Not our time?

[footey]

What is the rush here?

Make a trade that makes us somewhat better, for the next 2 to 3 years?  Why?  We are not going to beat that Nets team for the next 2-3 years no matter what trades we make, barring a major injury to them.  KD, Harden and Kyrie are SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER than our "big 3".  The only thing that will cause a shift is aging on their side, and maturity on our side. 

I would rather the TPE expire, honestly, than packaging young prospects (Romeo, Nesmith, Rob, Pritchard).  Picks I can live without.

Everyone is SO CONCERNED that Jayson and Jaylen are going to GET MAD if we don't get better soon.  Tough cookies. They are under long term contracts.  If they are really frustrated about losing so much, play better. Make your teammates better. If they are as great as we all seem to think, then starting acting great. If they make trade demands, deal with it.

[PhoSita]

Everyone is SO CONCERNED that Jayson and Jaylen are going to GET MAD if we don't get better soon.  Tough cookies. They are under long term contracts.  If they are really frustrated about losing so much, play better. Make your teammates better. If they are as great as we all seem to think, then starting acting great. If they make trade demands, deal with it.

This isn't how the NBA works these days.  If young stars get frustrated and feel their team isn't putting adequate talent around them to succeed, they are going to start working behind the scenes to engineer their next move to a team that either does put talent around them, or that hordes a bunch of cap space so they and a couple of their friends can join all at once.


When will Nesmith, Langford, etc become useful players?  When will they hit their prime?  Two, three, four years from now?  By then the Celts will have just a year or two to truly compete before Brown and Tatum are halfway out the door.

[footey]

Everyone is SO CONCERNED that Jayson and Jaylen are going to GET MAD if we don't get better soon.  Tough cookies. They are under long term contracts.  If they are really frustrated about losing so much, play better. Make your teammates better. If they are as great as we all seem to think, then starting acting great. If they make trade demands, deal with it.

This isn't how the NBA works these days.  If young stars get frustrated and feel their team isn't putting adequate talent around them to succeed, they are going to start working behind the scenes to engineer their next move to a team that either does put talent around them, or that hordes a bunch of cap space so they and a couple of their friends can join all at once.


When will Nesmith, Langford, etc become useful players?  When will they hit their prime?  Two, three, four years from now?  By then the Celts will have just a year or two to truly compete before Brown and Tatum are halfway out the door.

Jaylen is on the first year of a 4 year contract. Jayson starts a 4/5 year contract next season.  I seriously doubt that they are going to make a trade demand in the next two to 3 years even if we continue to fall short of winning a championship.  They're not stupid.  And if they make such demands, we will just have to deal with it then.  But people have to stop worrying about their feelings here if we are unable to compete.  I don't. Man when did everyone become so sensitive to poor Jaylen and Jayson's feelings? 

[PhoSita]

Jaylen is on the first year of a 4 year contract. Jayson starts a 4/5 year contract next season.  I seriously doubt that they are going to make a trade demand in the next two to 3 years even if we continue to fall short of winning a championship.  They're not stupid.  And if they make such demands, we will just have to deal with it then.  But people have to stop worrying about their feelings here if we are unable to compete.  I don't. Man when did everyone become so sensitive to poor Jaylen and Jayson's feelings?

The nba has increasingly become about managing the feelings of your star players. If they get fed up or decide they want to team up with their friends on another team, your ability to continue to compete with those players is seriously hampered.

Just take a look at what happened in 2019 as kyrie shifted from "I'd like to be here if you'll have me" to deciding he wanted to team up with KD and Deandre in Brooklyn.


You're right that it won't matter so much in the next season or two.  But once Jaylen has only a year or two left, if things have been rocky / disappointing and he's getting restless, it will quickly become a problem.  I mean, we've seen guys with multiple years left on their deals (e.g. Paul George) basically force a trade.


Even setting that aside, the problem here is that if you want to be patient and wait on youth to develop around Tatum and Brown, you're only going to have a 1-2 season window to seriously compete while both of those guys are still under contract.

If we're really trying to win a championship here, and we acknowledge that we're trying to do so with a pairing of elite players who are nonetheless not in the absolute top echelon of stars in the league, it doesn't make much sense to try to pin all of our hopes on just one or two seasons.  To have a decent chance of making a title run with a second tier contender, you need to be in the mix for as long as possible. 

