I Think I Am Aboard The Tank Train Now

[Vermont Green]

Is it correct that the Celtics can be a play in team and still be in the draft lottery?  It would only be if they win their way into the actual playoffs that they would fall outside the lottery, correct?

Right now, BOS would be the 11th lowest team team, and based on the lottery, could move up or down from there, assuming they did not win the play in round.  But probably BOS ends up with a 10-12 pick.  If that turns out to be the case, I would see it as highly likely that they do trade the pick.  Not for a bunch of 2nd rounders though, most likely for an actual player.  Say Simons and that pick for a starting level big at the trade deadline.  Something like that.

Teams get silly around the draft.  Someone will offer to overpay for that pick, if it hasn't been traded in advance of draft night.  So yes, if BOS still has this pick on draft night, I would expect them to trade it, to move back and get other future assets.  I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing.  It all depends on the deal.

[keevsnick]

Is it correct that the Celtics can be a play in team and still be in the draft lottery?  It would only be if they win their way into the actual playoffs that they would fall outside the lottery, correct?

Right now, BOS would be the 11th lowest team team, and based on the lottery, could move up or down from there, assuming they did not win the play in round.  But probably BOS ends up with a 10-12 pick.  If that turns out to be the case, I would see it as highly likely that they do trade the pick.  Not for a bunch of 2nd rounders though, most likely for an actual player.  Say Simons and that pick for a starting level big at the trade deadline.  Something like that.

Teams get silly around the draft.  Someone will offer to overpay for that pick, if it hasn't been traded in advance of draft night.  So yes, if BOS still has this pick on draft night, I would expect them to trade it, to move back and get other future assets.  I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing.  It all depends on the deal.

Yes, that's correct. If Boston goes into the play-in as say the 8th seed, but loses, they get seeded in the lottery based off the record of the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs.

[Phantom255x]

Is it correct that the Celtics can be a play in team and still be in the draft lottery?  It would only be if they win their way into the actual playoffs that they would fall outside the lottery, correct?

Right now, BOS would be the 11th lowest team team, and based on the lottery, could move up or down from there, assuming they did not win the play in round.  But probably BOS ends up with a 10-12 pick.  If that turns out to be the case, I would see it as highly likely that they do trade the pick.  Not for a bunch of 2nd rounders though, most likely for an actual player.  Say Simons and that pick for a starting level big at the trade deadline.  Something like that.

Teams get silly around the draft.  Someone will offer to overpay for that pick, if it hasn't been traded in advance of draft night.  So yes, if BOS still has this pick on draft night, I would expect them to trade it, to move back and get other future assets.  I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing.  It all depends on the deal.

Yes, that's correct. If Boston goes into the play-in as say the 8th seed, but loses, they get seeded in the lottery based off the record of the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs.

I'll gladly take a pick in the 8-12 range, that still has value too. Unless the ping pong balls go in their favor and lands them a Top-5 pick, it's also looking very unlikely we'll be a bottom-6 team in the NBA to begin with. Wizards, Nets, Pelicans, Hornets, Kings, probably also the 1-11 Pacers are likely going to finish worse

[keevsnick]

Is it correct that the Celtics can be a play in team and still be in the draft lottery?  It would only be if they win their way into the actual playoffs that they would fall outside the lottery, correct?

Right now, BOS would be the 11th lowest team team, and based on the lottery, could move up or down from there, assuming they did not win the play in round.  But probably BOS ends up with a 10-12 pick.  If that turns out to be the case, I would see it as highly likely that they do trade the pick.  Not for a bunch of 2nd rounders though, most likely for an actual player.  Say Simons and that pick for a starting level big at the trade deadline.  Something like that.

Teams get silly around the draft.  Someone will offer to overpay for that pick, if it hasn't been traded in advance of draft night.  So yes, if BOS still has this pick on draft night, I would expect them to trade it, to move back and get other future assets.  I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing.  It all depends on the deal.

Yes, that's correct. If Boston goes into the play-in as say the 8th seed, but loses, they get seeded in the lottery based off the record of the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs.

I'll gladly take a pick in the 8-12 range, that still has value too. Unless the ping pong balls go in their favor and lands them a Top-5 pick, it's also looking very unlikely we'll be a bottom-6 team in the NBA to begin with. Wizards, Nets, Pelicans, Hornets, Kings, probably also the 1-11 Pacers are likely going to finish worse

I never understood the idea that the Celtics would be bottom half of lottery bad, just way too much talent and institutional knowledge to be that bad not to mention a lot of teams who just NEED a top pick a lot more than the C's do. The C's path to a top 4 pick has always involved A LOT of lottery luck (barring injury).

I predicted 42 wins for the C's, and thus far I think I'd stick with that prediction. They are 14th in offense, 9th in defense according to cleaning the glass. Still haven't started really hitting their threes yet at just 33.5%. Have gotten unlucky in a few close games. But balancing that out they have also been healthy so far.

They aren't a BAD team.

