Not our time?

[PhoSita]

I need somebody to explain to me how the Celts can meaningfully upgrade this roster without having to use picks to dump Kemba or trade away Smart sometime in the next 12 months.

If it's not really doable, then I'm becoming kind of fatalistic about the Celts basically being entrenched as a second tier team.

They can still be a lot of fun and very good.  But also probably a clear step below the top 5-6 teams in the league, at least for the near future.

I think the only way out of this is probably for one of these mid to late 1st round draft picks to very quickly turn into a surprise contributor.  Not just a Payton Pritchard-type decent bench role player.  I mean an above average starter / borderline All-Star, a la Siakam or Adebayo.

Call me crazy but I think rob williams has a shot

He's an exciting talent.  Things that temper my enthusiasm with Rob are that he seems to have some physical issues that put a hard ceiling on how many minutes he can play / how much of a workload he can have, and also the fact that he's a non-shooting center in a league that increasingly limits the value of that kind of player.

[footey]

I need somebody to explain to me how the Celts can meaningfully upgrade this roster without having to use picks to dump Kemba or trade away Smart sometime in the next 12 months.

If it's not really doable, then I'm becoming kind of fatalistic about the Celts basically being entrenched as a second tier team.

They can still be a lot of fun and very good.  But also probably a clear step below the top 5-6 teams in the league, at least for the near future.

I think the only way out of this is probably for one of these mid to late 1st round draft picks to very quickly turn into a surprise contributor.  Not just a Payton Pritchard-type decent bench role player.  I mean an above average starter / borderline All-Star, a la Siakam or Adebayo.

Call me crazy but I think rob williams has a shot

He's an exciting talent.  Things that temper my enthusiasm with Rob are that he seems to have some physical issues that put a hard ceiling on how many minutes he can play / how much of a workload he can have, and also the fact that he's a non-shooting center in a league that increasingly limits the value of that kind of player.

I love Rob with the best of them, but we have to acknowledge his limitations on the offensive end. He can't drive to the hoop, or shoot from range.  I'm skeptical that he will ever develop much in those areas. He is every bit the equal of Bam as an athlete, but is a far cry from Bam in terms of taking ball handling. 

[gouki88]

I need somebody to explain to me how the Celts can meaningfully upgrade this roster without having to use picks to dump Kemba or trade away Smart sometime in the next 12 months.

If it's not really doable, then I'm becoming kind of fatalistic about the Celts basically being entrenched as a second tier team.

They can still be a lot of fun and very good.  But also probably a clear step below the top 5-6 teams in the league, at least for the near future.

I think the only way out of this is probably for one of these mid to late 1st round draft picks to very quickly turn into a surprise contributor.  Not just a Payton Pritchard-type decent bench role player.  I mean an above average starter / borderline All-Star, a la Siakam or Adebayo.

Call me crazy but I think rob williams has a shot

He's an exciting talent.  Things that temper my enthusiasm with Rob are that he seems to have some physical issues that put a hard ceiling on how many minutes he can play / how much of a workload he can have, and also the fact that he's a non-shooting center in a league that increasingly limits the value of that kind of player.

I love Rob with the best of them, but we have to acknowledge his limitations on the offensive end. He can't drive to the hoop, or shoot from range.  I'm skeptical that he will ever develop much in those areas. He is every bit the equal of Bam as an athlete, but is a far cry from Bam in terms of taking ball handling.

He possesses significantly more verticality than Bam. Hence his career 70+ field goal %. There are many valuable big men with no range on offence, based on defence and rebounding. Much like Timelord. I’m not saying he’ll be Gobert, but I don’t know if there’s a cap on his potential as a defensive anchor type besides his health

[PhoSita]

Yeah, I mean -- if Rob could play 36 minutes a night, in theory he would average something like 15 points, 12 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 3 blocks, and 2 steals, on 70% True Shooting.


I assume it wouldn't be nearly that fantastic, but even if he was a few shades less brilliant than that, he'd probably look a lot like, say, Clint Capela, if he were able to play full minutes.  Capela is a valuable player, but nowhere close to being a star.

Of course, there's a huge difference between playing 16 minutes a game and playing 30-32 minutes a game.  Availability is a huge issue, too.  Rob has only been available for 30 games so far this season, after averaging about 30 games his first two seasons.

[Csfan1984]

It won't ever be the time if DA doesn't make any good moves. He will probably be downgrading talent again this offseason.

What move though? The Celts have very little room to work with under the tax. If they add a big name it basically means using picks to dump Kemba (picks you would need to trade for the big name) or dumping Marcus Smart (counter productive in a major way).

