Poll: Sully+Bradley three firsts for the #6 pick.

[cometboy]

I can't say I know what it would actually take to trade up to 6 or 3 in this draft. However, I can say with reasonable confidence it will take more, maybe much more, to trade for an established NBA star who isn't in a contract year and threatening to leave with no return for the team (e.g., Rondo, Love last year, etc.). If it will really take 3 firsts plus 2 players to get the 6th or 3rd pick, then I can't imagine what it will take to pry DeMarcus loose.

I don't really value non-lottery picks, especially ones in the 20's, as much as some others here. I also don't value a quantity of good players (like Sully) over fewer great players. Depth is really nice to have, but only after you have a very competitive starting 5. We don't have that yet. We have to start somewhere.

For a pick this year that I believe "could" become a star, whether the 3rd or the 6th, I start out offering our 16th and 28th this year (no brainer), and either Sully or Kelly. If I have to add another pick, I add our 2018 1st which should be in the high 20's (haha). If I have to add another player, I add Turner or Bass, but definitely not Bradley. If we DO acquire Love, then at least one of Sully and Kelly are expendable anyway.

Winslow on the wing with Love at PF is a pretty nice upgrade. We then just have to find our rim protector.

...and we still have plenty of future picks left, including the Nets picks, which are off limits for trade in my mind unless it's a blockbuster trade like DeMarcus.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

FB

[crimson_stallion]

Not in a million years, this proposal is insane.

Sully + Bradley + 3 first round picks is what I'd expect to be sending out if I'm trying to trade to a rebuilding team for a disgruntled all-star/superstar player.  For example if the Knicks decided to trade Carmelo.

The Timberwolves didn't even get that much talent in return for Kevin Love. 

For the record, the #6 drafted players from the past 20 years are:

Marcus Smart
Nerlens Noel
Damian Lillard
Jan Vesley
Ekpe Udoh
Jonny Flynn
Danilo Gallinari
Brandon Roy
Martel Webster
Josh Childress
Chris Kaman
Dajuan wagner
Shane Battier
DeMarr Johnson 
Wally Szcerbiak
Robert Traylor
Ron Mercer
Antoine Walker
Bryant Reeves
Sharone Wright

How many guys on that list would you, in hindsight, consider to be worth that type of trade?

I'd say:
Antoine Walker
Brandon Roy
Damian Lillard

Nerlens Noel is a 50/50 call but I'd lean towards no...and I'd be very surprised if any team would offer that much trade value in return for Marcus Smart.

So even if you include Noel on the list, that's 4 guys in the past 20 years who you could make that type of draft night trade for, and then walk away several years later feeling like it was a good trade.

4 out of 20 - that means if you make this trade, you have about a 20% probability (based on past history) of not severely regretting it later.

My concern is that if you look back in history you'll probably find just as many (3 or 4) good players being drafted at #8, or #10, or #12 or #15...and that is what (to me) makes this trade poor value since you could likely get the #8 or #10 pick for far less...and probably have the same chance of pulling a good player.

If I'm trading out this much in the way of assets then  I expect to be moving in to the top 3 - anything less and I would laugh at the GM offering.

[cometboy]

Not in a million years, this proposal is insane.

Sully + Bradley + 3 first round picks is what I'd expect to be sending out if I'm trying to trade to a rebuilding team for a disgruntled all-star/superstar player.  For example if the Knicks decided to trade Carmelo.

The Timberwolves didn't even get that much talent in return for Kevin Love. 

For the record, the #6 drafted players from the past 20 years are:

Marcus Smart
Nerlens Noel
Damian Lillard
Jan Vesley
Ekpe Udoh
Jonny Flynn
Danilo Gallinari
Brandon Roy
Martel Webster
Josh Childress
Chris Kaman
Dajuan wagner
Shane Battier
DeMarr Johnson 
Wally Szcerbiak
Robert Traylor
Ron Mercer
Antoine Walker
Bryant Reeves
Sharone Wright

How many guys on that list would you, in hindsight, consider to be worth that type of trade?

I'd say:
Antoine Walker
Brandon Roy
Damian Lillard

Nerlens Noel is a 50/50 call but I'd lean towards no...and I'd be very surprised if any team would offer that much trade value in return for Marcus Smart.

