Reflections on the draft and the early stages of free agency

I think its fair to say that the thus far, the draft and the early stages of free agency have been a bit of a disappointment. Personally, I don't blame Danny at all - he cannot make players sign here or insist GMs accept his trade offers. In fact, if the rumors are true about what Ainge offered for the 9th pick (or more accurately, for the chance to draft Winslowe), I am grateful that Jordan is so infatuated with a droopy eyed white guy whose ceiling might just be solid rotation player. I think that we have learned a couple of painful lessons here: 1) Danny's "treasure chest" of assets is not as appealing to other GMs as some members of the press have led us to believe; and 2) free agents don't see palying for the Celtics under Brad as the great opportunity we fans see it as. I know we all wanted fireworks, but maybe its just not going to come through the draft and/or free agency, and maybe they won't come right away. I just hope Danny doesn't panic and overpay for middling talent. The way I see it, teams are going to overpay this summer and next because of the impending humongous TV deal. Thus, everyone currently has cap space that they are willing to spend. I predict that alot of teams are going to regret overpaying mediocre players the next couple of years. I hope Danny has the patience to wait it out, cause 3 years down the line, there won't be many teams with cap space. I know its a long way away, but we aren't winning it in the next two years anyways. Although I said earlier that our assets might not be quite what they have been billed as, it only takes one major deal to get things going (think of the domino effect of getting Ray). I hope Danny and Brad don't panic and stay the course.

Another thing we've learned, is that Danny and Brad don't think we have a "core" in place. By drafting all those guards, and drafting Mickey and signing Amir, I don't think Danny and Brad think anyone is truly a "core" piece. Hence, they clearly decided to draft for talent vs need (regardless of what you or I think of Rozire, DA and BS think he is a talent, and I trust their judgement).

In summary, although we all got excited about the Celtics "progress" last year (okay, meaybe not all of us), in Danny and Brad's eyes, it seems that we are still in the infancy of our rebuild. Patience is the key, the assets and space will eventually pay off - it just takes one big move, and somebody will eventually bite...

I think you may be giving Ainge WAAAAYYYY to much credit.

I doubt he's playing chess while the other GM's play checkers . In fact one could make the argument its the other way around now.

The draft and the three signings (Johnson, Zerebko and Crowder) still do not solve the problem at the center position, but there is still time to find a better option to go along with Zeller via trade.

I have faith that Ainge will find us a center before the season starts so that we do not need to have Johnson, Sullinger, Olynyk or even Mickey spending much time at this position.

kdp59 wrote:I think you may be giving Ainge WAAAAYYYY to much credit.

I doubt he's playing chess while the other GM's play checkers . In fact one could make the argument its the other way around now.

That's what I'm afraid of, that we will fold too early, and end up giving max-type contracts to non-max-type players.... And it does worry me that so far, Ainge is the only GM trading established talent for middling/protected picks (note that I didn't say we should have kept the players in question, just that the trades might not have been as lopsided as we have been telling ourselves). Nonetheless, I think all those "assets" will eventually bring something back, its just that it might take more patience since they may not be the treasure trove every writer says they are. Also, I don't think Danny and Brad think we have any sort of genuine core to start building around. Drafting guards tells me that Smart is on the block; we can't keep them all, and MS is the only one with any real value.

I agree with Shamrock.

1.  You cannot force players to come here.

2.  You cannot force other GMs to trade.  The offer for Winslow is a great example.  I'm glad MJ has lost his mind and didn't go for that deal but the bottom line is that it was his decision to say 'no'. Crazy or not, Danny couldn't force his old golfing buddy to make a trade he didn't want to make.

3.  If Danny thought that draft picks were the NBA equivalent of bitcoins, it would appear he was wrong.  They are now starting to look like sweeteners and that's about it.  How sweet depends upon their draft position.  Our draft picks are mediocre and, hopefully, getting worse as we improve.  The Brooklyn picks, however, could be landscape changers.  Once again I call for patience, grasshoppers.  We have Brooklyn's first rounder this coming year and they look like crap.  Trading from #16 to #6 is hard.  Trading from #6 to #3 is a lot easier.  As we approach the trade deadline, and the NBA pecking order is starting to take shape where we will be picking with Brooklyn's pick will set its own value. If Brooklyn implodes Danny's phone will be ringing off the hook.

If the DeMarcus Cousins-George Karl experiment doesn't work, there might be an opportunity there IF we are not over the salary cap and if Brooklyn tanks.  We need to have patience and let both of those factors play out more.

Robin Lopez or Koufos might still be on Danny's radar he's just trying to do a sign-and-trade with Portland or trying to do a salary dump so he can clear cap space and just sign one of them straight up.  I'm going to go along with Sam's view that Danny is fully aware of how many players he has under contract, how many he's allowed to have and what the salary cap is and is likely to be in coming years.  Remember last year?  We had the same concern and suddenly "poof", players were gone.

Last year, Tyler Zeller was traded to Boston on July 10th.  Today is only July 2nd and free agent hunting season is less than 48 hours old.  And do you remember what that trade was?  Danny gave up a 2nd round pick and provided cap room to Cleveland so they could sign LeBron and got Zeller and Thornton in compensation.  Thornton turned into Isaiah Thomas.  Zeller and Thomas for a 2nd rounder.  That's phenomenal trading, with the "P" being silent, like in C-O-U-P.  We had no center before that trade, and we were a little freaked out by that.  Remember?  

When we signed Amir Johnson a lot of us asked, and are asking, the question "what does that mean about signing a center?"  When we heard Danny called Corey Brewer and was in the hunt for Tobias Harris we asked the question "what does that mean about Crowder?".  Well, as other teams sign free agents those questions will be asked about some of their players too and there is where future opportunities will reveal themselves.  


We have almost 3 months before camp opens.  3 months.  Danny can make a whole lotta phone calls in 3 months...


bob


.