The Celts are kinda stuck hoping that Tatum and Brown will continue to get better while also hoping Kemba is going to be able to give them good production more often than not.

He could go hard and shake things up if the team isn't fitting. I'd go hard using picks to get equal talent that could possibly fit better, like what Morey did this past off season for 76ers. Something like

Brown, Kemba, Theis and 3 first
for
KAT, Russell, and Layman.


Does the team look better with starters of
Smart, Russell, JT, TL, KAT
vs
Kemba, Smart, JB, JT, Theis

[PhoSita]

Ick, I'm not convinced that D'Lo or Towns have any clear idea how to help a team win games, at this point.

Towns is a great talent and may get there someday.  Indeed, he seems destined to end up looking like Chris Bosh or Pau Gasol did once they were teamed up with a dominant shot creator. 

I think if our best player were an all-world guard like Harden or Lillard, I would be open to the idea of putting everything in for Towns.  But I'm not sure Towns is the ideal player to put next to Tatum.

[Celtics2021]

I think it’s not our season.  Replacing Gordon Hayward with Tristan Thompson has not gone well (which really shouldn’t surprise anyone) and while the ultimate goal is to replace Hayward with someone acquired via the trade exception, that might not happen until this summer.

Ainge needs to figure out whether he has the assets to get the player he wants, and if that player can fit into the exception in the offseason.  If he doesn’t (as Beal doesn’t), he should try to get whatever he can for Kemba now, using the TPE to take back salary and getting a new TPE for Kemba, one large enough for most every player to fit into.  I personally think the Bulls would offer first round compensation — he’d be a good fit for a team that might want to make a postseason push as it develops its young players and builds around Levine.  Otto Porter’s salary alone is enough to take Kemba, and Porter fits perfectly into the TPE.

[Csfan1984]

Ick, I'm not convinced that D'Lo or Towns have any clear idea how to help a team win games, at this point.

Towns is a great talent and may get there someday.  Indeed, he seems destined to end up looking like Chris Bosh or Pau Gasol did once they were teamed up with a dominant shot creator. 

I think if our best player were an all-world guard like Harden or Lillard, I would be open to the idea of putting everything in for Towns.  But I'm not sure Towns is the ideal player to put next to Tatum.

The point in being able to get them is that they are not perfect on their own. If they were all world they would not be available even for the package I mentioned.

Russell has more length than Kemba and can play either guard spot. KAT is a elite big. By having Smart and TL you get their defensive relief in the starters. Add in Tatum as the main star + scoring leader and I feel much better about that starting five and what they can bring nightly vs what we currently have. Clearly Kemba, Brown and Tatum isn't working.

[flybono]

Everyone is SO CONCERNED that Jayson and Jaylen are going to GET MAD if we don't get better soon.  Tough cookies. They are under long term contracts.  If they are really frustrated about losing so much, play better. Make your teammates better. If they are as great as we all seem to think, then starting acting great. If they make trade demands, deal with it.

This isn't how the NBA works these days.  If young stars get frustrated and feel their team isn't putting adequate talent around them to succeed, they are going to start working behind the scenes to engineer their next move to a team that either does put talent around them, or that hordes a bunch of cap space so they and a couple of their friends can join all at once.


When will Nesmith, Langford, etc become useful players?  When will they hit their prime?  Two, three, four years from now?  By then the Celts will have just a year or two to truly compete before Brown and Tatum are halfway out the door.

You nailed it!

I’m tired of the excuses in this board and from Ainge
Build a Team
Quit using other teams being better than your team as an excuse not to get better

[gouki88]

Ick, I'm not convinced that D'Lo or Towns have any clear idea how to help a team win games, at this point.

Towns is a great talent and may get there someday.  Indeed, he seems destined to end up looking like Chris Bosh or Pau Gasol did once they were teamed up with a dominant shot creator. 

I think if our best player were an all-world guard like Harden or Lillard, I would be open to the idea of putting everything in for Towns.  But I'm not sure Towns is the ideal player to put next to Tatum.

So once Tatum fully evolves into Kobe we get Towns!

[tenn_smoothie]

It’s not anyone’s time.
It’s a time of superteams, superstars joining forces is the only thing that works now. Depressing time for NBA fans.

Well said ................... and it is depressing.

Lebron started this mercenary basketball when he left Cleveland for Miami and he continues to be the leader in pulling together superstars. Lebron, Irving and Harden represent the worst in today's NBA. I so miss the days of Cowens, JoJo, Havlicek and of Larry, Kevin, Parrish, Max and DJ.