So even if you include Noel on the list, that's 4 guys in the past 20 years who you could make that type of draft night trade for, and then walk away several years later feeling like it was a good trade.

4 out of 20 - that means if you make this trade, you have about a 20% probability (based on past history) of not severely regretting it later.

As already discussed, you cannot just look at the 6th picks historically. You have to look at the players who were available for the 6th selection whether they were selected there or not. Players like Curry, Dirk, Paul, etc. change the conversation dramatically if you consider who was available at 6 in the past 20 years. This is especially true if you are going to through out percentages.

Also, citing Love last year is not relevant. He was in a contract year and prepared to walk for no return. Minny got a fantastic return considering the circumstances. I would compare it to Rondo this year. Everyone was upset at the return Danny got for Rondo. His blow up in Dallas aside, it was the best we could get for a player who would be a FA at the year's end anyway.

CB

[KG Living Legend]

That bleacher report article for the combine is so stupid Harrison Barnes not athletic have you ever seen the guy play guys ridiculously athletic and he proves it was almost a 40 inch vertical whoever. Wrote that article clearly doesn't watch basketball
 

[Celtics18]

Even more recent , would you have given up 16, 27, and a future late 1st for Giannis knowing what we know now about the players from that draft class?

Too many people fall into the mentality of the draft projections and expert big boards. Just because experts say there is a top 2 or top 3 in a draft doesnt mean they are right. Often enough they are not. There are many, many examples of guys projected, and taken, in the top 3 that sucked, and players projected and taken in the 4-10 range that were superstars. The bottom line is , the expert projections are just guesses, and I trust Ainge's scouting and evaluation more than NBAdraft.net and Draftexpress.

I totally agree with this statement.  People get so wrapped up in the mock draft boards that they start to believe they represent some kind of firm, objective standard for which players are the "most talented" and who will fare better as NBA players.

All it takes is a little studying of previous drafts to see that this is not the case.  While the draft isn't a complete crap shoot, it's much closer to being a roll of the dice than it is to being an exact science. 

I've always maintained that what a franchise does with a player--how he is developed, how he fits the organization, how he gets along with the coaches--and how hard that player works, how lucky he gets to find the right situation, how healthy he stays, what opportunities present themselves, etc . . . are all more important than where a player was drafted.

These are things that can't be known when Chad Ford presents his Big Board.

The franchise that a player goes to can make a huge difference.  I really believe that.

Where the franchise drafts determines who they get to select, and that matters, too.

Danny Ainge reportedly really liked Tyreke Evans and Harrison Barnes in those draft years.  What might the Celtics have done with those players?  Might they have turned into stars?  I'm sure there are plenty of similar examples.

I trust Danny, but I always like my GM to have the best assets available.  Higher draft picks are objectively better assets.

Sure.  That last part is true, I guess.  But, a draft pick isn't necessarily a better asset than a player who has proven he can be productive on the NBA level.

If you're saying would you trade the sixteenth pick for the eight pick (or even the fifteenth pick) straight up, then of course you would.  Once you start throwing in actual good NBA players, then it's a much different story. 

I don't feel confident, for example, that the sixth pick in this draft will necessarily end up being more productive than Jared Sullinger and Avery Bradley combined.

I don't know why anyone else would have that expectation unless it's because they get blinded by the excitement that accompanies the draft every year.

Sure, if you are blindly hoping to grab an all-star at #6 and base your pick on internet websites and draft hype, yeah, you will most likely fail. But, there is very likely at least one all-star in that range, and if you are paid to scout these players like Ainge and his team are, you should be able to identify who that is, and if he is worth trading some assets for.

Bradley was picked 19th, Sullinger 21st. Ainge got great value at those spots, but I'm sure was never envisioning these guys to be part of our championship core. Bradley's 'potential' label is all gone by now, he is what he is, which is ideally a 7th-8th guy on a good team who gets paid too much. Sullinger still has some potential but has weight and attitude issues, and domestic abuse history, and will also be up for a new contract soon. If you can package those two with a mediocre pick to get a player you scouted well and believe will be an all-star, it is a very easy decision.

