I Think I Am Aboard The Tank Train Now

[keevsnick]

Making the playoffs does 0 for us.

At this point I'd be open to trading brown for haul and let JT and White lead the team the year after.

All depends on the market doesnt it? I think the fact that no one blew us away by draft night indicates theres not going to be that big offer out there.

I suppose the other possible shoe to drop would be if this Turner to Milwaukee move shuts the door on teams Giannis hopes. Maybe then some teams would pivot to Brown. Just dont see it as realistic at this point.

Its not like the first day of FA has been some big surprise. I suppose we may have expected to be able to bring back Luke, but does Luke Kornet really change the math on a Jaylen Brown trade? Id hope not.

Agree. Anything short of, say, Brown to the Kings for Sabonis and five firsts is going to be turned down.

And why would the Kings do that anyway? I think Brown is the better player, but if you're trading for a player like him the whole point is to pair him with another all-nba caliber guy not swap guys.

[mef730]

Making the playoffs does 0 for us.

At this point I'd be open to trading brown for haul and let JT and White lead the team the year after.

All depends on the market doesnt it? I think the fact that no one blew us away by draft night indicates theres not going to be that big offer out there.

I suppose the other possible shoe to drop would be if this Turner to Milwaukee move shuts the door on teams Giannis hopes. Maybe then some teams would pivot to Brown. Just dont see it as realistic at this point.

Its not like the first day of FA has been some big surprise. I suppose we may have expected to be able to bring back Luke, but does Luke Kornet really change the math on a Jaylen Brown trade? Id hope not.

Agree. Anything short of, say, Brown to the Kings for Sabonis and five firsts is going to be turned down.

And why would the Kings do that anyway? I think Brown is the better player, but if you're trading for a player like him the whole point is to pair him with another all-nba caliber guy not swap guys.

No way they would. My point is that it is going to be impossible for anyone to offer what the Celtics would feel is acceptable for JB.

[ozgod]

I'm not ready to get on yet. I think we're going to be a top 6 seed at least with how weak the East will be. Without knowing what moves the other teams will make, as the rosters are right now you can't tell me we will be worse than WAS, CHA, BRK, TOR, ATL, CHI...and we're probably still better than IND without Hali, MIL without Dame, Brook and maybe Giannis, or MIA. That leaves CLE, NYK, ORL, PHI and maybe DET better than us.

Bit early to slit wrists 

The East doesn't have any top tier contenders but there are a lot of good teams.  Boston is no better than a play in team if Brown stays mostly healthy.  They are not a drag though and that is what they should be going for.  Boston absolutely should tank this season and get out of the tax entirety to start that clock over as well.

It makes sense to get out of the tax given how close we are to getting there already, given we've lost Luke and probably Al as well, but to tank we would need to sit Jaylen and Derrick or they would have to develop "injuries". You definitely can't tell players not to put in their best, and the NBA won't let us sit them without an injury. I get doing it for strategic reasons to get a draft pick but if you want to do a 2024 Philly we need Jaylen and Derrick to injure themselves or find a really good doctor 

Of course if they don't want to keep paying Jaylen they could break his contract up for picks and multiple role players/expirings and do it that way. White all on his own might struggle to keep them out of the lottery. Then the question comes down to "is Jaylen worth keeping" and then you have the pro- and against- Jaylen arguments on that.

I just feel like these days the easy answer to an upcoming tough season is "tank". I get the appeal, plus if you're tanking as a fan your expectations are low so maybe it hurts less? A quarter of the way through last season my friend who is a Sixers fan wanted to tank already, because "I'd rather hope for Cooper Flagg than hope to scrape into the playoffs".

I guess here in the US we have been conditioned to be "championship or bust" fans. In the English Premier League, and a lot of the European leagues, fans become fans of their soccer clubs largely because of geography, they go and support their local if they grew up in Leicester or Leeds or Sunderland or Fulham, because there's no salary cap there's only ever 5 or 6 teams (Liverpool, Man City, Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham) that really have a chance to win it, every year you go in as a fan knowing you have no chance to win the flag. But you still cheer for the team no matter what, because it's in your blood. Over here we tend to lose interest just because we're going to have a bad season. I'm not criticizing anyone for it, it's just an interesting observation.

I guess in a way it's like cheering for Boston College in college football...you know you're never going to win the national championship, but you cheer for them all the same because expectations are zero 

[tazzmaniac]

I'm not ready to get on yet. I think we're going to be a top 6 seed at least with how weak the East will be. Without knowing what moves the other teams will make, as the rosters are right now you can't tell me we will be worse than WAS, CHA, BRK, TOR, ATL, CHI...and we're probably still better than IND without Hali, MIL without Dame, Brook and maybe Giannis, or MIA. That leaves CLE, NYK, ORL, PHI and maybe DET better than us.

Bit early to slit wrists 

The East doesn't have any top tier contenders but there are a lot of good teams.  Boston is no better than a play in team if Brown stays mostly healthy.  They are not a drag though and that is what they should be going for.  Boston absolutely should tank this season and get out of the tax entirety to start that clock over as well.

It makes sense to get out of the tax given how close we are to getting there already, given we've lost Luke and probably Al as well, but to tank we would need to sit Jaylen and Derrick or they would have to develop "injuries". You definitely can't tell players not to put in their best, and the NBA won't let us sit them without an injury. I get doing it for strategic reasons to get a draft pick but if you want to do a 2024 Philly we need Jaylen and Derrick to injure themselves or find a really good doctor 

Of course if they don't want to keep paying Jaylen they could break his contract up for picks and multiple role players/expirings and do it that way. White all on his own might struggle to keep them out of the lottery. Then the question comes down to "is Jaylen worth keeping" and then you have the pro- and against- Jaylen arguments on that.

I just feel like these days the easy answer to an upcoming tough season is "tank". I get the appeal, plus if you're tanking as a fan your expectations are low so maybe it hurts less? A quarter of the way through last season my friend who is a Sixers fan wanted to tank already, because "I'd rather hope for Cooper Flagg than hope to scrape into the playoffs".

I guess here in the US we have been conditioned to be "championship or bust" fans. In the English Premier League, and a lot of the European leagues, fans become fans of their soccer clubs largely because of geography, they go and support their local if they grew up in Leicester or Leeds or Sunderland or Fulham, because there's no salary cap there's only ever 5 or 6 teams (Liverpool, Man City, Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham) that really have a chance to win it, every year you go in as a fan knowing you have no chance to win the flag. But you still cheer for the team no matter what, because it's in your blood. Over here we tend to lose interest just because we're going to have a bad season. I'm not criticizing anyone for it, it's just an interesting observation.

I guess in a way it's like cheering for Boston College in college football...you know you're never going to win the national championship, but you cheer for them all the same because expectations are zero 

Losing Tatum, KP, Holiday and Horford and replacing them with much less talented players is worth a lot of losses.  The Bigs currently are Queta, Tillman, Niang and Garza.  That big lineup is worth a lot of losses.  I'm assuming Horford is gone.  How many other teams have as bad or worse lineup of bigs?  The team is still looking to cut salary so Simons, Niang and/or Hauser are potentially going to get moved for lesser players.  Is anybody currently on the roster an average or better defender besides JB, White and Hauser? 

[Celtics4ever]

I have read that Hugo gets after it on defense, and seen some tape of Minott to indicate he plays D.