[Vermont Green]

I had predicted 40 wins in one thread and then finishing 9th in the east in another thread.  They are on pace to fall short of that, but in the ball park.  The Heat and Bulls are the teams doing better than I thought.  PHI too in that I did not expect Embiid to play much.  He still may not last and then PHI would be in tank mode.

It is only 13 games in (about 16% or 1/6th of the season), but I suspect this is pretty much what they are.  Hang around 0.500, end up a fringe play in team.  Right now, they are not a play in team, so even that is not a given.

[Donoghus]

I had predicted 40 wins in one thread and then finishing 9th in the east in another thread.  They are on pace to fall short of that, but in the ball park.  The Heat and Bulls are the teams doing better than I thought.  PHI too in that I did not expect Embiid to play much.  He still may not last and then PHI would be in tank mode.

It is only 13 games in (about 16% or 1/6th of the season), but I suspect this is pretty much what they are.  Hang around 0.500, end up a fringe play in team.  Right now, they are not a play in team, so even that is not a given.

It's so bunched up right now that you can pretty much throw that out the window. Two games separate the 3 seed & 11 seed right now.  IMO, at the moment, they are a better team than their record indicates.  Had a few games with late 4th quarter falters that could've easily gone the other way and only requires a few tweaks to be correctable.  I've been saying since summer than this is a better than .500 team and I think they can avoid the play-in all together.  Nothing I've seen has changed that opinion. Injuries would be the one wild card.  Water finds its level and this team has been below it so far. 

[Vermont Green]

I had predicted 40 wins in one thread and then finishing 9th in the east in another thread.  They are on pace to fall short of that, but in the ball park.  The Heat and Bulls are the teams doing better than I thought.  PHI too in that I did not expect Embiid to play much.  He still may not last and then PHI would be in tank mode.

It is only 13 games in (about 16% or 1/6th of the season), but I suspect this is pretty much what they are.  Hang around 0.500, end up a fringe play in team.  Right now, they are not a play in team, so even that is not a given.

It's so bunched up right now that you can pretty much throw that out the window. Two games separate the 3 seed & 11 seed right now.  IMO, at the moment, they are a better team than their record indicates.  Had a few games with late 4th quarter falters that could've easily gone the other way and only requires a few tweaks to be correctable.  I've been saying since summer than this is a better than .500 team and I think they can avoid the play-in all together.  Nothing I've seen has changed that opinion. Injuries would be the one wild card.  Water finds its level and this team has been below it so far.

Maybe, as you say, small sample size so far.  But to get to the 6 seed, they would have to pass MIL, TOR, CHI, and ORL.  MIA , PHI, and ATL may fall back, but you would still need to pass at least 4 of these 7 teams.

I will say that one thing that could impact this is the play of White and Pritchard (and to some degree Hauser).  If these guys had been playing like they did last season, maybe BOS does have 1 or 2 more wins and the landscape would look really different.  Otherwise, I am not sure where the improvement comes from.

[Ilikesports17]

I had predicted 40 wins in one thread and then finishing 9th in the east in another thread.  They are on pace to fall short of that, but in the ball park.  The Heat and Bulls are the teams doing better than I thought.  PHI too in that I did not expect Embiid to play much.  He still may not last and then PHI would be in tank mode.

It is only 13 games in (about 16% or 1/6th of the season), but I suspect this is pretty much what they are.  Hang around 0.500, end up a fringe play in team.  Right now, they are not a play in team, so even that is not a given.

"It is only 13 games in (about 16% or 1/6th of the season), but I suspect this is pretty much what they are"

net rating is far more predictive than win/loss and our net rating is top 10 in the NBA and that of a 52/53 win team. By basically every method save wins and losses weve actually been a top 10 team this year. I do not think we are as good as weve played, but if "this is pretty much what they are", then they are going to easily eclipse 45 wins and probably find ourselves on the other side of the play-in.

[Vermont Green]

I had predicted 40 wins in one thread and then finishing 9th in the east in another thread.  They are on pace to fall short of that, but in the ball park.  The Heat and Bulls are the teams doing better than I thought.  PHI too in that I did not expect Embiid to play much.  He still may not last and then PHI would be in tank mode.

It is only 13 games in (about 16% or 1/6th of the season), but I suspect this is pretty much what they are.  Hang around 0.500, end up a fringe play in team.  Right now, they are not a play in team, so even that is not a given.

"It is only 13 games in (about 16% or 1/6th of the season), but I suspect this is pretty much what they are"

net rating is far more predictive than win/loss and our net rating is top 10 in the NBA and that of a 52/53 win team. By basically every method save wins and losses weve actually been a top 10 team this year. I do not think we are as good as weve played, but if "this is pretty much what they are", then they are going to easily eclipse 45 wins and probably find ourselves on the other side of the play-in.

It is true that the point differential or net rating stats are better than the record for the Celtics right now. I am not sure that this will hold up but right now, yes that is a positive indicator for the team. Just watching the games, I am still seeing a 0.500-ish team.  But it is early and the team may play better as the season goes on.  When more of the close games.