This is where I disagree. I don't think that just because you have scouted these players, you should be or will be able to tell which ones will be all stars and which ones won't.  For a vast majority of these players, their futures as pros aren't already determined by the time they enter the NBA draft.  This is why the reality of how players actually turn out always ends up looking quite different than the mock drafts and the respective positions of the actual draft.

You can scout until you are blue in the face, but drafting nineteen and twenty year olds to be pro athletes at the highest level is always going to involve a fair amount of guesswork. 

[crimson_stallion]

As already discussed, you cannot just look at the 6th picks historically. You have to look at the players who were available for the 6th selection whether they were selected there or not. Players like Curry, Dirk, Paul, etc. change the conversation dramatically if you consider who was available at 6 in the past 20 years. This is especially true if you are going to through out percentages.

You absolutely can, those guys may have all been available at 6, but obviously the teams who drafted at 6 passed on those players because they thought other guys had more talent.

That's the problem with the lottery - not knowing which draft position you'll get isn't the only risk.  The other risk is not knowing how good any one of those players will become. 

We may look at the draft right now and say "that guy looks like a great pick at #6, he'll be a star".  But then that guy might end up a good bench player at best, while the guy the next team takes at #7 or #8 may end up that elite superstar we WISH we'd chosen.

The draft is a massive gamble.  Miami wanted to draft Darko Milicic in 03' because he was considered the safe choice - everybody believed that with his size and talent, he was going to be the third best player in the draft after Lebron and Melo.  But Darko was taken at #2 by Detroit and Melo got drafted #3 by Denver, so Riley was stuck in a very tough jam trying to pick between Dwyane Wade and Chris Kaman.  Apparently everybody in the business was telling him to pick Kaman (he looked more skilled to them, and they needed a big man) but Riley had a good feeling about Wade and drafted him on gut feeling.  In the end Wade was arguably the second best player in that draft behind Lebron, and Milicic became a complete bust - nobody expected that.

The same was true in the 2002 draft - many people expected Thomas Robinson to get drafted top 3 for his incredibly physical talent and perceived upside.  People thought he'd be a star.  He ended up going 5th and so far hasn't become anybody...while Lillard, Barnes and Drummond (who were all taken after him) have all been far superior players.

That's what happens in the draft.  There are ALWAYS guys who look like sure-fire stars who end up becoming bums...and there's always one or two guys who look like they won't work out, who end up becoming nice players. 

The top 3 or 4 positions are usually a strong bet, because there's usually 3 or 4 guys in the draft who are pretty low risk choices - but once you go past that top 4, you typically get stuck with a decision to make...do you go for the safe choice, or take a gamble on upside?  If you take a safe choice you often end up with a guy who ends up a solid starter, but who never becomes much more.  If you take the potential option you often end up with a bust who never really sees his potential.

So you can go off historic results because these are statistics, and statistics are what they are for a reason.  Look up the stats over the past 20 years for the #1, #2, #3 and #4 picks.  I'm sure you'll find the rate of success is significantly higher than 4/20.

Also, citing Love last year is not relevant. He was in a contract year and prepared to walk for no return. Minny got a fantastic return considering the circumstances. I would compare it to Rondo this year. Everyone was upset at the return Danny got for Rondo. His blow up in Dallas aside, it was the best we could get for a player who would be a FA at the year's end anyway.

Not really...the Wolves made it pretty clear that they had no interest in letting Love go for nothing.  It took the #1 pick in the draft (Wiggins - a guy who was being hailed as the next big star) and other assets to make the deal happen.  We were offering pretty solid assets from what I read, and the Wolves had little interest.

When we got KG, what did it take?  Al Jefferson (young talent, a little better than Sully), Ryan Gomes (nobody), Gerald Green (Nobody), Theo Ratliff (getting toward the end of his career), Sebastian Telfair (nobody), and two first round picks.  That's not really much more talent going out then Sully + Bradley + 3 firsts when you think about it, and KG was a former MVP and a top 3 player in the NBA at that time. KG in those days was the equivalent of a Lebron / Durant caliber player today - the type of guys most people think of as being untradable.

