Revisiting Rebuild Ideas

[Moranis]

Yes, I’m drunk, but we gotta shake things up. We gotta move Tatum and/or Brown.

Why?

We've seen the Celts make reasonably deep playoff runs with those guys as core pieces.

Can you win a championship with Tatum and Brown as your best players?  Probably not?  We don't know yet. But it probably is a long shot.

Can you build a very good team with Tatum and Brown as the leading scorers?  Yes, I think that's obvious.


I don't think there's a trade out there involving Tatum or Brown that makes the team better right now.  Maybe you can swap Brown for somebody like Beal and it's an upgrade in the short term, but still doesn't change the team's ceiling much.  Long term that would be a downgrade in all likelihood.


If your perspective is, "Tatum and Brown aren't winning us a title, so we need to start over," then I can't get on board with that.  You haven't said that, so I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.  But if you aren't trying to make the team a lot better by trading Tatum or Brown -- and as I've just said, I don't think that's an option -- then the alternative is that you're trading them because you've decided they aren't winning you a title, so you need to basically reset and try to find a new young core player or two who maybe can lead you to a title someday.


To the extent that's at all on people's minds, I disagree with it.  Teams spend years and years rebuilding just to end up with two in-their-prime core scorers like Tatum and Brown.  The Celts can be very good and entertaining for a while with those guys leading the way.  I'm happy to watch a good and entertaining version of this team led by those guys, even if it's a long shot to win a title.  I'd rather do that instead of hitting reset and spending who knows how long searching or a new group of players to build around.

Considering that we were a title contender last year with Tatum and Brown as two of our best players as well as the fact that Kemba is returning to All-Star form, I don't see why we couldn't contend for titles going forward with the right coaching and supporting cast - we need our coach to find his mojo again/replace our current coach with a better one as well as add more rotation pieces to our roster.

Boston wasn't a title contender last year.  I know the team made the ECF, but that doesn't make the team a title contender.  Pho may have it best, Boston was a long shot at best.  Maybe some weird flukey thing happens and players get hurt on other teams opening the door for the 4th title team in history without a top 5ish player, but thinking Boston was or is a title contender, is what has led many on this board down this weird path of disgust and disappointment with the current season.  That leads people to make strange claims that the coach is the problem.  The simple reality is Boston just doesn't have enough good players and lacks the true top end talent a team needs to be a realistic contender.  Couple that with all of the covid and injury issues, and this team has arguably performed better than anyone should have expected when looking on the season in hindsight.  But this board had all of these super unrealistic expectations for these team, which has caused all of this super crazy overreaction.   

[PhoSita]

I think any team that finishes in the top 5-10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency has a chance to make a deep run and even win a title if lots of things go right (04 Pistons; 11 Mavs; 19 Raptors, etc).

Even if you're top 5 in both categories, if you don't have a clear cut MVP type player, you're probably still a long shot (e.g. Utah this season .... 2015 Hawks ... etc).

My point is that you really can't plan or aim to have that top 5 MVP type player.  Unless you're the Lakers or maybe one of the other glamor market teams.  It's just so difficult to actually end up with one of those guys that it's pretty much pointless to try do it.  I think the best you can do is try to put together a talented, cohesive team that can be elite on one end of the floor and very good to elite on the other end, and then hope to be lucky. 

Hope that your playoff matchups break just right.  Hope that some calls and crazy shots go in your favor.  Or plan to build a very good team and hope that one of the guys you thought was just a very good prospect turns into a league-leading superstar.

I suspect that neither Tatum nor Brown is ever going to be in that LeBron / Curry / Giannis etc tier. But we've already seen they can be your leading scorers on a deep playoff run.  We've seen Brad Stevens engineer elite defenses.  We've seen years where the Celts were a top 5 offense and top 5 defense (last season was such a year, although that was partly due to Hayward being healthy and on the team during the regular season). 

I don't think radical changes to the core formula (Tatum, Brown, Brad Stevens, elite defense) are needed in order for this team to be winning 50+ games and making deep playoff runs again. 

If you're title or bust, though, history says you're probably going to be disappointed until the Celts find their way to having a MVP type player on the roster again.  If you know a sure-fire way to get a guy like that, you'll be the first person to have figured it out.  Tanking is no guarantee. Free agency is no guarantee.  Trades are no guarantee.  Unless you're the Lakers.