So that sets up the basic dilemma here: the Celtics need to try to be competitive in the short term, both to keep their stars contented and to not waste precious seasons with those stars under control.  At the same time, they need to maintain their ability to stay competitive over the full time that they have Tatum and Brown under contract.

[NKY fan]

Jaylen is on the first year of a 4 year contract. Jayson starts a 4/5 year contract next season.  I seriously doubt that they are going to make a trade demand in the next two to 3 years even if we continue to fall short of winning a championship.  They're not stupid.  And if they make such demands, we will just have to deal with it then.  But people have to stop worrying about their feelings here if we are unable to compete.  I don't. Man when did everyone become so sensitive to poor Jaylen and Jayson's feelings?

The nba has increasingly become about managing the feelings of your star players. If they get fed up or decide they want to team up with their friends on another team, your ability to continue to compete with those players is seriously hampered.

Just take a look at what happened in 2019 as kyrie shifted from "I'd like to be here if you'll have me" to deciding he wanted to team up with KD and Deandre in Brooklyn.


You're right that it won't matter so much in the next season or two.  But once Jaylen has only a year or two left, if things have been rocky / disappointing and he's getting restless, it will quickly become a problem.  I mean, we've seen guys with multiple years left on their deals (e.g. Paul George) basically force a trade.


Even setting that aside, the problem here is that if you want to be patient and wait on youth to develop around Tatum and Brown, you're only going to have a 1-2 season window to seriously compete while both of those guys are still under contract.

If we're really trying to win a championship here, and we acknowledge that we're trying to do so with a pairing of elite players who are nonetheless not in the absolute top echelon of stars in the league, it doesn't make much sense to try to pin all of our hopes on just one or two seasons.  To have a decent chance of making a title run with a second tier contender, you need to be in the mix for as long as possible. 

So that sets up the basic dilemma here: the Celtics need to try to be competitive in the short term, both to keep their stars contented and to not waste precious seasons with those stars under control.  At the same time, they need to maintain their ability to stay competitive over the full time that they have Tatum and Brown under contract.

Another issue with that approach is - you can do everything right and develop the young players but if said players are not the right players to develop and or they just don't improve enough you have wasted precious seasons of the Js.
I further think that Danny feels the "urgency" to do something but maintains that he keeps the course so he doesn't get "robbed" in a trade. He will not do a trade for the sake of trading but I think he is closer to becoming an "aggressive" buyer than he is pretending to be.

[PhoSita]

I need somebody to explain to me how the Celts can meaningfully upgrade this roster without having to use picks to dump Kemba or trade away Smart sometime in the next 12 months.

If it's not really doable, then I'm becoming kind of fatalistic about the Celts basically being entrenched as a second tier team.

They can still be a lot of fun and very good.  But also probably a clear step below the top 5-6 teams in the league, at least for the near future.

I think the only way out of this is probably for one of these mid to late 1st round draft picks to very quickly turn into a surprise contributor.  Not just a Payton Pritchard-type decent bench role player.  I mean an above average starter / borderline All-Star, a la Siakam or Adebayo.

[wdleehi]

I need somebody to explain to me how the Celts can meaningfully upgrade this roster without having to use picks to dump Kemba or trade away Smart sometime in the next 12 months.

If it's not really doable, then I'm becoming kind of fatalistic about the Celts basically being entrenched as a second tier team.

They can still be a lot of fun and very good.  But also probably a clear step below the top 5-6 teams in the league, at least for the near future.

I think the only way out of this is probably for one of these mid to late 1st round draft picks to very quickly turn into a surprise contributor.  Not just a Payton Pritchard-type decent bench role player.  I mean an above average starter / borderline All-Star, a la Siakam or Adebayo.

I am sure that a pick and/or a young player would have to go out in a meaningful trade.   


And that's fine if the return is a much better player who is probably a better trade chip when a star comes available.  The key is not trading away all the possible future draft pick and/or all the young players.

[NKY fan]

I need somebody to explain to me how the Celts can meaningfully upgrade this roster without having to use picks to dump Kemba or trade away Smart sometime in the next 12 months.