What about the Ray Allen trade?  Boston got Ray Allen in return for Delonte West, Wally Szcerbiak and a #5 pick (which became Jeff Green).  Ray Allen averaged 26 / 4.5 / 4 the year prior to that for the Sonics and was a bonafide superstar (coming off 10 straight seasons averaging > 20 PPG).  Ray Allen was James Harden / Steph Curry good in those days...while Delonte West and Wally Szcerbiak were (at best) on par with Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger in terms of talent.

Remember Jeff Green was averaging was a 27 year old with great size (6'9") and elite athleticism for the SF spot, and he was averaging just under 18 PPG when we traded him to Memphis.  He was on a decent contract too.  All we got in return for him was a single protected first round pick, and an over-the-hill Tayshaun Prince. Note also that about 15 out of the past 20 #6 picks never became as good as Jeff Green.

I think you're dramatically overvaluing their #6 pick, and dramatically undervaluing our assets.  Even a guy like Greg Monroe is not good enough to justify giving up that many assets, and he's a 24 year old putting up 16 and 10.  Greg Monroe is worth a lot more than a #6 pick - if Detroit offered him for our #6 last year, you can bet your cookies Ainge would have said yes in a heartbeat.

If I'm Danny I would expect a top 25 player in return for this kind of trade, at an absolute minimum.  If a team mentioned Jimmy Butler, Greg Monroe or Marc Gasol, then I will probably at least open my ears and see what they have to say.  Any less than that and I hang up the phone on the spot.   

[Celtics4ever]

And yet we starting winning after Green and Rondo left.

[PhoSita]

Once you start throwing in actual good NBA players, then it's a much different story. 

I don't feel confident, for example, that the sixth pick in this draft will necessarily end up being more productive than Jared Sullinger and Avery Bradley combined.

I don't know why anyone else would have that expectation unless it's because they get blinded by the excitement that accompanies the draft every year.

A couple of things:

(a) Much depends on how much confidence you have in your franchise to select the right players and develop those players effectively.  I would say Sullinger and Bradley -- useful NBA players selected past the middle of the 1st round -- stand as evidence of the Celtics' competence in that regard.

(b) The draft is, of course, a gamble.  No draft pick is ever a sure thing.  The uncertainty goes both ways, though.  Sullinger and Bradley are established commodities, which means they have a  reliable floor as well as a probable ceiling.  That's what makes high draft picks so valuable -- typically, the higher you select, the higher the ceiling for whatever guy you take. 

To get a high draft pick, you've got to give up a lot, whether it's current assets or a season of games that you actually would like to watch.  There's never a guarantee that it'll pay off in the form of a player you can build your team around. 

Still, that's the game you've got to play if you want to win.

[crimson_stallion]

Still, that's the game you've got to play if you want to win.

Not really...

You can avoid overpaying for moderate lottery picks and go after established stars instead.

It should not be difficult to get a guy like Monroe with this type of trade, and i don't know if there's a single #6 guy in the past 20 years who you could argue has been convincingly better than Monroe has been so far.  I'd consider Walker and Lillard to be about on par, and they are the two best players taken at #6 in the past two decades.

Just for the record, Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger are actually our two best players right now.  Trading your two best players plus 3 first round picks for a #6 pick is insanity.

[crimson_stallion]

And yet we starting winning after Green and Rondo left.

That's correct, but that doesn't change the fact that we practically gave Green away, and there are only probably 3-4 #6 picks from the past 20 years who have gone on to become as good as Green.

Think about that. 

According to history, having the #6 pick gives you about a 20% chance of signing a player who is at least on Jeff Green's level.

Those aren't very good odds.

[cometboy]

As already discussed, you cannot just look at the 6th picks historically. You have to look at the players who were available for the 6th selection whether they were selected there or not. Players like Curry, Dirk, Paul, etc. change the conversation dramatically if you consider who was available at 6 in the past 20 years. This is especially true if you are going to through out percentages.

You absolutely can, those guys may have all been available at 6, but obviously the teams who drafted at 6 passed on those players because they thought other guys had more talent.

That's the problem with the lottery - not knowing which draft position you'll get isn't the only risk.  The other risk is not knowing how good any one of those players will become. 

We may look at the draft right now and say "that guy looks like a great pick at #6, he'll be a star".  But then that guy might end up a good bench player at best, while the guy the next team takes at #7 or #8 may end up that elite superstar we WISH we'd chosen.

