What if the Celtics went with Youth?

[cdif911]

.... Celticsblog would be a heckuva lot more busy this time of year.....

(also Rhondo? really? c'mon)

[Emperor Young]

perk
jefferson
pierce- assuming he didn't get traded
roy
rondo

mayo
yi
west
gomes
powe
bassy
ggreen
miles
davis

Sounds pretty good to me.. It would have been interesting if we traded pierce with last years pick(5th pick) posiibly could have grabbed durant or al horford? and a filler?

[Vermont Green]

I think the team that most reflects what we could have been is Portland.  We would have had Jefferson instead of Aldridge for example but you can make the comparison in terms of the type of young talent that we could look very much like Portland.  That wouldn't be all bad but hard to say if it is champion or not.  It just goes to show that there is more than one way to do it.  It is possible to draft champions and it is possible to trade for champions.  Portland is going to be pretty good this year though I suspect.

[Surferdad]

I see it this way. That roster has a 10% chance at a championship. Danny's dream roster (before draft night '07) would have probably above 75%:

Oden
Jefferson
??
Roy
Paul

Scary how good that team could have been. I'm not fussed though, #17 is enough for now.

Wow, yes. that is interesting too. Even if you stick Durant at the 3 and Perk at the 5.

Yikes, the notion of Oden, Jefferson, Roy, Paul...what a foundation.  Kinda gives you a chill thinking how it could have actually happened.

[hwangjini_1]

I see it this way. That roster has a 10% chance at a championship. Danny's dream roster (before draft night '07) would have probably above 75%:

Oden
Jefferson
??
Roy
Paul

Scary how good that team could have been. I'm not fussed though, #17 is enough for now.

Wow, yes. that is interesting too. Even if you stick Durant at the 3 and Perk at the 5.

Yikes, the notion of Oden, Jefferson, Roy, Paul...what a foundation.  Kinda gives you a chill thinking how it could have actually happened.

not really. the celtics now have #17. done, finished, won, delivered.

indeed, i would take the current celtics in a best of 7 series over the above lineup for at least 2-3 more years.

beyond that, who knows? knees give out, players underperform, sometimes they move on. even with the above line up NOW, who knows what it would be like in3-4 years.

i am happy with what ainge did.

[Jon]

Somebody voted for 75%?  Really?

I said less than 10%.  The vast, vast majority of teams don't win championships unless they have an elite superstar.  I'm not sure Big Al fits that category.

Plus, depending on how you define "elite superstar," many teams with elite superstars don't even win championships. 

In every era there are quite a few very strong teams, but only a few win titles.  Look at teams like the Suns and Mavs who built their teams up, but most likely won't ever win a title with the way their current teams are constructed.  Go back a few more years and look at teams like the Kings and Nets, a few years before that, teams like the Jazz, Sonics, Pacers, and Knicks.  And the lists go on. 

It's hard enough to become one of those teams that falls just short let alone winning it all. 

[Sweet17]

The way to win is to have MORE THEN ONE elite superstar. That's why the C's came out roses. I kind of hate to admit it but the wages of win easily predicted the C's dominance. Everyone (including them) knew KG was a superstar (though in fairness they REALLY loved him). But Ray Allen consistently matched up with the far more ballyhooed Kobe in there rankings. Throw in an undervalued PP (at least in their rankings) who is as he says a top ten player and the outcome was quite predicatble.

What Ainge did is really expose the simplicity of the NBA system (IMHO). Forget all the griping about chemistry, two many balls, the bench, age and so on. It's about having a few superstars that at least complement eachothers game to SOME extent - and having 5 or so other guys that have legit NBA ability (not even necessarily GOOD ability just you know Eddie House SHOULD be playing for SOMEONE kind of ability). That's about all you need.

Honestly I thought the same with the Bulls run. Paxson, Longley et al. weren't really hot stuff either. Fans love to glorify the roleplayers because it appeals to our "team" sensibilities. It's not really true though. Danny is pushing this theme again signing two guys who might well be out of the NBA in POB and Miles. That's a bit of a stretch even for the Big 3 (do those two have legit NBA ability but it's not impossible that they could make it work.

Paul hit on this theme years ago boasting about how if you paired him with any other 4 guys he can be competitive. What went unsaid is that Paul is assuming you mean 4 guys that can play NBA basketball. Hell some fans were even excited about Jiri Welsch watching him exploit PP strong side attention..

Pete

[CoachBo]

Wow. Two people voted 100 percent.

I would have voted 0 percent if that had been an option.

[nickagneta]

Wow. Two people voted 100 percent.

I would have voted 0 percent if that had been an option.