If it's not really doable, then I'm becoming kind of fatalistic about the Celts basically being entrenched as a second tier team.

They can still be a lot of fun and very good.  But also probably a clear step below the top 5-6 teams in the league, at least for the near future.

I think the only way out of this is probably for one of these mid to late 1st round draft picks to very quickly turn into a surprise contributor.  Not just a Payton Pritchard-type decent bench role player.  I mean an above average starter / borderline All-Star, a la Siakam or Adebayo.

How about an ORL trade:
Kemba + Romeo + Nesmith + 2021 FRP
for
Fournier + Ross + Gordon
and CHA trade:
Theis for Graham straight up.

then next offseason S&T for J. Collins in exchange for Gordon. I think Atlanta would take that instead of maxing Collins.
2021 line up:
DG/MS/JB/JT/JC
PP / TR / TL / TT
We still have all our picks next year available to trade plus Collins and T. Ross. to match salaries on a major star

[PhoSita]

I'm not sure if that helps the cap situation since you'll have to pay Collins.

[NKY fan]

I'm not sure if that helps the cap situation since you'll have to pay Collins.

The cap will be tricky to manage but we remove Kemba's max deal and Gordon's salary. We can also try to salary dump Tristan on a team that need veterans.

[NKY fan]

Another way to improve is to find a trade partner that is in a similar situation as Nuggets from 4 years ago. They had to trade one of Nurkic and Jokic at the time because it didn't make sense to keep both. Portland took advantage - not only they got Nurkic for Plumlee but also squeezed a FPR from Denver.
Portland improved overnight.
I just can't think of a team in a similar situation... A team that has to trade a young prospect because they have a more talented young player playing the same position.
It also has to be 2 point guards that can not play up a position or 2 centers that can not play the 4.

[PhoSita]

I'm not sure if that helps the cap situation since you'll have to pay Collins.

The cap will be tricky to manage but we remove Kemba's max deal and Gordon's salary. We can also try to salary dump Tristan on a team that need veterans.

I think where we are going with this is that the Celts

(a) need to use picks to acquire a talent upgrade

(b) also need to use picks to dump salary


Not a great situation.

[Surferdad]

Anything short of having as Big-3 is just playing around on the fringes.  IMO, Celts don't have a legit Big-3 currently:

Jayson Tatum - Yeah he is one
Jaylen Brown - not really, at least not yet
Kemba Walker - No, he isn't

[PhoSita]

Anything short of having as Big-3 is just playing around on the fringes.  IMO, Celts don't have a legit Big-3 currently:

Jayson Tatum - Yeah he is one
Jaylen Brown - not really, at least not yet
Kemba Walker - No, he isn't

The way I've thought about it for a while is that you need

- A primary 5 man lineup that is really effective on both ends
- Overall top elite (top 5) offense or defense while being very good (top 10) on the other end
- At least one effective crunch time scorer with experience closing out opponents in big games


So far this season it's clear the Celts don't have enough depth to have the top 5 offense and defense.  If Kemba is only 75-80% of what he was before his knee problems, then they also don't have a five man lineup that is going to be really effective.  Tatum has shown the ability to become a very good crunch time scorer but he's still a work in progress. Jaylen hasn't done as much as a crunch time shot creator but he seems to have potential there as well.

Definitely have some work to do in order to get there.  Probably need to find a way to bolster the bench, add another piece to the starting lineup that gives it more balance and playmaking, and get significant improvement in fourth quarter performance from Tatum and/or Brown.

[celticsclay]

I need somebody to explain to me how the Celts can meaningfully upgrade this roster without having to use picks to dump Kemba or trade away Smart sometime in the next 12 months.

If it's not really doable, then I'm becoming kind of fatalistic about the Celts basically being entrenched as a second tier team.

They can still be a lot of fun and very good.  But also probably a clear step below the top 5-6 teams in the league, at least for the near future.

I think the only way out of this is probably for one of these mid to late 1st round draft picks to very quickly turn into a surprise contributor.  Not just a Payton Pritchard-type decent bench role player.  I mean an above average starter / borderline All-Star, a la Siakam or Adebayo.

Call me crazy but I think rob williams has a shot