But if the goal is to refocus around youth why bring in Walker and Kanter and keep Hayward? Those are win now moves, not build for the future type moves. That is the real problem I have with what Ainge has done since basically making the Tatum/Fultz trade. He hasn't picked a direction. He has kept trying to win now and build for the future and he quite simply isn't maximizing either option or path. The team is much farther away from winning a title then it should be right now and that is 100% on Ainge.
And I'm sorry, Brad Wanamaker shouldn't be the back-up PG. If you want to call Smart the back-up PG, then Langford (at least this year) shouldn't be the back-up SG. And come on, Kanter is the only big man on this team that should get anything more than 10-15 minutes of deep bench type minutes. The roster is a complete and utter trainwreck. 3 of the 4 best players are naturally SF's. There isn't a single legitimate PF on the team (unless Tatum can handle that spot). There is 1.5 centers on the roster (I'm counting Theis as a .5). There is only Walker as legitimate credible ball handlers.
I hope I'm wrong and I do find many on this board's enthusiasm to be refreshing, but this looks like at best a mid to maybe upper 40's win team that is going to struggle immensely to win a single playoff series, and it all rests at Ainge's feet. He has failed the team and the city the last 2 off-seasons and the team is getting progressively worse despite having all of those young high lottery picks to work with (granted he wasted 1 by trading it for Irving).
I find this take to be pretty realistic, but only when you take the players at face value. Brad's great at getting the best out of weak frontcourts, he got a center rotation of Olynyk-Amir-Sully to anchor a top 5 defense in the league a few years ago, and made guys like Vitor Faverani look like a credible starting center (iirc he had a 20/20 game in his short stint with us). I'm quite bullish on Brad making this terrible frontcourt decent as it has all the ingredients he can work with: a veteran center who has experience (Kanter), a mediocre backup who's more of a finesse big (Theis) and a bruiser from overseas that has shown flashes of being able to hang with NBA quality talent (Poirier), as well as some end of bench wildcards in Williams and Fall (not expecting them to give us anything at all, but they're wildcards that Brad has shown to be able to get some situational value out of). Brad has also been able to get good value out of random guards: he made Jordan Crawford look like a viable rotation guard for an NBA team, Evan Turner into a quality rotation player (yes he played some SG for us) and Shane Larkin a decent change of pace guard off the bench as a 3rd stringer. I'd be confident in him getting one of Wannamaker/Edwards to be a decent backcourt player for us off the bench. As for the PF position I agree with you, we lack players who can handle that position full time, but we could probably cover that up by playing Hayward there and sacrifice defense for offense, and play guys like Theis there against bigger lineups. This team is probably a trade or signing away from being a real contender in the East, but there's no reason that they shouldn't be able to win 50+ games with the conference being so weak outside of the top 2 (Bucks and 76ers).
Olynyk, Amir, and Sully were all legitimate NBA players. Amir was a starter on several playoff teams before ever coming to Boston. Olynyk has started as many games this past season in Miami then he did in his entire 4 years in Boston. Sullinger was an immensely talented player whose poor conditioning allowed him to keep getting hurt and played himself out of the league. This Celtics team has 1 player that you can say that about right now and that is Kanter. Maybe one of the young guys ends up in the KO type mold, but thinking it will be this year is unrealistic. And for the record, Faverani never scored more than 13 points in any game for the Celtics (it was actually his first game, he had 12 the next, and then only had 2 more games in double figures at 11 and 10). He did have an 18 rebound game as well (that was his 2nd game and his only double double) and a 14 rebound game, a couple at 9, but 6 was his next best game. The simple reality is he looked nothing like a NBA starting center at any point during his brief 37 game stint with the Celtics. And that team was 25-57 i.e. a very bad team.
Stevens is a fine coach, but he isn't a miracle worker and I'm not really sure he is as good a coach as we all hope he is. At the end of the day though there is only so much a coach can do with any given roster, and quite simply this roster is poorly constructed. The pieces don't fit well and the big man talent is awful. There is one truly credible ball handler. 3 of the 4 best players play the same position meaning 2 of them will often be playing out of position. The best player is a fine player, but he isn't a franchise player. So the roster lacks top end talent as well. I really have no idea what this team is supposed to be because it certainly isn't a contender and it certainly isn't doing things that would make sense to try and build a contender a few years down the line around Tatum. I had hoped that Ainge had finally picked a direction with the Irving trade (and believe me I had been wanting him to do that for years as my countless posts on here can attest to), but he didn't follow that trade up, and in the process set the team further back.
Topic: Is anyone going to miss Marcus Morris? (Read 6054 times)