All is Fair in Love & War: How to Beat LA

[GreenlyGreeny]

The NBA is both a passion/pastime (love) and a business (war). The Celtics have been engaged in a sports war with the Los Angeles Lakers for longer than most have been alive, and guess what: The Lakers just won the 2019-2020 battle, putting them tied with us for 17 championships. While we have been rebuilding the good-old fashioned way, coming close but not close enough, LA clearly won with dirty pool, somehow engaging in shenanigans that forced a fed up AD to force a trade to LA. All is fair in love in war, so we need to respond in kind:

Jaylen Brown will never be the revenue-generating machine that is Giannis Antetokounmpo. He will never be a number one like Giannis. Even Tatum may never be a number one like Giannis, BUT Tatum is already a number two guy, a Pippen to a Jordan like Giannis. In addition, Giannis is fed up with not even making the NBA Finals. The writing on the wall is clear: There is nothing the Bucks can do to overcome the Lakers next year. But there is a way for Giannis to win the NBA Championship next year and win more championships for many years to come: Force his way onto the Celtics in a pairing with Tatum and the ultimate glue/number three guy, Smart. In 2020-2021, Giannis would even get two other all-stars in Hayward and Walker, as well as a coach who can help take him to his third straight MVP season, his best yet. Furthermore, a Giannis/Tatum combo will definitely attract ring-chasing vets to fill the bench, just like the LeBron/AD combo did in LA this year. Finally, the beautiful smiles and personalities of Giannis/Tatum winning championships over the next decade would make them both unstoppable marketing forces, generating more than enough revenue to offset impending tax bills. This is win-win-win for the Celtics and a bunch of L’s for everyone else. It’s how we remain on top as the winningest NBA franchise of all-time. We’ve won one championship in the last 30+ years. We need to change that and change it soon.

The bottom-line: The only way to get us back on top of the war against LA is to engage in the same tactic they used this time last year with AD. We need to somehow force the Bucks to deal Giannis to us in return for Brown, 4-6 first-round picks and Langford if necessary. This needs to be coupled instantly with a supermax contract for Giannis and a max contract extension for Tatum. We can win and we must win title 18 before the Lakers. There is no other way...

[SparzWizard]

Do we get past the East with Giannis/Tatum/Smart?

Miami's got Butler/Adebayo/Dragic with Robinson/Herro complementing them.
Philadelphia's got Embiid/Simmons with Doc Rivers leading the charge
Toronto's got pesky Lowry/Siakam/VanVleet
Brooklyn's got Durant/Irving under Steve Nash...a heavy-veteran front leading the team.

The East is going to be tougher next year. The Celtics need to do a lot of work this offseason if they want to get past the Eastern Conference Finals.

[GreenlyGreeny]

Do we get past the East with Giannis/Tatum/Smart?

Miami's got Butler/Adebayo/Dragic with Robinson/Herro complementing them.
Philadelphia's got Embiid/Simmons with Doc Rivers leading the charge
Toronto's got pesky Lowry/Siakam/VanVleet
Brooklyn's got Durant/Irving under Steve Nash...a heavy-veteran front leading the team.

The East is going to be tougher next year. The Celtics need to do a lot of work this offseason if they want to get past the Eastern Conference Finals.

Replacing Jaylen/Langford with Giannis definitely gets us past the Heat compared to losing game six this year. I’ll also take Giannis/Tatum over Embiid/Simmons any day of the week. I know Giannis is in a small market, but he’s undeniably the best or second best player in the league these days...

Durant/Irving is the only question mark, really, but I definitely see Walker/Hayward/Smart being better support than what the Nets have, so I’m confident in 2020-2021, slightly less so in 2021-2023. However, Giannis/Tatum are so much younger than Durant/Irving that the Nets’ window is only 4-6 years whereas we have 9-12 years with Giannis/Tatum.

[tazzmaniac]

Sorry to rain on your parade but I haven't seen anything about Giannis wanting out from the Bucks.  Also the only team that can give Giannis the SuperMax is the Bucks and once they do Giannis can't be traded for a year. 

[GreenlyGreeny]

Sorry to rain on your parade but I haven't seen anything about Giannis wanting out from the Bucks.  Also the only team that can give Giannis the SuperMax is the Bucks and once they do Giannis can't be traded for a year.

Giannis wants to dethrone LeBron as the face of the NBA, just like LeBron did to Kobe back in the day. He cannot do it on the Bucks.

Can the Bucks not do the supermax and then trade him immediately? In any case, force the trade and get Giannis for the most we can offer $’s and years.

[slamtheking]

Sorry to rain on your parade but I haven't seen anything about Giannis wanting out from the Bucks.  Also the only team that can give Giannis the SuperMax is the Bucks and once they do Giannis can't be traded for a year.

Giannis wants to dethrone LeBron as the face of the NBA, just like LeBron did to Kobe back in the day. He cannot do it on the Bucks.

Can the Bucks not do the supermax and then trade him immediately? In any case, force the trade and get Giannis for the most we can offer $’s and years.

do you have a documented source for this?  seems like pure speculation on your part to justify a bad trade idea.

[mr. dee]

Lakers success is not sustainable. Lakers could fall short next year and expect Lebron to leave again.

I personally think our coaching staff needs an overhaul. Maybe not Brad but someone that can lit a fire on our guys.

Maybe it's just me but I get a "just happy to be here" vibe from Tatum. Media and sports outlet should rip this kid and serve as his motivation to light a fire under him.

[jambr380]

This would obviously be amazing - and I love Jaylen Brown.

Not in the least bit realistic as MIL would have to be genuinely scared Giannis leaves them if they underperform next season.

We could always wait for Hayward's contract to expire and find a salary dump for Kemba to then try to sign him next offseason, but that is probably even more unrealistic given the amount of suitors he'll have.

Don't get me wrong, I get it completely, and I would offer quite a bit more to the pot - including Smart - for a freshly re-signed Giannis. I just don't think it is something we should get our hopes up over.

[KGs Knee]

I think everyone would love to have Giannis on this team, but I don't think he's ready to give up on Milwaukee (and the mega payday they can give him) and they won't give up on him unless he makes it known he wants out.  I just don't see him being available on the trade market any time soon, so I wouldn't go getting my hopes up.

If for some reason he does, though, I do hope Danny is willing to part with whatever it takes (excepting Tatum).

[PhoSita]

You say "we need to force the Bucks to trade Giannis" -- who's the "we" in this post?

Are you going to start a player agency that is de facto run by the most famous star in the game who is still playing at an MVP level?  Is that guy going to sign with the Celtics and take over the day to day operations of the team?  Is Giannis going to drop his current agent and sign with this new agency?

Get those things in place then maybe we can start the "Giannis to Boston" campaign. 

Maybe we convince him that Boston is somehow like Greece?  Marketing opportunities with Mark Wahlberg?  He can do a really killer "Dunking for Dunkin" sponsorship / ad campaign?