Author Topic: Celtics need to trade Rondo this summer  (Read 83637 times)

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Re: Celtics need to trade Rondo this summer
« Reply #300 on: January 11, 2013, 08:10:20 PM »

Offline Moranis

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If you are rebuilding you don't hang onto a player that won't let you be truly awful.

To rebuild you want to rebuild around a star. Rondo IS a star. What's the point of tanking for the lottery? For the off-chance we get a better player, which is by no means guaranteed? Have you not noticed that the vast vast majority of lottery picks don't turn a franchise into an instant contender like OKC?

It IS possible to rebuild through the draft, but it isn't by any means a guarantee. Especially with what is projected to be a weak draft this season. We already have a star, it makes no sense to get rid of him for the purposes of tanking. We either get rid of him for a real star, or build a team around him.


Cousins and Evans for Rondo (as an example) is a pretty solid rebuilding trade.  You get 2 younger and just as talented players for 1 older injury prone, but better player.

Why are Cousins and Evans any better for rebuilding than Rondo?


That is what you should do unless your team is one of the top contenders, and for the record, OKC actually traded its third best player, for multiple lesser parts and is probably just as good as they would have been with Harden and have much greater flexibility going forward.

To win in the NBA, you need a star player. Nobody questions this. We have a star player. Granted, he is not Lebron, but he has proven on multiple occasions that he is a star, and by virtually every statistical method of measuring basketball he ranks extremely high.

You are supposed to build around a star. What's the point of getting rid of a proven star for the CHANCE of getting another star in the next couple of seasons? All it does is make us a bad team for a couple of years for the off-chance we get as lucky in the draft as OKC did. What happens when we don't get a star in the draft? Then we are just bad forever.

So we either keep the star we have and try to build a contender around him, or try to get another star.

I will give you that trading Rondo for pieces could potentially help us land a star in a trade down the line, and Danny is smart enough to pull something like that off.
Just a couple of general things.  Rondo is a "star" but he is not a franchise cornerstone type "star".  Boston no longer has one of those (KG was and Pierce (and Allen) were to lesser extents, none are any more).  With Rondo on the team especially with no cap space for at least 3 years, Boston has no shot of getting one of those players in free agency and thus its only shot is trading or through the draft.  With Rondo, Boston will not be bad enough in the next 3 or 4 drafts to realistically have a shot at a franchise player through draft (sure it might get lucky and win the lottery, but that is unrealistic).  Similarly, Boston has just 5 real assets on the roster (KG, Pierce, Rondo, Bradley, and Sullinger) and Rondo is the only one that could yield Boston multiple younger assets that might develop into a franchise type player.  Additionally, most trades involving Rondo would also likely make Boston a worse team in the short term (and very well might lead KG and PP to retire this summer), which in turn might actually put Boston into a realistic position to get a franchise type player or two through the draft in the next few seasons.

Building around a second tier player just doesn't get you a title.  Drafting the guy in the draft or trading multiple young assets (obtained through the draft) for the guy is how you get franchise players when you don't have cap space and by the time Boston has cap space, Rondo will be on the downside of his career.  It just doesn't make sense to try and build around him.
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Re: Celtics need to trade Rondo this summer
« Reply #301 on: January 11, 2013, 08:23:57 PM »

Offline BballTim

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If you are rebuilding you don't hang onto a player that won't let you be truly awful.

To rebuild you want to rebuild around a star. Rondo IS a star. What's the point of tanking for the lottery? For the off-chance we get a better player, which is by no means guaranteed? Have you not noticed that the vast vast majority of lottery picks don't turn a franchise into an instant contender like OKC?

It IS possible to rebuild through the draft, but it isn't by any means a guarantee. Especially with what is projected to be a weak draft this season. We already have a star, it makes no sense to get rid of him for the purposes of tanking. We either get rid of him for a real star, or build a team around him.


