SI.com: Danny's summer was a flop, second worst among "notable" teams

[kozlodoev]

This is bizarre that could call it a bad offseason when they got Hayward. He was the best free agent to switch teams.

They're not calling it a bad offseason. Unless perhaps I've been sleeping on grade inflation and C suddenly became the new F.

[Boris Badenov]

Assuming we would have given up Bradley and Crowder plus picks for PG, then the full opportunity cost of George would be:

Three years of great value with Crowder
Two years of very good value with Morris
From 1-3 1st round picks of differing value

This would be in exchange for a possible one year rental of a top-tier talent.

And it's even more if we would have had to include other players (Smart? Rosier? I can't recall the details).

And then if George ended up leaving next summer, what would we do? We'd still be capped out right, and with a thinner roster.

[SCBirdman]

Haaahahhhaaaaahhhaaa

What hack wrote THAT trash...

Must have been Colin Cowherd under an alias.

[BitterJim]

This is spot on:

What actually happened: Boston's starting nucleus is better than it was last year, and they still have more assets than any team in the league. They added Gordon Hayward, they drafted Jayson Tatum and grabbed a lottery pick from the Sixers, and they forfeited very little. Losing Avery Bradley will hurt, but they flipped him for Marcus Morris on an affordable deal, and that's better than losing Bradley for nothing next summer. After this summer, the Celtics believe they're positioned to continue winning now, with young players who will be around to keep it going well into the next decade.

That's at least a stand up double, right? Maybe even a triple.

Danny had a couple of shots at HRs, but I don't think anybody can call a summer where we landed Hayward, Tatum and a likely lottery pick a "C", behind loser franchises like the Hawks.

It's a stand up triple.  But he gave Ainge a C because he didn't round third and try for home as the center fielder with a cannon for an arm (GSW) started his crow hop.

Basically we're back to "Boston gets Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline. on because they did what was best for now and the future instead of going all in and giving the media something to talk about", just like we were at the trade deadline (which turned out to be the right choice) and the draft last year (which ALSO turned out to be the right choice)

[CELTICSofBOSTON]

I still think we should've taken Fultz but everything else is fine with me.

Tatum is really good and going to be a stud. I just think Fultz is a little better. Hopefully the extra pick we got makes up for the difference.

I wish we got PG for the rumored trades but I don't believe the reports I read on them so it's hard to judge how close the deal was.

Getting Hayward is nice. The Bradley trade was good. Better roster balance. 

I would give the C's front office a solid A-

[mrceltics2013]

Celtics just can not win in the eyes of the media. We can win 65 games and win the championship and all they will say is "they are the weakest championship team ever". Brad Stevens will still be looked at as just a "good" coach and still won't be in the convo of coach of the year. IT won't be worth the max because he's 5"8. Like all there ever will be is negative crap. I feel what Lebron has to go through.

[CelticsElite]

We were the 1 seed 7 wins away from a banner, added a star on the cusp of becoming a superstar, and a lottery elite prospect along with nice role players in the draft and free agency. We even gained future picks. How that is a loss beats me.

[TA9]

It either seems like SI doesn't like the Celtics or they are just very unknowing in terms of basketball.

Not too long ago they graded our 2017 NBA Draft a 'C+'. IMO, Tatum looks like the best player in the draft so far, hence you should probably take their assessment with a grain of salt.

Sports Illustrated:

Boston Celtics | Grade: C+

Pick: Jayson Tatum, Semi Ojeleye, Kadeem Allen, Jabari Bird
Trade: TBD?

I'm a little tired of trying to decode Danny Ainge's master plan for all these assets. When they traded the No. 1 pick, I think a lot of people around the league assumed that it was a prelude to a bigger move. But they didn't get Jimmy Butler on Thursday night, they didn't get Kristaps Porzingis on Thursday afternoon, Paul George rumors came and went, and ... Maybe they just really like Tatum? I'm not a huge fan of his game, but others are. And if anyone can find a way to take what he does well—iso scoring—and make it work at an elite level, it's probably Brad Stevens. Semi Ojeleye is a prospect I really liked, but with Ante Zizic and Guerschon "Dancing Bear" Yabusele coming over, I wonder whether they even have minutes for him.

The Celtics are probably not as brilliant as the true Ainge believers think, and they're probably not as dumb and gun shy as some critics make them sound. That's my only coherent Celtics thought after (another) 96-hour window of endless Celtics rumors. We'll see what happens in free agency.

[CELTICSofBOSTON]

The sports media is dumb. There are actually people saying that the Celtics got worse  .  That is so hilarious to me.

Gordon Hayward is significantly better than Avery Bradley.

Marcus Morris is as good or better than the overrated Kelly Olynyk.

Aron Baynes cannot be much worse than Amir Johnson was in 2017.

Jonas Jerebko, Gerald Green, and Tyler Zeller did not play much.

Plus we added Jayson Tatum who is the second best prospect in the draft class.

Zizic, Tatum, Theis > Jerebko, Green, Zeller

Semi Ojelye, Guerschon Yabusele > Jordan Mickey, James Young, Demetrius Jackson

Plus Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier, and Marcus Smart have probably improved.