The draft is a massive gamble.  Miami wanted to draft Darko Milicic in 03' because he was considered the safe choice - everybody believed that with his size and talent, he was going to be the third best player in the draft after Lebron and Melo.  But Darko was taken at #2 by Detroit and Melo got drafted #3 by Denver, so Riley was stuck in a very tough jam trying to pick between Dwyane Wade and Chris Kaman.  Apparently everybody in the business was telling him to pick Kaman (he looked more skilled to them, and they needed a big man) but Riley had a good feeling about Wade and drafted him on gut feeling.  In the end Wade was arguably the second best player in that draft behind Lebron, and Milicic became a complete bust - nobody expected that.

The same was true in the 2002 draft - many people expected Thomas Robinson to get drafted top 3 for his incredibly physical talent and perceived upside.  People thought he'd be a star.  He ended up going 5th and so far hasn't become anybody...while Lillard, Barnes and Drummond (who were all taken after him) have all been far superior players.

That's what happens in the draft.  There are ALWAYS guys who look like sure-fire stars who end up becoming bums...and there's always one or two guys who look like they won't work out, who end up becoming nice players. 

The top 3 or 4 positions are usually a strong bet, because there's usually 3 or 4 guys in the draft who are pretty low risk choices - but once you go past that top 4, you typically get stuck with a decision to make...do you go for the safe choice, or take a gamble on upside?  If you take a safe choice you often end up with a guy who ends up a solid starter, but who never becomes much more.  If you take the potential option you often end up with a bust who never really sees his potential.

So you can go off historic results because these are statistics, and statistics are what they are for a reason.  Look up the stats over the past 20 years for the #1, #2, #3 and #4 picks.  I'm sure you'll find the rate of success is significantly higher than 4/20.

Also, citing Love last year is not relevant. He was in a contract year and prepared to walk for no return. Minny got a fantastic return considering the circumstances. I would compare it to Rondo this year. Everyone was upset at the return Danny got for Rondo. His blow up in Dallas aside, it was the best we could get for a player who would be a FA at the year's end anyway.

Not really...the Wolves made it pretty clear that they had no interest in letting Love go for nothing.  It took the #1 pick in the draft (Wiggins - a guy who was being hailed as the next big star) and other assets to make the deal happen.  We were offering pretty solid assets from what I read, and the Wolves had little interest.

When we got KG, what did it take?  Al Jefferson (young talent, a little better than Sully), Ryan Gomes (nobody), Gerald Green (Nobody), Theo Ratliff (getting toward the end of his career), Sebastian Telfair (nobody), and two first round picks.  That's not really much more talent going out then Sully + Bradley + 3 firsts when you think about it, and KG was a former MVP and a top 3 player in the NBA at that time. KG in those days was the equivalent of a Lebron / Durant caliber player today - the type of guys most people think of as being untradable.

What about the Ray Allen trade?  Boston got Ray Allen in return for Delonte West, Wally Szcerbiak and a #5 pick (which became Jeff Green).  Ray Allen averaged 26 / 4.5 / 4 the year prior to that for the Sonics and was a bonafide superstar (coming off 10 straight seasons averaging > 20 PPG).  Ray Allen was James Harden / Steph Curry good in those days...while Delonte West and Wally Szcerbiak were (at best) on par with Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger in terms of talent.

Remember Jeff Green was averaging was a 27 year old with great size (6'9") and elite athleticism for the SF spot, and he was averaging just under 18 PPG when we traded him to Memphis.  He was on a decent contract too.  All we got in return for him was a single protected first round pick, and an over-the-hill Tayshaun Prince. Note also that about 15 out of the past 20 #6 picks never became as good as Jeff Green.

I think you're dramatically overvaluing their #6 pick, and dramatically undervaluing our assets.  Even a guy like Greg Monroe is not good enough to justify giving up that many assets, and he's a 24 year old putting up 16 and 10.  Greg Monroe is worth a lot more than a #6 pick - if Detroit offered him for our #6 last year, you can bet your cookies Ainge would have said yes in a heartbeat.

If I'm Danny I would expect a top 25 player in return for this kind of trade, at an absolute minimum.  If a team mentioned Jimmy Butler, Greg Monroe or Marc Gasol, then I will probably at least open my ears and see what they have to say.  Any less than that and I hang up the phone on the spot.

