More details emerge in report of Boston's draft night pursuit of Justise Winslow

http://www.masslive.com/celtics/index.ssf/2015/07/boston_celtics_rumors_2015_mor.html#incart_story_package



Boston Celtics rumors 2015: More details emerge in report of Boston's draft night pursuit of Justise Winslow






Miami Heat's Justise Winslow (20) moves the ball against the Los Angeles Clippers during the first half of an NBA summer league basketball game, Wednesday, July 8, 2015, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Print Email Jay King | mjking@masslive.com By Jay King | mjking@masslive.com


on July 28, 2015 at 11:00 AM, updated July 28, 2015 at 11:06 AM





Shortly after the draft, it was known the Celtics made a strong push for Winslow, offering four first-round picks to the Charlotte Hornets for the No. 9 pick. Tuesday, Grantland's Zach Lowe reported further specifics.

According to Lowe, the Celtics offered their No. 16 pick, Atlanta's No. 15 pick (which would have been acquired in "a prearranged contingency deal" with the Hawks), one future unprotected first-rounder from the Brooklyn Nets, and a future first-round pick from either Minnesota or Memphis. Boston owns Minnesota's first-round pick in 2016, which turns into two second-rounders (2016 and 2017) if it lands anywhere in the top-12, and Memphis' first-round pick in 2018, which has a bit of protection until 2021.

A few thoughts:

1. Wow. That's a large offer to move up seven spots into the late lottery. As Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said on draft night, "Maybe we were going too hard at it. There was a time when I thought, 'Whoa, this is getting a little out of control.' We're putting a lot of eggs in one young player's basket. So I'm not frustrated. In the long run, maybe it'll be (for) the best."

Especially given how valuable the unprotected picks from Brooklyn could be, Winslow would have needed to be really good to justify a move like that. The Celtics were stunned not only that the Hornets chose to keep their pick, but that they opted to do so in order to take Frank Kaminsky. On 98.5 The Sports Hub the next day, Ainge said, "Without mentioning names, there are some players that were drafted at certain spots (by teams) that turned down lots of draft picks that I just don't think was smart on their part."

2. It would be neat to know what the Celtics would have surrendered for Atlanta's No. 15 pick. Maybe a player, maybe another package of picks. Either way, it's another wrinkle to the trade proposal.

3. This sentence from Lowe is incredible: "Taken together, Charlotte has rejected a total of six first-round picks over two drafts to select Kaminsky and (2014 lottery pick Noah) Vonleh."

Vonleh was moved this summer as part of the Nicolas Batum trade. If Kaminsky doesn't pan out, the Hornets front office could look really bad. And if Winslow doesn't pan out, the Celtics front office will know it was really lucky.



bob
MY NOTE:  It's amazing how one can go from being one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA to one of the worst GMs in the history of the NBA.  The only thing that is saving him from being fleeced constantly is his arrogance and ego that won't let him accept the fact that he's not good at his job.


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rambone wrote:

worcester wrote:Danny has a blind spot when it comes to drafting bigs. He prefers perimeter players.

6'11" shot blocker with 3 point range and promising post game? Gimme the 6'4 small forward with the shaky ball handling and jump shot. I'll give you everything.

rambone,

I didn't understand this post.


bob


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rambone wrote:

bobheckler wrote:

rambone wrote:

worcester wrote:Danny has a blind spot when it comes to drafting bigs. He prefers perimeter players.

6'11" shot blocker with 3 point range and promising post game? Gimme the 6'4 small forward with the shaky ball handling and jump shot. I'll give you everything.

rambone,

I didn't understand this post.


bob


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that's understandable. it was a sarcastic impression of Ainge, who I generally support 99% of the time.

rambone,

I must be getting old. Sarcasm is rarely wasted on me. :-)


bob


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wide clyde wrote:This thread kind of rips Ainge, but he does make me question why he seems to trade for guys a lot better than he seems to draft players.  

Just about every trade has been positive in some way for the Celtics while almost every draft pick has been a question.

clyde,

The quality of your drafting is contingent upon where you draft and who the teams ahead of you in the draft pick.  Would LAL have taken Russell if Minny hadn't taken Towns?  I doubt it, and that's just the difference between picking first and second.  The more teams that pick in front of you the significantly more hard it gets.

In the case of the Boston Celtics, how many high picks have we had?

2014 - Marcus Smart, #6
2007 - Jeff Green, #5 (pick going directly to Seattle as part of the Ray Allen trade, so he got picked because they wanted him)
2006 - Randy Foye, #7 (draft day trade to Portland in exchange for pieces that went to Minny in 2007 for KG)

Those are the only lottery picks the Celtics have had in the Ainge-era (he did upgrade a non-lottery #16 pick to the #13 pick and took Kelly Olynyk).  If the draft and college scouting are worth a damn then how can you fault a GM, any GM, for not drafting a high-impact player when they only pick in the top half of the draft 3 times in almost 12 years, 4 years if you include a trade-up?  

Prior to Danny's hiring as GM, here are the lottery picks by the Celtics.  Keep in mind, Red Auerbach was involved in the selection of every one of these:

2001 - Kedrick Brown, #11
2000 - Jerome Moiso, #11
1998 - Paul Pierce, #10
1997 - Chauncey Billups, #3
1997 - Ron Mercer, #6
1996 - Antoine Walker, #6
1995 - Eric Williams, #14
1989 - Michael Smith, #13
1986 - Len Bias, #2

Then there are none until you get to 1980 and Kevin McHale.