Pretty much my feelings exactly.

[Sweet17]

I think the Bulls are a case study in what happens if you overvalue youth and refuse to part with it to get to the next level..

[johnnyrondo]

Well if you went with youth, the time to trade Pierce was when we were offered the #3 pick a few yrs back and would have taken Chris Paul.  A Chris Paul, Al Jefferson, Brandon Roy trio would have been the top young trio in the NBA. Any comparison to the wolves is ridiculous. what we've seen from Roy and Chris Paul is not only would we be a team with great potential, but we'd be making noise now. Also, you'd have the #5 pick last year to trade and players like Rondo, Perkins, Gomes, West etc. In addition, you'd be under the cap (or at least way under the luxury tax). Maybe you add a Marcus Camby to help the defense. I would have bought back the pick we traded to the Suns (they sold it to Portland) and drafted Rudy Fernandez. This summer you could also move one of the Raef or Wally expiring contracts for Jermaine O'Neal. At a bare minimum, we would have been better than the current Hornets team. Obviously, getting that title last year helps lessen the blow of being able to watch a young exciting core for the next 10 to 12 years. 

[Chris]

Well if you went with youth, the time to trade Pierce was when we were offered the #3 pick a few yrs back and would have taken Chris Paul.  A Chris Paul, Al Jefferson, Brandon Roy trio would have been the top young trio in the NBA. Any comparison to the wolves is ridiculous. what we've seen from Roy and Chris Paul is not only would we be a team with great potential, but we'd be making noise now. Also, you'd have the #5 pick last year to trade and players like Rondo, Perkins, Gomes, West etc. In addition, you'd be under the cap (or at least way under the luxury tax). Maybe you add a Marcus Camby to help the defense. I would have bought back the pick we traded to the Suns (they sold it to Portland) and drafted Rudy Fernandez. This summer you could also move one of the Raef or Wally expiring contracts for Jermaine O'Neal. At a bare minimum, we would have been better than the current Hornets team. Obviously, getting that title last year helps lessen the blow of being able to watch a young exciting core for the next 10 to 12 years. 

I have been trying hard to not get involved in this, but I can't help it.  The problem with these types of arguments (not to single you out, just using yours as an example) is that there are so many  variables involved that as soon as you change one, they all start falling apart.  So if the C's did make the trade of Pierce for Paul, then they also would have gained a bunch of cap space I believe, and likely would have used it.  This then may have left them with a different pick a couple years back so they may not have ended up with Roy...and that is not even bringing up the fact that Danny simply did not want to take Roy because of injury concerns.

[QuinielaBox]

Pierce was offered to Portland for their pick that Danny Ainge would have picked Chris Paul with.

So our line-up would have been something like:

Perkins, Jefferson, Jeff Greene, Brandon Roy, Chris Paul and a whole bunch of young depth.

Yeah, we'd be a playoff team because Jefferson, Roy, and Paul would have been our foundation. I'm not sure that we would get to the NBA Finals let alone win it. Lebron James, Pistons and Magic would be formidable road blocks. I'm grateful that the Pierce, Allen, and Garnett team got us to the promised land before I went on Social Security and Medicare.

[johnnyrondo]

    One could also easily argue that if Ainge went the youth route, we don't trade a first rounder to bring back Tione and the difference would mean that we wouldn't have made that late season run, so instead of dropping in the draft and settling for Gerald Green (who Ainge was never really a fan of) we would have been in position to draft Granger. Now no one ever knows who Danny would have drafted. I thought Roy was the obvious pick a couple years ago, and Ainge traded the pick for Telfair. I thought Chalmers was the guy to pick this yr, and Ainge picked Giddens instead. It's also been documented that ainge tried to trade up to draft Robert Swift and when that fell through he "settled" on Al Jefferson.
    Just for fun I think it would be cool for people to say what they wanted to do dating back to when Ainge took over. I'll go first.

   I can't say I knew much about Banks, so I won't comment/criticize that pick. I did like Perkins as a project 2nd first rounder.

I was against the Tione/Raef trade because i didn't like Raef's contract. I was not in the same rush to move Tione, so I would have waited a yr til he was an expriring contract if needed.

   I was also against the Battie and Eric Williams for Ricky Davis trade. I thought they held better value. I rooted for Ricky on the C's, but based on what Cleveland was able to swing Battie to Orlando for I still believe we undersold him.

   Again I plead a little ignorant on the Jefferson/West/Allen draft, so I won't claim that I knew Jefferson would be great. i wasn't watching too much college ball those days.

  I was against bringing Tione back and giving up a first rounder to do it. It brought back a little excitement, but I would have preferred the better draft position and the extra first rounder.

