Should the Celtics rebuild? (split)

[Brickowski]

I think ESPN is wrong.

[Roy Hobbs]

I don't see how they are restricted.  Their contracts are over. The Celtics have full bird rights on Powe, and "early Bird" rights on BBD, but I don't see how a team can match offers on second round picks to whom it has no financial obligation, and no rights to make a qualifying offer.  Am I missing something?

Those are just the rules of the CBA.  If the Celtics extend a qualifying offer, they gain the right to match for Powe and BBD. 

You can read up on it here:  http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q36

[Eja117]

I'd say if the team doesn't make the finals next year then go ahead and blow it up, but not before.

We lost KG this year. There's no reason Cle can't lose Lebron next year. If that happened and we had already blown it up we'd be killin ourselves.

The only way I make a major trade is if there is some sort of offer I can't refuse that involves some young stud refusing to sign with his team like Bosh or something. I wouldn't consider that rebuilding, but reloading I guess

With Powe alone we don't take 7 games to beat Orl or da Bulls

With KG and maybe Powe and some improved young players and a good MLE free agent we can go a long way.

Then maybe blow things up

[ManUp]

Next year is when we should start thinking about rebuilding seriously. In my opinion, we've proven without our best player that we are among the top 4 teams in the league. Assuming KG makes a healthy return all we need is to strengthen our bench.

[Jon]

I think the other point that some are overlooking is that a major failing of this team not only was injuries and a weak bench, but Rivers's mismanagement of the regular season.  I think the argument can certainly be made that had Doc chosen to keep Ray and Paul's minutes at 34-35 minutes per game, the C's might've beaten Orlando in the last series.  And what's the worst that would have happened?  They would have had the third seed.  No one else in the East was even close to Cleveland, Orlando, and Boston. 

We need to recognize two universal truths about this team:

1) When we decided to have 3 max salaries on the team, we sacrificed our ability to have great depth.

2) When we decided to trade away our youth, we inherited the problem of playing with older players.

That's fine.  It's already worked out for us in the form of #17. 

So even if Ainge isn't able to upgrade the bench as much as we'd all like, I think the C's need to make a commitment next year to keeping the Big Three's minutes down, even if it means that we don't get the 1 or even 2 seed in the East.  We need to go into the year with the mentality that the playoffs are the true start of the season and simply getting an upper echelon seed is enough. 

If we do that, even if the bench isn't great, the starters should be ready to play big minutes in the playoffs and a weaker bench won't matter all that much.   

Note: I'm not suggesting that we don't need to improve the bench, I'm simply noting that we don't necessarily need Grant Hill, Antonio McDyess, and Rasheed Wallace next year to win #18. 

[Brickowski]

I don't see how they are restricted.  Their contracts are over. The Celtics have full bird rights on Powe, and "early Bird" rights on BBD, but I don't see how a team can match offers on second round picks to whom it has no financial obligation, and no rights to make a qualifying offer.  Am I missing something?

Those are just the rules of the CBA.  If the Celtics extend a qualifying offer, they gain the right to match for Powe and BBD. 

You can read up on it here:  http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q36

Thanks Roy, I stand corrected.  How big must the qualifying offer be?

[Roy Hobbs]

I don't see how they are restricted.  Their contracts are over. The Celtics have full bird rights on Powe, and "early Bird" rights on BBD, but I don't see how a team can match offers on second round picks to whom it has no financial obligation, and no rights to make a qualifying offer.  Am I missing something?

Those are just the rules of the CBA.  If the Celtics extend a qualifying offer, they gain the right to match for Powe and BBD. 

You can read up on it here:  http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q36

Thanks Roy, I stand corrected.  How big must the qualifying offer be?

For BBD, it's going to be between $1.0 and $1.1 million.