Home Grown Talent - Simply Amazing

[aingeforthree]

Jayson Tatum - all star. One of the best young talents in the entire league
Jaylen Brown - all star
Robert Williams - future star in the making. Big time upside
Marcus Smart - all world defender.
Grant Williams- most improved player of the year. Incredible jump from a year ago
Payton Pritchard- future all star imo. Great shooter with a good IQ for the PG position
Aaron Nesmith- shooter. Needs more work and time to develop

The list is pretty amazing. These players could beat a lot of teams in this league by themselves. All kids drafted by your Celtics.

Outside of Smart (28), all are 25 yrs old & younger. Pretty impressive track record for home grown Celtic talent. You have to take your hat off to the development of these draft picks. Great draft picks. I’m amazed at how stacked we are with youth who can play.

[gouki88]

I love both Pritchard and Grant, but I do not think that either PP will make an All-Star team nor Grant is close to the most improved player of the year (unless you mean internally). I do like the optimism though.

[aingeforthree]

I love both Pritchard and Grant, but I do not think that either PP will make an All-Star team nor Grant is close to the most improved player of the year (unless you mean internally). I do like the optimism though.

Definitely internally, not from a total nba award standpoint. Just the gains he’s made this season have been amazing. I wanted him gone last year personally. Now, he’s changed my opinion. He really can be a nice rotational piece. Keep the development going.

On Pritchard, I see no reason he can’t be a Van Fleet type all-star in the future. He just needs minutes and just needs time to work on his D. The shooting and PG offensive play will get there. It’s obvious that his defense needs to grow.

[gouki88]

I love both Pritchard and Grant, but I do not think that either PP will make an All-Star team nor Grant is close to the most improved player of the year (unless you mean internally). I do like the optimism though.

Definitely internally, not from a total nba award standpoint. Just the gains he’s made this season have been amazing. I wanted him gone last year personally. Now, he’s changed my opinion. He really can be a nice rotational piece. Keep the development going.

On Pritchard, I see no reason he can’t be a Van Fleet type all-star in the future. He just needs minutes and just needs time to work on his D. The shooting and PG offensive play will get there. It’s obvious that his defense needs to grow.

I feel as if Pritchard won't ever have the opportunity to get enough shots to be a VanVleet type player. Seth Curry is my optimistic hope for him long-term.

[Goldstar88]

I love both Pritchard and Grant, but I do not think that either PP will make an All-Star team nor Grant is close to the most improved player of the year (unless you mean internally). I do like the optimism though.

After Payton’s Rookie season I had hopes that he would turn into Jason Williams lite. I don’t think that anymore, but it would have been awesome. White Chocolate was a treat to watch. Intended and yes, terrible.

[JBcat]

I don’t think Seth Curry or Jason Williams are great comparisons. I see Curry more a shooting guard that could play point in a pinch, and Pritchard more of a point guard that can play off the ball. Pritchard also doesn’t really have the flash that Jason Williams had. I was hoping for more along the lines of a poor man’s Mark Price, but I realize that is reaching. If he is like our Steve Kerr, I’ll take that!

[mobilija]

 Our statistically historically great starting 5 has 4 homegrown talents.

Thank you Danny Ainge. Lets remember this when we bash our former GM for being a terrible drafter.

So much more fun to root for these guys than trading for mercurial superstars.

[Surferdad]

Our statistically historically great starting 5 has 4 homegrown talents.

Thank you Danny Ainge. Lets remember this when we bash our former GM for being a terrible drafter.

So much more fun to root for these guys than trading for mercurial superstars.

Good point. We love to bash Ainge for his drafting, and sometimes call him "Trader Danny", but it seems the trades he made have not been very good and the drafting is actually where he's done well.

[nickagneta]

Our statistically historically great starting 5 has 4 homegrown talents.

Thank you Danny Ainge. Lets remember this when we bash our former GM for being a terrible drafter.

So much more fun to root for these guys than trading for mercurial superstars.

Good point. We love to bash Ainge for his drafting, and sometimes call him "Trader Danny", but it seems the trades he made have not been very good and the drafting is actually where he's done well.

Two of the best players on the team were acquired by trading to obtain the draft picks to draft them.

[pablohoney]

I can’t help but think our bench would even be better with TRozier and Olynyk.

[Neurotic Guy]

I can’t help but think our bench would even be better with TRozier and Olynyk.

2 players regularly ripped here for being unwise picks.

[jambr380]

I can’t help but think our bench would even be better with TRozier and Olynyk.

Losing Rozier was a tough blow, but worth it at the time to get an All-NBA PG. We did go to the ECF so it wasn’t all bad. I actually genuinely like Kelly, too, but am happy with the other homegrown talent we have (that nobody’s mentioned) in Theis.

[pablohoney]

I can’t help but think our bench would even be better with TRozier and Olynyk.

Losing Rozier was a tough blow, but worth it at the time to get an All-NBA PG. We did go to the ECF so it wasn’t all bad. I actually genuinely like Kelly, too, but am happy with the other homegrown talent we have (that nobody’s mentioned) in Theis.

Kelly would fit this offense better than his previous stint in Boston as a 3 point threat and ball mover at PF position. He isn’t a great defender but he would be able to pick up the switching scheme and be in right place most of the time which would make him an acceptable team defender.

Rozier is a little undersized for what we do but his scoring and rebounding and overall toughness would be nice.

[#1P4P]

Our statistically historically great starting 5 has 4 homegrown talents.

Thank you Danny Ainge. Lets remember this when we bash our former GM for being a terrible drafter.

So much more fun to root for these guys than trading for mercurial superstars.

Good point. We love to bash Ainge for his drafting, and sometimes call him "Trader Danny", but it seems the trades he made have not been very good and the drafting is actually where he's done well.

Two of the best players on the team were acquired by trading to obtain the draft picks to draft them.

The Ainge criticism was often baseless critique fueled by frustrated MMQBs. The few articles that measured draft performance shows the Celtics to be excellent relative to the rest of the NBA (keyword: relative).

Danny excelled at winning trades, exchanging an asset(s) for a better asset(s); and avoiding committing to bad contract(s).

DA didn’t want to build the Championship team that has a 3-5 year title window again, which is why aside from Horford, he signed or attempted to sign players that were still in their mid-twenties. Things went so well, so fast with JB and JT (2017-18 playoff run) that he opted to let the rebuild play out as it has (resisting trading for Kawhi and PG in the process).

Smart is the oldest player in the core at 28 (and he’s 2+ years older than the next player), a well built/balanced young team with an efficient cap sheet, and 2 role players that are in the process of development and could still outperform their role. We’re setup great for now and the future.

[GreenlyGreeny]

Let’s not get too out of it. Danny nailed the drafting of JT and JB, arguably the best players drafted in 2017 and 2016 (some might pick Mitchell and Ingram instead, but I would disagree vehemently…although possibly might give the nod to Simmons over JB). If he was a great drafter, he would have chosen Dejounte Murray instead of the French Dancing Bear in 2016, and Pascal Siakam instead of Zizic later in the first. Imagine how loaded we would be today if that had been done. He does get major props for Timelord in 2018 and Grant in 2019. It’s a [dang] shame Haliburton did not fall to us in 2020. We also should have kept Rozier and Horford instead of signing Kemba.

The biggest what-if: Imagine if we had drafted Giannis instead of Kelly, and kept the 16th overall pick in 2013 to also draft Gobert. Then still drafted Smart, JT, and JB. That would give us:

Smart
Brown
Tatum
Giannis
Gobert

We would clearly be on our 4th or 5th straight title right now. Just two draft moves away from a 1960s-esque dynasty…