Plus, our roster is not even done being put together.  We still have picks and non-guaranteed/small contracts plus there are still some solid vet minimum type players out there.

How is our team worse? We will win 60 games. Mark my words.  Brad Stevens is the best in the world.

[Emmette Bryant]

The sports media is dumb. There are actually people saying that the Celtics got worse  .  That is so hilarious to me.

Gordon Hayward is significantly better than Avery Bradley.

Marcus Morris is as good or better than the overrated Kelly Olynyk.

Aron Baynes cannot be much worse than Amir Johnson was in 2017.

Jonas Jerebko, Gerald Green, and Tyler Zeller did not play much.

Plus we added Jayson Tatum who is the second best prospect in the draft class.

Zizic, Tatum, Theis > Jerebko, Green, Zeller

Plus Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier, and Marcus Smart have probably improved.

How is our team worse? We will win 60 games. Mark my words.  Brad Stevens is the best in the world.

Yeah but we didn't give up half of our team and picks for a one year rental of Paul George!

[CELTICSofBOSTON]

The sports media is dumb. There are actually people saying that the Celtics got worse  .  That is so hilarious to me.

Gordon Hayward is significantly better than Avery Bradley.

Marcus Morris is as good or better than the overrated Kelly Olynyk.

Aron Baynes cannot be much worse than Amir Johnson was in 2017.

Jonas Jerebko, Gerald Green, and Tyler Zeller did not play much.

Plus we added Jayson Tatum who is the second best prospect in the draft class.

Zizic, Tatum, Theis > Jerebko, Green, Zeller

Plus Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier, and Marcus Smart have probably improved.

How is our team worse? We will win 60 games. Mark my words.  Brad Stevens is the best in the world.

Yeah but we didn't give up half of our team and picks for a one year rental of Paul George!

Basketball needs better media.  I swear most of the big sports personalities don't know anything about basketball.  They all think they are smarter than Danny Ainge (especially Nick Wright), but would be terrible GMs themselves.

[Atzar]

All "prematurely grade this team's offseason/draft/deadline" articles are subjective to a degree.  The grade doesn't bother me, though I don't agree with it. 

Thus far in this offseason, the team has added Hayward, Morris, Theis, Baynes, Tatum, and a 2018/2019 first-round pick with adventurous protections.  They've lost Bradley, Olynyk, Johnson, and a number of deep-bench guys, along with the opportunity to draft Fultz.

In my opinion, the trade with Philly is only a bad deal if you're so enamored with Fultz that you think having the #1 and coming away with anybody else is a failure.  But if you think Tatum is in the same ballpark as a prospect, that trade is perfectly defensible or perhaps even commendable - even if the 2018/2019 pick admittedly scares the hell out of me. 

With regards to the George deal, two thoughts:  first is that George isn't a megastar anymore - not according to the stats.  He ranked behind several SFs this year, including but not limited to Gordon Hayward.  So the idea that Boston missed out on a gift-wrapped chance to acquire their alpha dog isn't exactly true.  Also, there's a lot of conflicting misinformation in the media regarding that trade, to the point where I don't think we can accept any of this as 100% truth.  The rumors a week ago claimed that Boston had George in the bag and wanted to resolve the Hayward situation before pulling the trigger, but wouldn't speed up their timetable when Pritchard wanted a handshake.  Now Pritchard is claiming that no such deal was even in play.  Believe what you want.  I don't know what to think, but at the very least, I believe that treating the George situation as if Boston is the team that lost him is inappropriate. 

All of this doesn't add up to 'C' to me.  I'd be more in the B+/A- range, personally.  But if you think passing up Fultz was a mistake, and if you think George was supposed to be in Boston and it's 100% Ainge's fault that he's not, then I could see how you would arrive at that grade. 

[PhoSita]

I don't agree with the assessment of Hayward as a "poor man's Paul George" at all, to say the least

Also this overlooks the fact that we have Hayward for 3-4 years locked up, rather than just one season of George.


I don't know how you call this summer a "flop" in light of the fact that the Celts drastically upgraded the talent on their team in the present and for the future.

Perhaps they could have had an even greater summer, but this off-season has still been very successful.

[PhoSita]

So, to be clear....


OUT

- Avery Bradley
- Amir Johnson
- Gerald Green
- James Young
- Jonas Jerebko
- Tyler Zeller

IN

- Gordon Hayward
- Jayson Tatum
- Marcus Morris
- Aron Baynes
- Semi Ojeleye
- Ante Zizic



Grades are a very subjective way to measure anything, but how you give that lower than a B is a mystery to me.

I guess some people are just sick of hearing about assets and fireworks, particularly with respect to the possibility of what the Celts can do on the trade market, and are going to keep being mad anytime it seems like the Celts pass up the opportunity to finally blow their wad.

[RLewis35]

If we traded all of those assets for PG, we'd get a C because they'd say he's gone to the lakers next year and we aren't good enough to beat GS this year.

I firmly believe cowherd, Bayless and others will knock what we do no matter what it is.