My point from the beginning wasn't to argue for keeping either, I just didn't get the reason for keeping him in a full youth movement when he is the older big of the 3. If the idea is to go younger, he will be 26 in Jan., he has to be the one on the outside looking in. Not only is he older but he and Sully are up for massive raises, you shouldn't keep either when everyone else will have 3-4 years on rookie scale contracts.
I'm not worried about Zeller's age. He's only been in the league a few years (read: not much wear on his knees), and players of his type usually stay productive through age 33-34.
Pho, I get it, you love Zeller. That doesn't make that argument correct in this scenario.
Zeller is 26, so he has, in theory, at least 4-5 productive years left in him, if not more due to his lack of dependence on athleticism. Expecting any rebuild, let alone this one, to take 5+ years is a pretty morose outlook. Going young is not necessarily synonymous with stinking. Also, I'm not sure that it's possible to get much younger than the Celtics are right now. Weren't they something like the 4th-youngest team in the league last year?
Also, just so everyone knows, Zeller is 25 until January, Olynyk is 24 until April, and Sullinger is 23 until March.
I don't know why I have to keep repeating this, I don't care if one is kept over the other, it's only about the premise of this thread. If the object is to go younger (hard because we are already VERY young) then Zeller is the oldest of the 3, if you get rid of the other 2 then Zeller should go too. He is older than both, 1yr on KO and 2 on Sully. I'm not arguing about the durability of either. Like I said before, if this wasn't about age, I could make a good argument for keeping either one!
Based solely on age, Sully is the guy to keep. That's just out of the 3 young bigs, b/c Zeller is older than other guys who were added to the "trade and go even younger list."
I think PhoSita and I are reading a little too much into your first response
What I was trying to say, and I think Pho was too, was that the age difference between Zeller, Sullinger, and Olynyk is so negligible that a "youth movement" that would supposedly lead to one or two of the three going would come down to basketball merit more than age.
Now, if it's about more than age, it still should be Sully... he is better than both and has more potential. He and Zeller are about to get paid, people don't like Sully bc he hasn't taken his health serious, but I would keep him over Z b/c he is 2 full years younger and the better player.
Z vs. KO is tougher, I wouldn't mind if DA chose either because neither is really better than the other even though Z has had 3 seasons. This decision would go to the coach on who he thinks works better. Z may be in line for 10m while KO has another season on his rookie contract, I still wouldn't be upset with keeping Zeller b/c KO will need to be paid after next season.
If all of them stay for the season, how they play will determine who we keep, 1-2 will need to step up their game. We may keep them all this season, but I don't think we will after.
This could get interesting, especially if Sully and Z are playing for their next check!
I wanna see a war. Also, if Lee gets 20m and Amir gets about 30... someone is on the outside looking in. Haha this is gonna be so much fun. Amir gets Bass' minutes and Lee doesn't look like a guy who won't work or have his body break down, I don't see him chilling on the bench. Who's waving the towel?