I definitely wanted to make the paul pierce and the #19 for Chris paul trade and Nick van exel's expiring contract trade. Outlaw wasn't a deal breaker for me, but I liked Paul a lot and was getting tired of Pierce (just being honest).

Again i plead somewhat ignorant on the later part of the first round. I knew Granger and Green were the two guys that I wanted, but I didn't really have a preference. I was very happy (after Granger was off the board) that we got Gerald. I didn't know much about David Lee, but I wanted us to trade up in the second round for both Ukic (who knows if he'll be any good) and Monta ellis. Obviously Gomes was a solid second round pick, but not of Monta's caliber. I didn't know of Orien Greene when we drafted him, but liked him a lot in the preseason.

   I wasn't for the Scal or Dickau signings.

  I thought the Blount/Banks/Ricky for Wally trade was a walking in place trade, so didn't care too much. Ricky had sort of grown on me, so I was sad to see him go, but didn't care too much about the trade.

  Brandon Roy was the guy i wanted in the draft, but was fine with Foye or Gay either. i just wanted to take the best player available. I know ainge was scared off a little by Roy's injury history and was leaning towards taking a pg/drafting for need. Mistake imo. I was fine with Marcus williams or the guy Ainge liked (Rondo). Figured we could trade down for either. Also, the AI trade rumors were going on at that time, so that added a lot of drama. I did not like the Telfair trade (especially it being completed prior to the draft). Ainge claimed Telfair was better than any pg in the draft, but I remembered him as the 3rd string pg on the cellar Blazers. It was thought Ratliff would be easier to swing to Philly for Iverson than Raef, but I was scared what we would be giving up for Iverson. When we later drafted Rondo (by trading a future pick who would become Rudy Fernandez) it was thought, we'd be trading Rondo, Jefferson and Ratliff for Iverson. Very glad that trade didn't go down. I watched "Through the Fire" lol, and tried to warm a little to Telfair, but I liked Rondo better. I put up a celticsblog poll (on the older version) asking people who they thought would be a better pg down the road Telfair or Rondo. Obviously i went with rondo, but about 2 thirds to 3 fourths of bloggers chose Telfair. they must have liked "through the Fire" more   I was disapointed we didn't buy the Sergio Rodriguez pick. Truth be told, if you had asked me before the draft who I'd rather have between Rondo or Sergio, i would have gone with Sergio Turns out we could have had both. A draft of Roy, Rondo, and sergio would have been sweet.

       I definitely bought into the tank mode season and had my eyes on durant more than Oden. In my dreams we got the number one pick, but traded down to #2 to take Durant and get something else too (Oden was more desired). I was devastated when we fell to #5. I thought Horford and Conley would be good to, but didn't know what was left after that. i was scared we'd go for Yi at #5. As the draft got closer I kind of liked Brewer and Thornton and had started to think maybe Yi might be ok. The one trade I liked was trading our pick to atlanta for joe Johnson and a later first. I'm thinking that trade didn't have much legs though. i do wonder if we offered the #5 straight up for JJ if the Hawks would have bitten.  Assuming we kept the pick, I would have gone with Thorton. I also didn't like how the pick we traded to Phoenix they simply sold and I wondered why we couldn't have just bought it back. I thought Rudy Fernandez would be a great extra pick. I liked the BBD pick and didn't really like the Pruitt pick.

    This yr i preferred chalmers over Giddens fwiw.

    So I guess if I was the GM, we'd have Chris Paul, Rondo, Sergio and Chalmers as our point guards. Brandon Roy, Monta Ellis, and Rudy Fernandez at the 2. Ukic maybe somewhere. Thornton and Granger at the 3. Jefferson at the 4. And Perk at the 5. Plus whatever we got for an expiring Tione, the draft pick we traded, Tony Battie, and eric Williams. Tons of cap space too(maybe add Camby this Summer or make Presti trades where we take on a Kurt Thomas in order to get a couple more firsts). I feel like Bill Simmons a little too much writing this though. Obviously Ainge either didn't have the desire to go the youth route or got tired of it and scrapped that plan. He kind of only half went the youth route though by keeping Pierce. winning the title this past yr was sweet. Just like Miami was thrilled to bring home a title a couple yrs ago. I do disagree with the premise that we wouldn't have been able to build a title contender. I think we could have been the top young title contender by now imo. 

[JSD]

  Again I plead a little ignorant on the Jefferson/West/Allen draft, so I won't claim that I knew Jefferson would be great. i wasn't watching too much college ball those days.

Jefferson came straight from high school. not many knew much of him