The window has officially closed on the Big 3 being the key players on a championship team. Most of us felt that way after the playoffs last year, but there were some who held out hope and wanted to see if these guys had one more run left in them. Two full months into this shortened season, and everyone rightfully feels that enough has been seen. Fair. The Celtics are 16-16 playing one of the easiest schedules in the league, and have two fatal flaws that automatically disqualify them from being capable of winning a championship. They cannot rebound, and they cannot execute when it matters down the stretch. We saw a bit of these flaws begin to sprout some time in the 2010 season, and continue into the 2011 season. However, they were manageable to an extent because they were not as severe, and the team was talented enough and did other important things well enough consistently to put themselves in a position of winning basketball games that mattered. That clearly is not the case anymore. While I would never count this team out to steal a playoff series, as bad as they might be playing going in the playoffs (I learned my lesson in 2010), it all but goes against the laws of gravity for them to sustain the cream of the league in playoff intensity basketball for a month and a half. It is not going to happen. Think a football team winning the Super Bowl that cannot stop the run, and cannot execute offensively in the fourth quarter, and then multiply that by 100 because in the NFL you only need to win 3-4 games of that, while in the NBA, 16 is the magic number.
So where do we go from here? Well, to Celtics fans, for their health’s sake – I suggest removing almost all emotional attachment to this team. That doesn’t mean to not watch or follow them. But to be emotionally invested in every point, foul called, foul not called, missed defensive assignment, poor screen set, and every other nuance an NBA game brings will only led to unwarranted stress, and for some, irrational judgments of the Celtics organization. If the team loses four straight next-to-meaningless regular season games that doesn’t mean the Celtics should trade Rondo for Andray Blatche, fire Doc, or sign Allen Iverson, or all three of these. If the team makes the playoffs, great. I will cheer hard for Rondo and the Big 3 (providing they are still here in May) to potentially give us some final memories. They’ve given it their all here (besides for a few winter months in the 2010 regular season), and will continue to give their all. They deserve it. And if they went out in a lackluster 4 or 5 game series, it won’t bother me like it might bother the “I’d rather have a better draft pick crowd.” We all should have learned from 2004 when
that particular Celtics team made an utterly useless playoff appearance to my and everyone else’s dismay. They took themselves out of the lottery, and got embarrassed in four straight games (all four losses by double digits – only the second time done in NBA history.) However, in that draft, the team grabbed the centerpiece of the Kevin Garnett deal (Al Jefferson at 15.) So almost all Celtics fans conveniently forget about that. The lesson: do your homework, and draft someone who can play. That is the case with this season. Whether we miss the playoffs and pick 11 or make it and pick 15, that should still be a high enough pick to draft some talent who can help the team as someone who plays for us long term, is an asset to upgrade the talent of the team sometime down the line, or even traded immediately for future considerations. Unless you have a top one, two, and at best three, pick
and there is a franchise talent at the top of the board along the lines of Rose, Duncan, LeBron, Anthony – then the loss of barely missing the playoffs and getting a higher pick to barely making the playoffs and picking 15 isn’t as big as fans think. Besides, this team owns two first round draft choices this season, so if the team had a player they really liked and was not significantly far ahead of where they were likely to be picked, then Ainge could make a move to acquire that particular player.