In the 23 years from 1981 to 2003, when Danny came on, we had 9 lottery picks.  Pierce was a winner, obviously, and maybe Len Bias (sadly, nobody ever got to find out), Billups went on to be a helluva player but he wasn't with us.  That means at least 5 busts out of 9, 6 if you don't like 'Toine.  That's with Red making the calls.  Danny has had 3 in 11 years, a smaller percentage than Red, and he turned one of them into Ray Allen and the parts from the trade of the other into KG.  Al Jefferson, the centerpiece of the KG trade, was a #15 pick by Danny.

Danny's a helluva trader, we all know that, but he has used his draft picks quite, quite well too considering most of them aren't expected to produce all-stars.


bob


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http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2015/7/28/9058035/charlotte-hornets-frank-kaminsky-trade-celtics



Hornets executives explain why they wouldn't trade Frank Kaminsky for 4 1st-round picks
By Jason Patt  @Bulls_Jay on Jul 28, 2015, 12:24p 67


Hornets vice chairman Curtis Polk said the team didn't think they would get much value out of the future picks the Celtics were offering.


The Charlotte Hornets took Frank Kaminsky with the No. 9 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, but it soon was reported that the Boston Celtics made a huge trade offer in an attempt to trade up for Justise Winslow, who wound up going No. 10 to the Miami Heat. Grantland's Zach Lowe has more details on the Celtics' trade proposal, which included four first-round picks and possibly a second-rounder or two.

Boston offered their own No. 16 pick, the No. 15 pick from the Atlanta Hawks that was acquired in a "prearranged contingency deal," an unprotected future selection from the Brooklyn Nets and their choice of a future first-rounder from either the Memphis Grizzlies or Minnesota Timberwolves, according to Lowe. There's some dispute about whether additional second-round picks were also involved.

Celtics president Danny Ainge admitted after the draft that the offer was probably too much, but it still wasn't enough to convince Charlotte to pull the trigger. The Hornets preferred Kaminsky over a bunch of picks.

Hornets vice chairman Curtis Polk explained the reasoning behind not making the deal to Grantland:

"You have two minutes to decide: ‘Do I want to do this trade?'" says Polk, one of five men atop Charlotte's decision tree. "You don't have a day. You don't have hours. After all the intelligence we'd done, we were comfortable with Frank. But now you have two minutes to decide if you make this trade, who you're gonna take at No. 16, or maybe No. 20, and we haven't been focusing on that range. In fantasy basketball, it sounds great: ‘Oh my God, they could have gotten all those picks.' But in the real world, I'm not sure it makes us better."

Polk also argued that having those extra picks created a roster crunch after acquiring Nicolas Batum, Spencer Hawes and Jeremy Lamb in trades. "Even if someone wants to give me first-round picks, what am I going to do with them?" he said.

It's worth noting that the Hornets also turned down two first-round picks from the Chicago Bulls in the 2014 NBA Draft in order to stay at No. 9 and take Noah Vonleh, who was sent to Portland for Batum a year later. So, this is the second time in two years Charlotte has turned down an offer of multiple first-rounders in order to stay at No. 9.

There's some logic in Polk's thinking that having too many mid-to-late first-rounders isn't ideal, but the way he articulates the point doesn't make sense. He implies that the team didn't do its homework on the latter part of the draft, which is an indictment on the scouting department. A strong front office would find a way to make good use of those assets rather than throwing its hands in the air and essentially saying "what am I going to do with all these picks?"

The Hornets must hope Kaminsky turns out better than the skeptics believe and that Batum stays in free agency next summer. Batum's camp is already sending signals that he'd like to sign with Toronto next summer, per Lowe. (Batum denied the report). If Charlotte disappoints next season, it's not hard to see him bolting. If Batum leaves after one year and Kaminsky doesn't pan out, the Hornets are left with a lot of egg on their faces.

That's a worst-case scenario, but the best-case scenario is ... what, exactly? If Batum sticks on a big new contract and the youngsters develop nicely, perhaps Charlotte can sneak into the top half of the Eastern Conference. However, even that puts the Hornets a piece away from legitimate contention. The Hornets, like many teams stuck in the middle, will need some good strokes of luck to make that leap.

Charlotte can still make that leap with the path it's taken, but that's more difficult without those extra first-round picks at its disposal to swing a bigger move.



bob
MY NOTE:  My takeaway from this article is that the Hornets' management and scouting department are very linear.  They have the #9 pick?  They scout who is projected to be available around that pick.  They don't think about "what ifs?", they don't think "are there guys further down that I like but aren't worth a #9 on, or I'd like two of them but I only have one pick to work with?".  You can like Danny's choices, you can think he's a lousy drafter but the amount of homework they put into the draft is immense.  I ran a thread that provided an ongoing tally of every player that came through Waltham for a tryout.  There were over 50 players.  Granted, we had a lot of picks so that's a lot of bracketing you need to research but still Danny and Brad knew the value of most of the players in the draft before draft night and if someone made him an offer he could judge the relative value of it.  As you read in this piece, the Hornets' Vice Chairman felt that 2 minutes wasn't enough time to make a decision (actually, the first round gives you 5 minutes, not 2) and that wasn't enough.  It would be, if you did your homework like Danny's team did but, because you didn't, you froze like a deer in headlights.


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worcester wrote:2 minutes is the average amount of time an American male engages in intercourse, thus the demand for more foreplay from the distaff side. Polk (Poke) seems to be reflecting some 2 minute coital anxiety.

Worcester,

Are you saying he was afraid of getting screwed by Danny?

Adroitly put, and probably wise of him.


bob


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