Danny stole Isaiah from Phoenix. If by chance he walks, it's not like Danny mortgaged the team to get and then lose him. He stole high draft picks from the Nets. He stole Crowder from Dallas?
No one will care if Danny is a genius, lucky or a combination if we become a top team. I think we are already there, but I concede there is a drop-off from the top two or three to top five.
The haters tend to have very bad timing. It's very easy to condemn players through opinion, but it often backfires. It did with me in regards to James Young. I could feel the tension within myself as he started showing consistency on both ends. How could I be so wrong? Am I rooting against him? Is it more important for my opinion to be true than to admit I was an idiot?
As long as Brad doesn't turn into Doc and starts playing three little guys too much at the same time, there are no worries this year.
Crowder and Brown share no tension despite playing the same position. Jaylen went to SG with Jae at SF and it worked.
Smart took leaps with his point guard skills and now both he and Avery can play effectively at the same time.
One guy can't play all 48 minutes, so a little redundancy doesn't have to necessarily backfire.
I think Danny is trying something new because of his unique position of both competing and tanking through a second team.
He has stretched the roster so there is quality from one to fifteen. No Fab Melo's. No James Young's before he improved. No RJ's.
Fireworks are being created from within.
Danny doesn't want to end up like Cleveland depleting all resources and then having no chance to improve unless it's through tapping into the NBA waste pile.
Maybe Danny will lose guys along the way. Say Isaiah walks. I'll say this about Thomas. He may be worth $30 million, but that's only because the team rallies around him and does a lot of dirty work and hustling on defense. No way is Al Horford providing $25-30 million dollars' worth of basketball.
We needed Al though to make the next leap. I'm not sure that by the end of next year we will still be dependent on Isaiah. It's interesting to think about.
I didn't think Smart would improve this much. I have always accepted he is upper echelon for defense, but he has hurt us too much on offense. Now he is no longer destroying us with his shooting.
If Oklahoma couldn't keep Harden, why would we expect to be able to keep all our top players as they enter prime years?
The other possibility is that Danny does do a bit of fireworks trading the Brooklyn pick or otherwise not creating a point guard controversy, resigns Isaiah, Avery and Smart with Brown as the fourth guard.
I could see that working out.
Danny Ainge is basically sitting pretty. He has the kind of problems a team wants or will eventually have due to success. He doesn't want to end up like Philly with too much redundancy, then teams will low-ball him in trades which is how one usually ends up having players walk for nothing in return or for chicken feed.
It is definitely in Ainge's interest for players to not take too many leaps too soon. Look at Bradley. Look at Rondo's second contract. Danny has a decent track record at signing guys at the right time. Rondo. Bradley. And now Crowder.
As to Olynyk, Danny has to figure out if he is ultimately a scrub (too passive or unconfident) or someone to roll dice on like done with Bradley at $32 million/4 years.
So, it is sort of helpful that Olynyk and Smart haven't become too good, too soon.
Danny is headed towards the end game. At some point, he will go all-in or already has and is just waiting it out for internal growth. We will go into the luxury tax. It's probably a matter of a year or two. He will still need some luck. It would be very helpful if Zizic becomes a better than average center for this potential dynasty in the making.
I think Danny's blind spot is center and thus why he will need continued luck.
I also think we are a much better team this year than 2015-16. Like they mentioned in the last pregame, we may not be winning as many blowouts this year, but at least we are finishing off games better. The point is to win games. You don't get extra wins for dominating.
We will eventually dominate and get into a flow, but that could take another year or two. I watched a youtube video of Larry Bird dominating Michael Jordan. I think we are next in line. Say there were the Lakers and Celtics.... then Detroit took over. Then Chicago took over.
If I had to guess, most of us are giddy waiting to see how good and fast Jaylen can develop. He took some rookie lumps and is still standing. He looks kind of like a young Michael Jordan, just comparing what I see in our games and the old film.
Jaylen will be 21 in October. He has transcendent talent. Marcus turns 23 tomorrow.
Our future core is only 21 and 23. This implies a ten year run has only just begun or soon.
Topic: Everything needing to happen did and that's why Danny rolled it forward (Read 1879 times)