Props to Danny Ainge

[pokeKingCurtis]

As to Ainge, this team was built primarily through the draft, Ainge's drafts.  There is no debating that.  Ainge gets criticized here all the time for any and all bad draft picks or misses (and he has some, no doubt) but this team was built through the draft.  Picking Brown was criticized plenty and most everyone would have been happy to draft Fultz.

The team was then rounded out first with the Horford-Walker trade which likely did have a lot if input from Ainge.  It is Stevens' trade though, it happened on his watch and so he gets the credit.  This trade was mostly panned.  The most common remark was I can't believe we had to give up a draft pick to dump Kemba.  I admit, I did not expect Horford to be this good but that trade now looks brilliant.

And then the final trade deadline things that got White and Theis.  Not a huge impact but moves that have proved helpful.

Then here is the coach.  Yes, Ime is a good coach but I am not sure the team is any better right now than it would be if Stevens was the coach.  Stevens got teams to the ECF so no reason to think he couldn't have gotten this team to up 3-0 on the Nets.

So what does this all add up to?  What did each of these three contribute:

Draft                 80%
Horford Trade    15%
Trade Deadline    5%
Coach                 ?

These are just rough numbers off the top of my head.  So I give Ainge 80% of the credit for this team.

The point I've tried to make is that you can put all that stuff together and still end up as a third tier team if you don't see the viable path to a contender. The only way to go from where we were to where we are was to plug all of the holes in the defensive rotation, and fix the ingrained problem with ball movement. We don't have a Durant or a LeBron or a Curry. Ainge just didn't get that.

A lot of that is on the coach. But a coach can't turn a Kemba or a Fournier into defenders. Ainge was masterful up until the first offseason after the Kyrie trade, but he just didn't understand the final steps. Stevens and Udoka figured it out.

We literally went to the ECF with Kemba as our PG (did the same with IT). And if Hayward didn't get injured, we might very well be talking about the Cs as 2020 NBA Champions. Ainge's biggest issue is that his best players kept getting injured - often at the worst times (or all the time in Hayward's case). I just find it comical that people keep saying Ainge had no idea how to assemble the parts.

I am hopeful for a Title this year, but if we fall short, then it isn't possible people that the passing of time might allow people to be more objective? 3 ECFs in 4 years is pretty decent and Brad is lucky enough to have most all of those same pieces that Danny chose. Where I give Brad credit is on the development of this team with his coaching, not the assembly. Brad's best move by far was knowing when to step aside and his hiring of Ime.

Referring to other people's opinions as comical is rude.

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Your argument is that a team with Kemba Walker, Gordon Hayward, and two super talented but still very young wings was a serious threat to win a title.

I think that team overachieved, and Kemba was just never going to be good enough, even if he had only deteriorated at a standard pace for skinny 6 ft guards who rely on quickness. Walker and Hayward are soft players, and it is a pretty huge stretch to expect them to win a title.

Before he left, Ainge expressed the strategy that the team needed to be built around Tatum and Brown. I don't think there was ever a way to get that done any time soon without creating an air tight defense around them. The fact that they can both play intense defense is what makes them different.

I feel like with two wings like this we could have gone a completely different direction and built a team like the James Harden Rockets.

Tatum with 3 shooters and Brown being a 2ndary ball handler? Whew

I love our defense right now though.

[cman88]

ainge brought in the groceries. You have to give him credit for that. Even Rozier was a good pick. Who knows how far we go if Hayward/Kyrie dont get injured the year we went 7 against the cavs.

But you can give credit to stevens for seeing who didnt fit with what the celtics want to do defensively and making moves to get rid of those weak links. making Smart the starting point guard and moving away from the "undersized scoring PG" was a good move.

[Roy H.]

ainge brought in the groceries. You have to give him credit for that. Even Rozier was a good pick. Who knows how far we go if Hayward/Kyrie dont get injured the year we went 7 against the cavs.

But you can give credit to stevens for seeing who didnt fit with what the celtics want to do defensively and making moves to get rid of those weak links. making Smart the starting point guard and moving away from the "undersized scoring PG" was a good move.

Yeah, that was the analogy I used, taking the Bill Parcells quote a step further.  Ainge bought the groceries, Brad came up with the recipe, and Ime is cooking the dinner.  All are pretty vital to the process.

[pokeKingCurtis]

Man, just from a sort of topological standpoint, JB and JT - the 6'7 shooting guard and the 6'9-6'10 small forward who are young, skilled and athletic... JB going bananas against the Nets is just so satisfying for so many reasons after the media kept BS'ing all this garbage.

I agree with your overall sentiment on the Celtics but Brown is 6'-6" and Tatum is 6'-8".

No need to exaggerate.  The NBA does actual measurements now so what is listed is what is real.  Jayson Tatum is not 6'-9", 6'-10", he is 6'-8" and that is fine, plenty of size to be an elite wing in this league.  Kevin Durant is 6'-10".

That's fair enough. As other posters mentioned, Tatum got huge...legit 6'9 and a bit now according to Scal

I can't watch most of the game today on account of it being the morning of a workday for me technically...

But man just from the highlights we were abusing the hell out of their small guards.

[celticsclay]

If you don’t like ainge’s picks please look at what the 76ers have done, often drafting hire than us. Time lord, grant Williams, brown, smart, Tatum is such insane haul.