Crimson -

I actually have very little disagreement with your argument. A few weeks ago, I compiled the lottery picks for the past 15 years in a spreadsheet. I was expecting to see that there wasn't that much advantage to the top 3 picks. I found just the opposite. The top 3 picks over the past 15 years had about a 40% chance of landing a star, almost 50% if you include Embiid and Jabari, which of course would be premature. That drops to under 10% for picks 4 through 15, and well under that outside the lottery. I was mostly objecting to the idea that the history of 6th picks alone is a measure of something significant. it is not. We can't say that Danny would have selected Curry if he had the 2009 6th pick, but he might have and traded Rondo. You just cannot dismiss the possibility. I said it before and I'll say it again. You cannot hold Danny accountable for the mistakes of other GMs, only his own.

Drafting is indeed a casino. That's why I don't value the late draft picks so much. However, a high pick has a much greater chance of success. Therefore, we should go for it. This is exactly why Danny has been collecting all these draft picks, to move them for a better draft position or an established star.

Regarding Love, I disagree with you. It was a fortuitous sequence of events that brought both LeBron and the 1st pick to Cleveland. LeBron wanted Love and called the shots. Love could have waited until the end of year and walked for nothing in return. He was highly valued enough that teams vied for his services even if it might be for only a year. Without LeBron and the 1st pick, Love does not end up in Cleveland and Minny gets fare less for him, although I doubt he would have ended up in Boston.

CB

[PhoSita]

Just for the record, Avery Bradley and Jared Sullinger are actually our two best players right now.  Trading your two best players plus 3 first round picks for a #6 pick is insanity.

Oh, I absolutely agree with that.  The package described in the original post is way too much for anything short of a top 3 or 4 pick, while also being too little for a team with a pick in that range to seriously consider it.

Actually signing a proven player with star talent is preferable, for sure, but you have to choose carefully because such players require a lot of cap space.  Plus, they have to actually want to sign here, which is no guarantee.

The Celts won't necessarily have the luxury of signing or trading for an established star.  I think they're going to have to get a least a couple of their core guys via the draft.  Perhaps Marcus Smart is already one of those guys.

[Celtics18]

Once you start throwing in actual good NBA players, then it's a much different story. 

I don't feel confident, for example, that the sixth pick in this draft will necessarily end up being more productive than Jared Sullinger and Avery Bradley combined.

I don't know why anyone else would have that expectation unless it's because they get blinded by the excitement that accompanies the draft every year.

A couple of things:

(a) Much depends on how much confidence you have in your franchise to select the right players and develop those players effectively.  I would say Sullinger and Bradley -- useful NBA players selected past the middle of the 1st round -- stand as evidence of the Celtics' competence in that regard.

(b) The draft is, of course, a gamble.  No draft pick is ever a sure thing.  The uncertainty goes both ways, though.  Sullinger and Bradley are established commodities, which means they have a  reliable floor as well as a probable ceiling. That's what makes high draft picks so valuable -- typically, the higher you select, the higher the ceiling for whatever guy you take.

To get a high draft pick, you've got to give up a lot, whether it's current assets or a season of games that you actually would like to watch.  There's never a guarantee that it'll pay off in the form of a player you can build your team around. 

Still, that's the game you've got to play if you want to win.

I don't think we can say for sure, though, that players like Sullinger and Bradley are at their ceilings yet.  Sure, I think we know that neither will be a bona fide superstar, but there is still room for growth.

Also, I'm still not sure I agree entirely with the bolded part.  I think that generally once you get past the first couple of picks, there isn't really that much difference in "ceilings" between a lot of the guys drafted.

I look, for example, at guys like Hezonja, Winslow, Johnson, and Porzingis, and say, "eh, those guys may be nice players.  You may get an all star game or two out of one or two of them.  But, bona fide superstar is an unlikely outcome."

I would say the same for guys projected late lottery to just outside the lottery like Portis, Dekker, Looney, Kaminsky, Hunter, or Grant.

Based on history, it's likely that one or two of the players in the latter category will outperform one or two of the guys in the former as pros. 

[konkmv]

Fullish idea