Cousins and Evans for Rondo (as an example) is a pretty solid rebuilding trade.  You get 2 younger and just as talented players for 1 older injury prone, but better player.

Why are Cousins and Evans any better for rebuilding than Rondo?


That is what you should do unless your team is one of the top contenders, and for the record, OKC actually traded its third best player, for multiple lesser parts and is probably just as good as they would have been with Harden and have much greater flexibility going forward.

To win in the NBA, you need a star player. Nobody questions this. We have a star player. Granted, he is not Lebron, but he has proven on multiple occasions that he is a star, and by virtually every statistical method of measuring basketball he ranks extremely high.

You are supposed to build around a star. What's the point of getting rid of a proven star for the CHANCE of getting another star in the next couple of seasons? All it does is make us a bad team for a couple of years for the off-chance we get as lucky in the draft as OKC did. What happens when we don't get a star in the draft? Then we are just bad forever.

So we either keep the star we have and try to build a contender around him, or try to get another star.

I will give you that trading Rondo for pieces could potentially help us land a star in a trade down the line, and Danny is smart enough to pull something like that off.
Just a couple of general things.  Rondo is a "star" but he is not a franchise cornerstone type "star".  Boston no longer has one of those (KG was and Pierce (and Allen) were to lesser extents, none are any more).  With Rondo on the team especially with no cap space for at least 3 years, Boston has no shot of getting one of those players in free agency and thus its only shot is trading or through the draft.  With Rondo, Boston will not be bad enough in the next 3 or 4 drafts to realistically have a shot at a franchise player through draft (sure it might get lucky and win the lottery, but that is unrealistic).  Similarly, Boston has just 5 real assets on the roster (KG, Pierce, Rondo, Bradley, and Sullinger) and Rondo is the only one that could yield Boston multiple younger assets that might develop into a franchise type player.  Additionally, most trades involving Rondo would also likely make Boston a worse team in the short term (and very well might lead KG and PP to retire this summer), which in turn might actually put Boston into a realistic position to get a franchise type player or two through the draft in the next few seasons.

Building around a second tier player just doesn't get you a title.  Drafting the guy in the draft or trading multiple young assets (obtained through the draft) for the guy is how you get franchise players when you don't have cap space and by the time Boston has cap space, Rondo will be on the downside of his career.  It just doesn't make sense to try and build around him.

  Rondo's only 26 and he's led a team deep into the playoffs. You're talking about getting rid of Rondo because he can't do what he's already shown that he's capable of doing in order to suck for a while and cross your fingers that you'll eventually get a player that can, er, lead a team to a deep playoff run.

Re: Celtics need to trade Rondo this summer
« Reply #302 on: January 11, 2013, 10:23:28 PM »

Offline LooseCannon

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If you are rebuilding you don't hang onto a player that won't let you be truly awful.  It is far better to be downright awful then to be mediocre.

You are better off barely missing the playoffs and hoping to get lucky in the lottery than to be downright awful.  To be truly horrible, you either need to be destroyed by injuries, collapse after a star leaves your team, or have a mediocre team and pick busts in the lottery multiple years in a row.  Or maybe hire a moron as your coach.

The Celtics have pieces to be contenders through 2014-2015 (or at least through next season).  If the Celtics can get two rotation-caliber players from Fab Melo and their next two years of drafts, the Celtics have an excellent cap situation with a relatively young (and cheap) core that would allow them to re-sign Rondo in the summer of 2015 and still possibly have room for a max free agent.

Of course, if Sullinger develops into a Paul Millsap-level PF and Avery Bradley improves so that no one sneers at the idea that Joe Dumars is his ceiling, and Fab Melo follows the same career trajectory as Ian Mahinmi, and Jeff Green plays well enough so that the consensus is that he is an adequate replacement for Paul Pierce in the starting lineup, then maybe the team doesn't need a superstar free agent to be a contender.  Everything working out perfectly like that is unlikely, but it's reasonable enough that you're not crazy for having some hope that it can happen.
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