However, there’s obviously more to it than just this season, or these immediate days, weeks and months ahead. This is now officially a bridge season, and the rebuild is on. Making the post-season and picking 15th as opposed to missing the playoffs and likely picking 11th is not going to make or break the rebuild. Flashback to May of 2003; when Ainge was hired, at his introductory press conference he announced to the press and the fans that he would rebuild the team, and that it would be a ‘five year plan’ (and sure enough, exactly five years later, June of 2008 – the team won its 17th championship.) That team had a good young franchise player (whether he could be a #1 on a championship team was debatable, but there was no doubt after the 2002 playoff run that Pierce was a guy you could build a team around), an overrated and overweight max-money making ‘power’ forward who did not have much value around the league at the time, an absolute monstrosity albatross of a player and contract in Vin Baker, and then a bunch of overpaid role players. The team also did not own any draft picks besides their own in the immediate future. The team was a mess and only Ainge and a few intelligent Celtics fans knew it. It was going to take time to build a legitimate championship team. Ainge’s first major move was trading Antoine Walker, the wildly popular and overrated player amongst Celtics fans and the Boston media. And he did so for a not-so great package, and that immediately got him off the wrong foot amongst the fans and media. Then as the team did not do as well as they had in the 2002 and 2003 seasons, many fans were irrationally calling for Ainge to be fired when he was only in the beginning stages of his plan. However, most saw a method to his madness. After Ainge put the sledgehammer to those Jim O’Brien Celtics teams, he began to make moves that incrementally made the Celtics better. He kept poking down-and-away pitches into the opposite field for singles, took walks, and waited till he could load the bases for a hanging curve ball to hit the grand slam with the summer of 2007. For a run down on Ainge’s moves during those 03-06 years, see here:
http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=53050.0 There were never any home runs there. There were some not-so-great moves, and for his ‘good’ moves, they were at the time nothing more than B/B- moves, yet were important enough to contribute to putting ourselves in great position in 2007.
But will it take five years again? In the grand scheme of things, five years in NBA years is not a long time. If you told me, that in 2017, 2018 we would be back as an elite team for the next four to five years, I think you take it and run. The Bulls threw away an entire decade to get the team they have now. They were spinning their wheels, drafting more young guys, tanking for high picks, trading established stars to take more high picks, not giving up some overrated young players to acquire an established star, make the playoffs as a paper tiger, then more tanking, get high picks, repeat; until finally they fell into Rose. Ok, I guess it worked. But for every Chicago, or even the uber-lucky Oklahoma City, there are teams like Golden State, Milwaukee, and others who have been running with this process for 20-30 years. Some Celtics fans want to ‘blow-it-up’ entirely and want to trot out a bunch of young guys, and NBDLers, and then tank and ‘get a Rose.’ If only it was that easy. Ainge actually had this in mind, but only as a last resort. Ainge tried to eliminate a rebuilding process entirely by acquiring a Hall of Fame point guard in his prime, which would then be a possible precursor to acquiring a Hall of Fame big man in his prime. No rebuilding, the Celtics would have their next title team, and it was off to the races. And if that failed, and said Hall of Fame point guard walked, then the team was going to be stuck with a roster with nothing. But as pointed out, that is a last resort. The fallout from putting an atrocious product on the court, especially in Boston, and then telling the fans “well hopefully we can suck enough to get a great young player in here one day!” is severe. Is that what you tell your loyal season ticket holders who invest thousands of their hard-earned dollars into the team, especially during a tough economy? What if that was to continue for more years than anticipated? Season ticket holders, and other dedicated and invested fans would pour out by the thousands, and then ownership is stuck with a bad team in a bad economy that is losing money. It may be the route Ainge has to take one day, but this is something that should be avoided by all means possible. Some will point to San Antonio ‘tanking’ for Robinson in ’87 and Duncan ten years later. However, besides those two years, the Spurs have always been competitive since they came into the NBA in 1977. They did the right thing by cheating those two years to acquire a game changer. The Celtics did the same thing in 1997, and 2007 (with Oden and Durant at the top), and no one should have had any problems with that. Sometimes you have to cheat and cut corners a bit. But to do this every year, create a culture of losing – the negatives can sometimes far outweigh the positives because the odds of the negatives happening are FAR greater than having that star fall out of the sky.
