ESPN grades the Celtics off-season

[jambr380]

  I?m still in a mode where I don?t plan on watching the Celtics next year. I?m an older guy now and I time is precious. I don?t feel the need to spend it watching a team led by a front office and / or owner sitting up there lying to me, knowing that we know they?re lying. Silly political speech like optionally. We are the fans. They exist because WE do.
   I?ll probably change my mind but this is the sorts trade in history and we did it to a player who got finals mvp and who?s # will be retired. It?s one thing to trade him for equal or better return because the team comes first. But this was garbage I choose not to eat. At least for now. ? Optionality? Optionality ? Optionality .. Optionality. Stop Brad. We?re not stupid.

Agreed. I may watch them if they are on free tv, but I will not pay for league pass again. If the owners aren?t willing to spend money, why should I?
Trading a player like Brown, who not only was an all nba player, but a great community person to save some money makes my stomach hurt.
I may be biased, as Brown is one of my favorites, but getting back a 36 year old and some picks down the road makes no sense to me.
If the plan is to rebuild, why George and Conley? I just don?t understand. Seems like they are wasting some prime Tatum years

They didn?t want to pay JB a supermax extension. George will be an expiring contract next year and I?m hoping Brad moves him at the Feb trade deadline. The Celtics will need to bring in another star next year. I can?t imagine Tatum wanting to be here if they don?t. I?m giving Brad till next summer to do something before pulling the cord.

You're just repeating their spin, though.  JB was under contract for 3 seasons, and played at an all-NBA level.  He was replaced by a significantly worse, older, less durable player.

When a team blows up a contending team because it's worried about paying market rate for a star player, it's pretty fair for a fan to not want to pay for the product.

It does not seem like Brad thought JB was worth $60M per season going forward and he didn?t view the team as a contender. I imagine how the postseason played out did not help matters . No one is saying that George is better than JB and I don?t think anyone expects PG to be here long.

It?s too bad Brad dropped the ball with the Giannis negotiations. That would have made the Celtics contenders.

The biggest issue is that we sacrificed two years of all NBA production without replacing it during Tatum's prime. It makes no sense to tear down a contender in hopes that we can better allocate money in three years or more.

We would have been a lot better off signing Robinson, adding a veteran voice to the coaching staff, and bringing in a better player than Mike Connolly is at this stage of his career.

That would have improved us in the presence, while seeing some of the other eastern conference contenders all get worse (NYK, Detroit, Philly).  Instead, we took ourselves out of contention, improved Philly, and didn't really improve our financial flexibility over the next two seasons.

I was 100% with you when you advocated for a Giannis trade.  I was fine trading JB for a better fit and a better player, even if he was older and less durable.  But, Brad had three options: 1) give up more than he wanted to for Giannis; 2) keep JB and add Robinson; or 3) make a bad trade.

#3 wasn't the preferred outcome for many fans.  If they want to vote with their eyeballs and dollars, more power to them. This will be the first season in a long time that I haven't gone to a game. Even though I knew the team was predicted to stink last season, I still showed up. That won't happen next season.

I'm not a massive fan of the trade - not at all - but it's my guess that Brad doesn't think there will be much drop off at all. We can keep saying FMVP or 6th in All-NBA voting, but that's not the level of player Brad or other front offices view Jaylen as.

Maybe everybody is wrong and Jaylen really is that guy who elevates his teams. But with the way analytics have taken over the sport, he's going to be in a prove it situation until his next contract. Lucky for him, he's likely to be in a winning situation.

Anyway, I don't think this about ownership being cheap (George makes the same amount as Jaylen) other than them getting out of the repeater tax. I'll assume they'll be right back in the tax next year with another plan to take this team to the next level. If not, then I think fans have the right to get out their torches and pitchforks.

But right now, I'm just going to assume that Brad wanted out of Jaylen the player and contract at all costs and thinks Paul George will be a reasonable short term replacement. A healthy Paul George is a lot to ask, but he does a number of complementary things that Jaylen just doesn't do. And those seem to be the things Mazzulla really wants his players to do.

I think that we need to be very concerned about the status of our front office if Brad doesn't see a significant drop off from JB to Paul George, particularly when weighing probabilities about games played, etc.

Who knows? Brad onc became "burnt out" on coaching, and he did a very poor job of it his final season.  Maybe he's feeling burnt out regarding his GM duties now, because based on media reports, I've never seen such a poor job of negotiation coming from a normally competent person.  It's a bad sign if Brad really did have a mindset of dump JB at all costs," rather than remaining patient and recognizing that JB was under team control for three more seasons.

Over the long term, certainly. George only has a couple more years left before retirement. But I also wouldn't be surprised if George is actually a really good fit on the Celtics roster. Brown's best value is volume scoring, which he'll almost certainly do less of on that Philly team.

Obviously George wasn't Brad's top target this offseason - the picks were - but there have been several reports about GMs being surprised that Brad took the Philly offer over other ones that may have been slightly better.

While I do believe Brad will attempt to move George with picks for an upgrade either at the deadline or next offseason, I also think George is seen as an adequate Brown replacement and not just a contract. A very good shooter, defender, passer, and scorer, who will also very much not step on Tatum's toes. Tatum's never had this much control in his life.

It may not be a full on Title contender, but it's a good test to see how much responsibility Tatum can handle and how much analytics actually matter in terms of wins and losses. Brad can then take that information and try to build the roster how he sees fit. One thing seems very clear: he no longer wanted to build around Jaylen.