Imagine having zhaire smith, okafor, Noel, Embid, fultz simmons instead. I know suns also had an absolutely brutal couple of years drafting bender, chriss, Josh Jackson and Alex Len in the high lottery.

[Moranis]

If you don’t like ainge’s picks please look at what the 76ers have done, often drafting hire than us. Time lord, grant Williams, brown, smart, Tatum is such insane haul.

Imagine having zhaire smith, okafor, Noel, Embid, fultz simmons instead. I know suns also had an absolutely brutal couple of years drafting bender, chriss, Josh Jackson and Alex Len in the high lottery.

well when you focus on the duds on one team and not the other and then leave out some of the good players like Maxey, Covington, Grant, Thybulle, Shamet, even Saric pre-injury, it can skew anyone's drafting history. 

Boston has had plenty of duds like Yabu, Zizic, Hunter, JJJ, Melo

The Sixers biggest problem has been the extreme roster mismanagement and ill fated trades they've made (the Butler experiment was a disaster).  They just haven't made good use of their roster.  Even without making a single trade they could have had the following team (also not accounting for the cap room they would have had to sign some guys): Embiid, Grant, Covington, Maxey, Simmons, Thybulle, Shamet, Saric, Fultz.  That team is far more balanced and better than what they currently have.  A lot more depth and a roster that makes a lot more sense.  And since I have Shamet on that team, that means they didn't make the Harris trade so they'd also have had the picks that became Saddiq Bey and Tre Mann.  I have no idea if they would have taken those guys, but they probably would have had at least 1 usable player, if not 2, from those spots.

Every team has hits and misses on the draft, but not every team is competent in what they do with the roster.  That has been Philly's biggest failure.  They just have made short sighted moves that only slightly improved the team in the near term, but at great cost to the long term.  The Butler experiment was the biggest failure, but far from the only one.  If they weren't going to bring Butler back and probably build the team around the Embiid/Butler duo, they never should have acquired him (that was my biggest complaint with the whole Irving trade to Boston i.e. Boston didn't properly build the team around him and go all in like they should have).  You can survive a blunder like that, but Philly has had a lot of those blunders and that is why they are where that are.

That said, I expect them to win game 6 and close out Toronto and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them beat Miami in the 2nd round.  I don't think they will beat the Boston/Milwaukee winner, but the ECF would be a solid enough season for a team that hasn't been there in 20 years.

[Roy H.]

If you don’t like ainge’s picks please look at what the 76ers have done, often drafting hire than us. Time lord, grant Williams, brown, smart, Tatum is such insane haul.

Imagine having zhaire smith, okafor, Noel, Embid, fultz simmons instead. I know suns also had an absolutely brutal couple of years drafting bender, chriss, Josh Jackson and Alex Len in the high lottery.

well when you focus on the duds on one team and not the other and then leave out some of the good players like Maxey, Covington, Grant, Thybulle, Shamet, even Saric pre-injury, it can skew anyone's drafting history. 

Boston has had plenty of duds like Yabu, Zizic, Hunter, JJJ, Melo

The Sixers biggest problem has been the extreme roster mismanagement and ill fated trades they've made (the Butler experiment was a disaster).  They just haven't made good use of their roster.  Even without making a single trade they could have had the following team (also not accounting for the cap room they would have had to sign some guys): Embiid, Grant, Covington, Maxey, Simmons, Thybulle, Shamet, Saric, Fultz.  That team is far more balanced and better than what they currently have.  A lot more depth and a roster that makes a lot more sense.  And since I have Shamet on that team, that means they didn't make the Harris trade so they'd also have had the picks that became Saddiq Bey and Tre Mann.  I have no idea if they would have taken those guys, but they probably would have had at least 1 usable player, if not 2, from those spots.

Every team has hits and misses on the draft, but not every team is competent in what they do with the roster.  That has been Philly's biggest failure.  They just have made short sighted moves that only slightly improved the team in the near term, but at great cost to the long term.  The Butler experiment was the biggest failure, but far from the only one.  If they weren't going to bring Butler back and probably build the team around the Embiid/Butler duo, they never should have acquired him (that was my biggest complaint with the whole Irving trade to Boston i.e. Boston didn't properly build the team around him and go all in like they should have).  You can survive a blunder like that, but Philly has had a lot of those blunders and that is why they are where that are.

That said, I expect them to win game 6 and close out Toronto and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them beat Miami in the 2nd round.  I don't think they will beat the Boston/Milwaukee winner, but the ECF would be a solid enough season for a team that hasn't been there in 20 years.

You're both right:  Philly has gotten relatively little bang for the buck relative to their draft position, while also having no clear plan regarding how to build the roster.  Among their lottery picks, Embiid is their only home run.  He's an MVP candidate, but it's downright depressing to see what they've surrounded him with despite many, many opportunities to add talent.

2013:  Noel (#6), MCW (#11)
2014:  Saric (#12)
2015: Okafor (#3)
2016:  Simmons (#1)
2017: Fultz (#3)
2018: Z. Smith (#16; traded back from #10)

Can you imagine if Danny had that track record?  Fans are still fixated on us missing on Giannis in 2013.  Not only did Philly pass on Giannis twice, but they also passed over Zach Lavine ('14), Porzingis ('15), Brown or Ingram ('16), Tatum ('17) and Bridges ('18, chosen with their pick).

There's been plenty of bad roster management, too.  At the very beginning of the "process", they traded Vucevic, Andre Iguodala, and a #1 for Andrew Bynum, for instance.