[Moranis]

Boston has been very healthy this year.  I think Minott is the only guy who wasn't available for every game and he missed just 1.  They are 6-7 but 3 of the wins have been the Wizards, Pelicans, and Grizzlies, plus they've split with Orlando and beat the Sixers 1 in 3. Cleveland is a legit good win, but they've lost to a bad Utah team and every other good team they've played i.e. the Pistons, Knicks, and Rockets and 2 of those 3 were complete beat downs.

So with full health they generally are going to beat the bad teams but lose to the good ones. That is with full health. They won't have full health all year.  Those type of teams are generally more like 35 win teams over the course of a season.  The next 4 3-1 is possible as they host the Clippers then are @ BKN, home with BKN in the tourney game, and then the Magic come to town again for ther 3rd game of the year.  After that though they have a pretty tough stretch i.e. DET (tourney), @ MIN, @ CLE (2nd of back to back), NY, @ WAS, LAL (btb), and @ TOR before the tourney break.  That is a tough 7 game stretch. I think that will give a fairly clear picture of the type of team this is.

[Celtics4ever]

Boston has been very healthy this year.  I think Minott is the only guy who wasn't available for every game and he missed just 1.  They are 6-7 but 3 of the wins have been the Wizards, Pelicans, and Grizzlies, plus they've split with Orlando and beat the Sixers 1 in 3. Cleveland is a legit good win, but they've lost to a bad Utah team and every other good team they've played i.e. the Pistons, Knicks, and Rockets and 2 of those 3 were complete beat downs.

So with full health they generally are going to beat the bad teams but lose to the good ones. That is with full health. They won't have full health all year.  Those type of teams are generally more like 35 win teams over the course of a season.  The next 4 3-1 is possible as they host the Clippers then are @ BKN, home with BKN in the tourney game, and then the Magic come to town again for ther 3rd game of the year.  After that though they have a pretty tough stretch i.e. DET (tourney), @ MIN, @ CLE (2nd of back to back), NY, @ WAS, LAL (btb), and @ TOR before the tourney break.  That is a tough 7 game stretch. I think that will give a fairly clear picture of the type of team this is.

Don't curse us, JK

We lose Brown for any period and we are going to be hurting in terms of W and L.

[slamtheking]

Boston has been very healthy this year. I think Minott is the only guy who wasn't available for every game and he missed just 1.  They are 6-7 but 3 of the wins have been the Wizards, Pelicans, and Grizzlies, plus they've split with Orlando and beat the Sixers 1 in 3. Cleveland is a legit good win, but they've lost to a bad Utah team and every other good team they've played i.e. the Pistons, Knicks, and Rockets and 2 of those 3 were complete beat downs.

So with full health they generally are going to beat the bad teams but lose to the good ones. That is with full health. They won't have full health all year.  Those type of teams are generally more like 35 win teams over the course of a season.  The next 4 3-1 is possible as they host the Clippers then are @ BKN, home with BKN in the tourney game, and then the Magic come to town again for ther 3rd game of the year.  After that though they have a pretty tough stretch i.e. DET (tourney), @ MIN, @ CLE (2nd of back to back), NY, @ WAS, LAL (btb), and @ TOR before the tourney break.  That is a tough 7 game stretch. I think that will give a fairly clear picture of the type of team this is.

was reading the previous posts and the same thing was running through my head.  We haven't been bitten by the injury bug but a number of the teams we've played have been.  I think this has inflated our record a bit even though some here would point to the sub-par seasons by White, PP and Hauser as a reason their record isn't better.

I think that stretch starting with Det will give us a good indication of what to anticipate with this roster the rest of the season (assuming continued good health at least through that stretch even though we know that won't last the whole season).  the next 4 games should provide a bump in the record that will make the results of the next 7 game stretch not look as bad but this team's weaknesses will be exposed for Brad to deal with at the deadline this year as well as the next offseason

[slamtheking]

Boston has been very healthy this year.  I think Minott is the only guy who wasn't available for every game and he missed just 1.  They are 6-7 but 3 of the wins have been the Wizards, Pelicans, and Grizzlies, plus they've split with Orlando and beat the Sixers 1 in 3. Cleveland is a legit good win, but they've lost to a bad Utah team and every other good team they've played i.e. the Pistons, Knicks, and Rockets and 2 of those 3 were complete beat downs.

So with full health they generally are going to beat the bad teams but lose to the good ones. That is with full health. They won't have full health all year.  Those type of teams are generally more like 35 win teams over the course of a season.  The next 4 3-1 is possible as they host the Clippers then are @ BKN, home with BKN in the tourney game, and then the Magic come to town again for ther 3rd game of the year.  After that though they have a pretty tough stretch i.e. DET (tourney), @ MIN, @ CLE (2nd of back to back), NY, @ WAS, LAL (btb), and @ TOR before the tourney break.  That is a tough 7 game stretch. I think that will give a fairly clear picture of the type of team this is.

Don't curse us, JK

We lose Brown for any period and we are going to be hurting in terms of W and L.

said this before the start of the season and even more firmly believe that any games missed by JB, White and PP will be a loss.  not that White and PP are having good seasons so far but there is no 3rd PG on this roster to turn to if either of them miss time.  Ron Harper JR is not the answer