Danny said he is not trading the pick for anyone in their 30s. Maybe you don't believe him and things can/do change but I hope he is being honest this time.
This is my point. In 2007, we had Pierce. Putting 30+ aged players around Pierce made sense. Putting 30+ aged players around anyone on this team makes no sense to me. We need to shoot for a longer horizon for a few reasons.
Well as others have said, Thomas is a 27 year old all-star... which is the same age Pierce was at when we traded for 32 year old Ray Allen.
If you could add Melo to this 48 win team, and have max cap space to sign a Horford/Howard/DeRozan ... how many wins could that team get? And keep in mind we'd still have a major bounty of assets available if a guy like DeMarcus Cousins finally becomes available or demands a trade.
As I said in another post, it's a unique situation, because the cap jumps another 20 million in 2017. So we're looking at a free agent class that would include guys like Curry, Westbrook, Blake, Chris Paul, Hayward, Lowry, and possibly even Durant if he stays one more year as expected. And even by trading for Melo and signing a max player, we'd still have room to go after one of those guys next Summer. Having a 55+ win team probably puts us in good position to lure one, right?
I wrote a piece two weeks ago where I basically rejected the idea that the team even needs to land a star to lure free agents: http://clnsradio.com/boston-celtics-news/item/13678-boston-celtics-why-not-build-a-big-5
To counter that, I now wanted to explore the alternative. If we really DO need a star to attract stars... and guys like Butler/George/Cousins aren't realistic - what would a realistic outcome actually look like? Well, I suspect it would look a lot like 2007 when we traded a top 5 pick for a 32 year old with injury problems. Thus... Melo or Marc Gasol are the two guys that come to mind when thinking of a 2016 doppelganger for the 2007 offseason.
Again, who has Melo attracted before now? His team has had opportunities to bring in a top teammate yet I haven't heard a whiff of anyone notable being rumored to be interested in joining him.
Well to be fair to Melo, I'm not sure the perienneal playoff team he lead back in Denver (they were a winning team every year he was there) ever had cap space to sign a max player. That was part of the problem (much like KG in Minny). They couldn't surround him with talent.
As for New York, in his first 3 years they were a playoff team, but they had a ton of money invested into what was left of Amare. They might have had cap space recently, but that team is pretty disastrous right now.
Boston, on the other hand... is already a 48 win team. Adding Melo pushes them above that, right? It's an org that has a ton going for it. Melo would presumably attract talent.
Keep in mind that as recently as a few months ago we had heard that LeBron was pushing for the Cavs to land Melo. We've also heard rumors over the years that Chris Paul wanted to play with Melo. I'm not sure I buy the idea that star players don't want to play with Melo. They probably just don't want anything to do with the Knicks. Boston is a different situation. We we were basically tied for 3rd in the East with Isaiah Thomas as our main scorer. Boston could, theoretically, land Melo, sign Horford... and in Summer 2017 even if the big dream players like Steph and Durant are ridiculous, they could add a vet like Chris Paul (and trade IT). We could be a pretty serious contender.
For the record, I'm not pushing for us to trade for Melo. Like I said before, I don't even think Boston needs to acquire a star to be a player in free agency. But a lot of people think adding star talent is a prerequisite. So if we're surveying the landscape and trying to stay a bit more realistic than "#3 pick for Paul George", a guy like Melo seems like a "star" that could fairly realistically be acquired. Maybe that's the first step.
Topic: The last time we had a Top 5 pick in a 2 Player draft (Read 6806 times)