The Celtics tried and failed to trade up for Kelly Oubre, per report

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2015/8/20/9183189/celtics-draft-trade-kelly-oubre

The Celtics tried to trade up to draft Kelly Oubre but couldn't work out a deal, according to Sporting News' Sean Deveney. This latest report only seems to confirm the terrible, terrible draft night the Celtics had.

Danny Ainge reportedly tried to move up to the top 10. He came closest to pulling it off when he offered the Hornets a package of six draft picks in exchange for moving up to the No. 9 slot to select Duke's Justise Winslow, but Charlotte decided against it. Once he failed to do that, we now know that he tried to nab another wing in Oubre, to no avail. In the end, Boston settled for Louisville's Terry Rozier, contributing to a massive logjam at point guard.

The Celtics are finding it hard to turn their assets into the players they want. They can offer multiple picks, but other teams still rebuff them because those picks aren't that good.

Boston had two first-round picks in the past draft but both were outside the lottery. Next year they could have five first-round picks but it's very unlikely any of those land in the top 10. The best of the bunch is expected to be the Nets' pick, but Brooklyn made the playoffs last season and is returning most of its core players.

The players on the Celtics' roster are similarly good-not-great. Avery Bradley, Isaiah Thomas and Amir Johnson are nice veterans but none can really be the centerpiece of a trade for a star. Neither can Rozier, Marcus Smart, Tyler Zeller or Kelly Olynyk, for that matter. Unless someone asks to be traded to Boston specifically, the Celtics might have a hard time putting a good enough package together to land a franchise cornerstone player.

Of course, everything can change quickly. Someone already on the roster could emerge as a true game-changer, or one of the picks could unexpectedly become more valuable a year from now than it looked this offseason. On the next draft night, the Celtics will certainly have ammo at their disposal to make something happen. For the sake of their rebuild, they need a run of good luck.

Looks like our "treasure "trove of assets" isn't being recognized by the rest of the league. Still, it just takes one move - hope Danny remains patient and waits for the right deal (kind of glad this and the other draft night deal we heard about fell through

Oubre was my pick on draft day, and there were reports he could fall to 16.

But getting Hunter at 28 is decent consolation. BBIQ and intangibles, Hunter has Oubre beat.

Calling the Celts draft night terrible, terrible ignores the value of Hunter and Mickey and belittles the potential of Rozier.

W,

I had exactly the same reaction. Making rash statements or predictions without evidence is very ill-advised. My dislike of predictions has never been about anyone's right to make them. It has been concerns for the credibility of the predictor if s/he becomes associated with inaccurate predictions.

Sam

Only time will tell if this draft was terrible for the Celtics, but it definitely did show everyone that the pile of draft picks that they have at their disposal is not even closely regarded as "great" by the rest of the league.

Not that all of these future picks will turn into wasted and worthless ones, but it may be that not many of them actually turn into quality NBA players.  And, most certainly, very few of them will wear Celtics green because as the team continues to improve the draft order of the team's own picks will be lower and lower each year.

The picks Danny made this year were designed to fit into the Celtics needs and scheme. They may not be the best players available as individuals, but i do think they'll improve this team better than others that were on the board. Danny thinks team, an old Celtics guiding concept. We shall see this works out.

yep they used to say it takes thee years to know how your drafted players will fare in the NBA.

I still try to wait until then to call someone a bust (see Young).

though I must admit when I was watching and they said with the 16th pick the Boston Celtics selected Terry Rozier I was shocked. It seemed (and probably was) a reach and PG was not a position of need.
personally as the draft was going to that point I wanted Bobby Portis with that pick. I'll watch in three years how those two compare to each other.

Hunter was solid pick to me and I thought Mickey would go late in the first, so I was pleased Ainge snagged him at #33 also.

I'm hoping Rozier will turn into a quality PG much like Rondo did as a late pick. Yep. 3 years for the cake to bake.

wide clyde wrote:Only time will tell if this draft was terrible for the Celtics, but it definitely did show everyone that the pile of draft picks that they have at their disposal is not even closely regarded as "great" by the rest of the league.

Not that all of these future picks will turn into wasted and worthless ones, but it may be that not many of them actually turn into quality NBA players.  And, most certainly, very few of them will wear Celtics green because as the team continues to improve the draft order of the team's own picks will be lower and lower each year.

All future draft picks have minimal value on draft night. Teams have fallen in love with "their guy(s)" by draft night, and if causes them to be over-emotional about "their guy".

It doesn't mean the picks don't have a ton of value.

Watch, on draft night and the week leading up to it next year, at least one of our picks is going to draw the infatuation of multiple teams, who are willing to make Ricky Williams trade offers like Danny did this year.

And within about 3 months from now, it will probably be clear that Rozier is a better player and prospect than #2 pick D'Angelo Russell, who simply doesn't have the quickness/athleticism/strength to take advantage of his overrated passing and shooting skills.

And Danny offering a huge trade offer to move up in the draft doesn't mean that Rozier, Hunter, and Mickey won't be really valuable players.

One thing that seems pretty clear is that unlike the NFL, it is difficult (impossible??) to package picks to move up significantly in the NBA draft. I kind of suspected this to be true, and was surprised that journalists who should know better said otherwise. All that being said, I think the real value of Danny's picks will be in trades for actual NBA players (not moving up in any draft). We have seen that pretty good players can be obtained for middle-to-low first round picks (JG and Rondo for example, though in both these cases, its Danny taking back picks for established talent). We have also seen that great players can be obtained for good draft picks (Ray Allen for our 5). It may be that Danny starts to use some of these picks to get good-but-not-great players whom Brad wants in his system. Maybe he packages them for a disgruntled star, or to a team who's star let them know he won't be resigning. Either scenario works for me. Like I said in my first post, I'm actually glad Danny wasn't able to pull off the rumored draft day trades. Judging from his comments, sounds like Danny is kind of relieved those deals fell through also (but I suppose what else is he going to say...). Here's hoping Danny stays patient. As we have seen, it just takes one great move to start the dominoes falling...

I suspect Danny will even be able to build a contender just using his draft picks.

Brooklyn was already borderline tanking, and then they brought in Tank General Bargnani.

Great wings can be drafted anywhere in the lottery. See Kelly Oubre drafted 15th this year, or Winslow drafted 10th.

As far as bigs, Myles Turner got drafted 11th this year, and Nurkic went #17 last year.

I feel like with more growth, we're really only one or two borderline stars away from being a contender. One at SF, and one at C or PF.

And we have lots of picks to get lucky, like we did with Hunter and Mickey.