It's hard to say right now what direction the Celtics are going in. I think many fans are stuck pondering if Rondo is in our future or not, and whether we are going to a full scale rebuild, or if we are going to add pieces to a re-signed Rondo via trade & free agency. We really won't know until Rondo makes his decision, which means a lot of speculation.
One of the 'tough' parts of our current situation for me is what this upcoming season is going to look like. Part of me is asking;
1) if we can't trade Green, Bass, Wallace, Thornton and those veterans, do we bench guys like Bass and Thornton to enhance our youth development & build their value and skillset as much as we can with playing time? (which as a side effect gets us a better 2015 draft pick and better player for the future if Rondo's gone).
2) Or do we run the best team possible, trying to be as competitive as possible in order to get Rondo to stay.eg Thornton gets time ahead of Smart, Bass gets time ahead of Olynyk and Zeller etc.. and as a consequence, lose 3 or 4 spots with our 2015 draft pick. (ie instead of top 8, the pick becomes top 12-13.
Those two points are just the icing on the cake as far as fans confusion with our direction go.
If Rondo walks, option 2 seems like a wasted season to an extent, with Rondo, Green and Bass likely all gone, leaving us with slightly stunted development and nothing but the lottery to look forward to for the next few seasons.
And that's the hardest, most important part about Ainge's job of the last 2 seasons. Ensuring that we are prepared for either path of Rondo staying or Rondo going.
Getting Jabari, Embid or Wiggins would have been enormous, but Smart is likely going to be a strong NBA player. The luck factor is whether or not he becomes a good shooter and thus a great player. He's got basically all the tools to be an All Star, except we don't know where his shooting will end up.
He's so disciplined & works so hard that I think the odds are in our favor of him becoming something between Avery Bradley and Dwyane Wade, a real potential franchise changing wing player, which gets me excited. Remember how good Wade was in his 2nd season?
Other than Smart though, to me there's really only Sullinger who has the chance to become something very special, and by special I mean along an All star David West caliber type of player; strong as an ox and slightly undersized length for his position- but a rebounding instinct that not many players have. Like Smart, we need his jumpshot to start falling with regularity.
It's scary how much of the Celtics future revolves around the shooting skills of Smart and Sullinger to me.
I think we are going to be pretty bad again this year, but it will be a much better year for player development. Rumors are Ainge is and has been trying to move Green and Bass, personally I hope he can so our young guys and projects like Olynyk, Turner and Zeller can get maximum minutes. Green and Bass are likely gone after this season anyway, so if they are moved now then that's completely understandable.
The good news is that regardless of whether the older veterans are still here or not, the locker room will be VERY competitive, which is a great thing for the development of Smart, Olynyk and Sully. Lots of wing/guard players and not enough time to go around means a really intense training camp and high intensity trying to impress Stevens at every opportunity.
Watching Smart compete with Bradley for that other starting guard position is going to be very fun. Bradley will probably win that battle this season just due to his experience, but hopefully Smart can push Bradley to take his game to another level-and Bradley in turn can get the fire out of Marcus Smart that we're all excited to witness. They can both definitely learn from each other in such an atmosphere.
I'm hopeful that Zeller develops some serious trade value and that Olynk does the same.
I've never seen the future All Star in Olynyk that some people seem to see, but I wouldn't say it's completely out of the question as he appears to be still mastering his own body and self confidence in his skills. Again, with him and Sully going against each other at full health we should have a really positive, competitive environment as Olynyk gets his first serious regular minutes against NBA starter competition.
If we do re-sign Rondo (which I hope we do), and Sullinger, Zeller and Olynyk can each take that next step (particularly Sully), we'll have a very good shot at trading for another star or making free agents recognize the talent we have with Rondo.
My dream at the end of this season would be re-signing Rondo, adding Roy Hibbert, having Sully become a 17 point, 10 rebound monster, while Smart works his way into the starting line up over Avery Bradley in his first season. So essentially the roster at the start of the 2015-16 season looks like...
PG Rondo
SG Smart
SF draft pick rookie 2015 with a pick in top 10: Stanley Johnson, Kelly Oubre, Justis Winslow
PF Sully
C Hibbert
Anyway,
I'm not hopeful about how many wins get this year. With the current roster I could see us maxing out at about 32-33 and bottoming out at about the same as last year. One thing is though, the experimenting of last season is over. Sully can play the PF position. Olynyk can play minutes at PF and C, and Zeller can get meaningful minutes to develop properly. This season is going to be great for player and 'asset' development. Hopefully we win either way and Rondo re-signs with the Celtics. We can only hope.
It's going to be a nervous wait to see what happens with Rondo, but it's not all doom and gloom.
Topic: We don't know what's gonna happen with Rondo, but it's not all doom and gloom... (Read 2048 times)