Red always seemed to know how to adjust the roster to get his team over the top - maneuvering to get Russell, adding Paul Silas to the 70's group, acquiring McHale and Parish to get Bird the additional size needed to win a title. What would Red do with this team ?

[Chief]

It’s not anyone’s time.
It’s a time of superteams, superstars joining forces is the only thing that works now. Depressing time for NBA fans.

Well said ................... and it is depressing.

Lebron started this mercenary basketball when he left Cleveland for Miami and he continues to be the leader in pulling together superstars. Lebron, Irving and Harden represent the worst in today's NBA. I so miss the days of Cowens, JoJo, Havlicek and of Larry, Kevin, Parrish, Max and DJ.

Red always seemed to know how to adjust the roster to get his team over the top - maneuvering to get Russell, adding Paul Silas to the 70's group, acquiring McHale and Parish to get Bird the additional size needed to win a title. What would Red do with this team ?

You got to play their game. Put your chips in and make your own super teams. With Tatum and Brown,  we are not far away.

[jambr380]

It’s not anyone’s time.
It’s a time of superteams, superstars joining forces is the only thing that works now. Depressing time for NBA fans.

Well said ................... and it is depressing.

Lebron started this mercenary basketball when he left Cleveland for Miami and he continues to be the leader in pulling together superstars. Lebron, Irving and Harden represent the worst in today's NBA. I so miss the days of Cowens, JoJo, Havlicek and of Larry, Kevin, Parrish, Max and DJ.

Red always seemed to know how to adjust the roster to get his team over the top - maneuvering to get Russell, adding Paul Silas to the 70's group, acquiring McHale and Parish to get Bird the additional size needed to win a title. What would Red do with this team ?

You got to play their game. Put your chips in and make your own super teams. With Tatum and Brown,  we are not far away.

Ours maybe younger, but many teams have great duos. Let's face it, the best players either leave their former teams with nothing to join forces in LA or NY; or, they're at least nice enough to allow their teams to get some compensation, but still demand they get traded to LA or NY.

It's honestly a pretty crappy time to be an NBA fan. Of course I'll continue to watch as many games as I can and will always support the Cs, but it's why we as fans should be rooting hard for teams like the Bucks and Jazz. It also shows just how sad of a franchise a team like the Knicks are. They are given all of the advantages in the world and only now are they beginning to play .500 ball for the 1st time in like 9 years.

[LilRip]

I need somebody to explain to me how the Celts can meaningfully upgrade this roster without having to use picks to dump Kemba or trade away Smart sometime in the next 12 months.

If it's not really doable, then I'm becoming kind of fatalistic about the Celts basically being entrenched as a second tier team.

They can still be a lot of fun and very good.  But also probably a clear step below the top 5-6 teams in the league, at least for the near future.

I think the only way out of this is probably for one of these mid to late 1st round draft picks to very quickly turn into a surprise contributor.  Not just a Payton Pritchard-type decent bench role player.  I mean an above average starter / borderline All-Star, a la Siakam or Adebayo.

Sorry to disappoint you but I see no way. I think it’s very rare that teams continuously make incremental improvements and then suddenly wake up to find themselves as legit contenders. There’s usually a shake up move that preceded it.

There are ground-shaking moves like KG joining the C’s, Lebron joining the Heat or KD joining the Warriors but not every move needs to be as dramatic as that. Some examples: the Warriors signing Kerr to be their head coach (despite winning 51 games the previous year with Mark Jackson) or Detroit landing Rasheed Wallace while trading away essentially nothing. Solid moves but moves that didn’t turn the league upside down.

Then, as you pointed out, there’s finding your otherworldly sleepers: Tony Parker, Ginobili, Kawhi.......

So barring the sleeper route, for the C’s to vault into contender status, I think Ainge needs to make a move that will prove divisive among the people who regularly post in this forum. The last time he swung for the fences, he ended up with Kyrie-Horford-Hayward but had to trade IT to do it (a divisive move). I honestly think that was a really good job by DA there.

This time around, it will have to come in the form of trading Smart? Or trading Brown? Or replacing CBS? I’m sure Ainge knows the clock and I’d be genuinely surprised if he doesn’t make a splash in the next 1-2 years.

[Goldstar88]

I know that I’m in the minority here, but I feel like Brad and ownership are doing the right thing by manipulating the roster and positioning for a third star player next season.  I don’t think there was a (Realistic) FA out there this offseason that would have moved the needle enough.. It sucks having to wait a year for potential “fireworks”, however, I believe that it’s the right play. Especially after witnessing how the Nets dismantled the C’s in the Playoffs.