasoned complementary assets.

Danny has made several small moves shedding enough payroll to squeeze under the Luxury Cap.  He has made one huge (small?, medium?, measured?, gambling?, shrewd?, silly?, indeterminate?) move bringing over a foreign big man whose background and experience is either promising (or discouraging), extensive (or limited), and impressive (or depressing)—depending upon the shade and degree of your green-tinted lenses.  And then a thundering silence.

Amid the massive anticipation generated by blowing up the aging status quo, there has been none of the avidly sought churning and roiling of the incoming and remaining pieces.  There has been no evening out the disparity of ten shooting guards and power forwards versus only five players to cover the PG, SF, and C positions.  None of the complementary role-playing veterans, brought in to extend the HOFers’ run, have been shed; none of the salary-fillers from the Nets’ trade have been flipped; and the blow-up has been followed by no sure-fire addition to build the core for the future.

Know what?
I’m good with that!

Outside the vitamin D deficient denizens of the Celtics’ windowless inner offices, I might have spent as much time as anyone alive poring over rosters, draft picks owed, second round picks unsigned, injury lists and expected returns, imbalanced rosters, disaffected stars, unappreciated rookies, and teams in turmoil.  Rather early on in all that time and effort, I realized that there were two absolute tenets by which to judge any potential moves.
One--any effects on the upcoming season were significant only in how they affected the team in 2015-16.
Two--since it was all about the future, any improvements for 2014-2915 had to portend even better developments for the years beyond.

Given these priorities, it seemed that there were very few attractive players.  Eliminate players over 28.  Pass on players who aren’t, or at least don’t have the potential to be, above average starters.  Avoid head cases who might poison a young, developing squad.  Skip over players unable or unwilling to embrace defense and place team goals over individual acclaim.

I was stunned to discover just how few players met these criteria.  Going two deep on the depth chart of every team in the league, I found it rare to have more than one “desirable” target—much less one not considered untouchable.  I found that what was really needed was to cherry-pick from the non-starters to find players who would be peaking as the Celtics climbed out of disarray; and to do that Ainge would need a combination of Boston’s assets at peak value and opponent’s needs at a urgent level.  The problem with this realization is that the needs had yet to emerge and that Ainge’s assets were generally, and individually, at a nadir.  If location is the key to real estate deals, surely timing is the critical facet of NBA trades.

The logical conclusion was that Danny needed to bite his tongue and bide his time, Steven needed to place Boston’s assets in the best position to regain/increase their value, and the natural and inevitable toll of the NBA’s rigorous schedule would create the demand for those assets.  Boring and frustrating August and September—check.  Productive and inventive training camp—we’ll see.  Asset value appreciation in November and December, I certainly hope so.  Strategic rather than tactical moves in January and February, I suspect so but perhaps not as many as I might like.  

Will the Celtics make the playoffs?  Not the point this year.  Playing hard is critical.  Improving is critical.  Success (other than enough to motivate the troops) is not only non-critical, it is almost immaterial.

Usually the role of the front office is to support and supply the coaching staff with assets to compete.  This year the situation is somewhat reversed.  The coach needs to groom the assets provided thus far in order to provide Ainge the chips to continue his stockpiling, conversions, and upgrades to rebuild this year and next.  We may take on more bad contracts to pluck those development plums from teams striving to compete now rather than tomorrow.  We might grow incrementally worse in order to become significantly better in the future.  Have patience, keep the faith, and hold on to the big picture.


bob
MY NOTE:  Mike D'Antoni was given control of a team whose roster wasn't good for his style of play.  That may be exactly what Brad Stevens is facing this year.  He has to work with what he has and hope Danny can do what he needs to do in a relatively short timeline.  Fortunately for Stevens, Danny is taking a longer view of this process than the Lakers have so far (Mike Brown, then D'Antoni, and now Rambis is warming up in the bullpen).  Danny isn't expecting to "win now", that's why he traded Pierce and KG and JET and went MUCH younger, while the Lakers went older with Nash and Jamison.  They wanted to squeeze one more championship out of Kobe's era.  Wasn't a bad idea, at the time.

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Those of us who have always appreciated role players should be in hog heaven this season. There is almost nothing except role players on the team. Perhaps Rondo could be a cut above, but he's really a role player who usually plays his role at a very high level. Jeff Green probably stands the best chance of trading the description of a role player for that of a major impact player. How will some of the other role players fare—guys like Olynyk and Sully? It'll be fun finding out.

Sam