We can do it without the tanking. Is it an option? Yes. If there’s a season where there’s another Duncan at the top, and the team is a borderline playoff team or worse, there should be no problems with throwing it away. But as pointed out, only if the Celtics absolutely have too. Ainge has proven you can do this in a reasonable time. Just make those solid moves. When Ainge was acquiring a bunch of mid, and late first round draft picks, the national media was laughing at him telling him that he couldn’t ‘build a championship team on mid-level picks.’ But, he did. Pierce was the 10th pick (not Ainge’s pick, but he was selected at 10 in 98), Jefferson 15th (center piece of Garnett trade), Delonte West 24th (part of Ray Allen trade), Tony Allen 25th (contributor on 08 and especially 10 Finals team), Gerald Green 18th (part of Garnett trade), Rajon Rondo 21st, and Glen Davis, Ryan Gomes, and Leon Powe all in the second round. Ainge quietly grabbed extra firsts from the Lakers, Minnesota, and Cleveland, which were valuable as well. The team really only had one high draft pick (#5 in 2007), and that was used to acquire Ray Allen (which was packaged with Delonte West, but also Wallly Szczerbaik’s near-max contract that was not an expiring.) There will be times when Ainge has to come through big more times than others. He will make mistakes, but even if he does, he easily has a chance to make up for them. Using a Celtics example, in 2001, despite five solid years of Rick Pitino and Chris Wallace idiocy, the Celtics were in the position to build a contender for years to come. They already had two very good young players (who at the time both had high value around the league), some decent role players who were good enough to be pieces on a good team, and three first round picks in a loaded draft, (and the possibility of rolling over Denver’s first round pick for other future drafts.) They blew it all. They also had the opportunity to package Antoine Walker with some other assets to acquire Elton Brand. They blew that too. Danny might make a few mistakes, and there will be some fans and media members that will crucify him for every time he selected Player X over Player Y in Z Draft, and that’s fine. But as shown with the Celtics in the summer of 2001, anytime there’s a hanging curveball over the plate, then you have to hit it off the wall for a double, or even out of the park. Will Ainge do it again, or will he fail miserably like Chris Wallace? That remains to be seen. However, Ainge already came through for the Celtics in this aspect, so he is certainly deserving of another chance, or three.
So after all of this, what are my suggestions? Well, I’m not going to be as concrete. But the most important thing is to remain patient. Don’t make moves for the sake of making one. The rebuilding is here, and we accept this. If the team can trade Ray for a first round pick, as late as it may be, I believe, of course, you do this. I think Ainge does as well, but as reported by arguably the best NBA insider, Adrian Wojnarowski, this possibility isn’t even on the table as of now February 21st, 2012. Kevin Garnett, and his contract, is virtually un-tradable if it were to be acquire an asset like a pick so fans can forget about that. Unless the team wants to take a bad contract back along with an asset or two, it is best to just let expire. Now, with Pierce and Rondo, unless there’s a deal that
significantly improves the team both short and long term, I say, this is where the patience comes in. I believe the team owes it to themselves and the fans to make a however fruitless run at Dwight Howard and Deron Williams this off-season. For all of those that say “the odds of them coming here are slim to none,” I say you have a more than fair point. However, how are those odds of them coming to Boston (1-5%) any different than getting a franchise game changing #1 pick after blowing it up entirely? And certainly, a however fruitless chase for a few weeks at those superstars is certainly more beneficial to the franchise than a potential meaningless chase for years on end for a franchise-saving superstar at the top of the lottery. Hold onto Pierce and Rondo until the summer. Then Ainge can amnesty Pierce providing he miraculously gets those two to sign, and then trade Rondo for any type of contributor to pair with the two new franchise players. Once and if Ainge doesn’t get Howard and Williams to commit, Ainge can then go forth with trading Rondo for something else he feels might help the team. Or, he can keep Rondo and then build around him. And with the captain, Ainge can trade Pierce for flexibility, or have him ride out his career and retire a Celtic. Ainge doesn’t have to blow it up right now this very second and then ‘see what happens.’ That’s a recipe for disaster. And fortunately, I don’t believe he will.
So in all, the keys are to keep as many options as possible open, be flexible, and improve the talent of the team whether it is incrementally through drafting solid mid-level talent and other minor trades, or drastically with a game-changing free agent signing this summer or in the near future. Do not make a move for the sake of getting people to talk about the team. We, as Celtics fans, have accepted the rebuilding process – as long as there is a plan. Let’s not irrational emotions force change of plans either.
Topic: Restoring some sanity here: Quality rebuilding talk, and how long will it take? (Read 12056 times)