Chad Ford ranks Celtics dead last among non-traders.

[Eddie20]

With our future players, as of right now I don't see us as a fringe playoff team. We'll be picking in the top 5-7 pretty soon.

I'm not going to agree with Ford, though. There's a very clear rebuilding plan, and staying pat wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I think he's unfairly ignoring the cap room aspect of the dealing, and I don't think it's "nostalgia" that's the biggest positive of the deadline. It's the fact that we have 3 young, promising players and Paul Pierce under contract next year.

if you guys really think we are gonna be a lottery team in the next couple years you are going to be pleasently suprised.

I think some people are going to be vastly disappointed rather than pleasantly surprised.  I don't see the Celtics being a team with one of the worst five records in the league unless one of Rondo or Pierce either misses half a season due to injury or gets traded for players who aren't really that good.

Completely agree. A re-signed KG, Allen, and Green for what will likely be below market value. 2 1st rd draft picks in a very deep draft (1 of those picks hopefully used to pick Fab Melo). Avery Bradley, who improves from year 3 to year 2 as much as he's improved from last year to this one, will be a very solid rotation player. Hopefully, a thicker and more improved  JJ. Plus, money to sign, or at least make those teams match, on a solid big like Hibbert or Lopez. If not, you can always go after Kaman, which would then also give you money left over to sign Mayo.

I think this team would not only be solid, but pretty reasonable to assemble.

KG
Pierce
Kaman
Rondo
Mayo

JJ
Green
Melo
Bradley
Allen

[Moranis]

Here you go:


14. Boston Celtics
Positive spin: Ah, nostalgia. The Big Three is still the Big Three. And, hey, Danny Ainge was telling the truth. He said he wasn't trading Rajon Rondo and he stuck to his guns.

Negative spin: Ainge sounds like he worked the phones hard but just couldn't seal a deal. Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett hit free agency this summer. What exactly is the Celtics' plan for rebuilding this franchise? Celtics fans could be in for another long, painful rebuilding phase.

I know everyone will disagree but Ford gets things right more often than wrong. (He was the one draft guru who loved Rondo, for example) We are big trouble. Namely spending years as a barely making the playoffs type team. That kind of middling existence is dreadful. I have watched The Rockets do it for seven years here in Houston. Trust me it is no fun. I would have rather seen us move boldly in one direction or the other.

I just hope Danny does re-sign KG and Allen next year unless they take under 5 million per year. It is time to find young Athletic players that can force tempo and play to Rondo's strengths. No more undersized 4's and 5's and suspect combo guards. We need at least one player who can take the ball to the rack and finish on the break. I hate watching Rondo blitz up the court and then stop to wait for everybody else to catch up.

If this team could get even a few fast break or easy transition baskets we would win at least another 5 to 10 games during a regular season. Plus do not get me started about having no youth to play back to backs.

I will support this team until they bury me no matter what, do not get me wrong. I just want to see a team that seems headed in the right direction. I am worried we are doing some wheel-spinning right now.

yeah, trading ray allen and paul pierce for some underachieving 
former lottery picks and maybe a first round draft pick would have really boosted along the rebuilding process.

it absolutely would have because the celtics would have gotten worse, missed the playoffs, and gotten a lottery pick (and maybe would have gotten lucky).

[MBunge]

Here you go:


14. Boston Celtics
Positive spin: Ah, nostalgia. The Big Three is still the Big Three. And, hey, Danny Ainge was telling the truth. He said he wasn't trading Rajon Rondo and he stuck to his guns.

Negative spin: Ainge sounds like he worked the phones hard but just couldn't seal a deal. Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett hit free agency this summer. What exactly is the Celtics' plan for rebuilding this franchise? Celtics fans could be in for another long, painful rebuilding phase.

I know everyone will disagree but Ford gets things right more often than wrong. (He was the one draft guru who loved Rondo, for example) We are big trouble. Namely spending years as a barely making the playoffs type team. That kind of middling existence is dreadful. I have watched The Rockets do it for seven years here in Houston. Trust me it is no fun. I would have rather seen us move boldly in one direction or the other.

I just hope Danny does re-sign KG and Allen next year unless they take under 5 million per year. It is time to find young Athletic players that can force tempo and play to Rondo's strengths. No more undersized 4's and 5's and suspect combo guards. We need at least one player who can take the ball to the rack and finish on the break. I hate watching Rondo blitz up the court and then stop to wait for everybody else to catch up.

If this team could get even a few fast break or easy transition baskets we would win at least another 5 to 10 games during a regular season. Plus do not get me started about having no youth to play back to backs.

I will support this team until they bury me no matter what, do not get me wrong. I just want to see a team that seems headed in the right direction. I am worried we are doing some wheel-spinning right now.

yeah, trading ray allen and paul pierce for some underachieving 
former lottery picks and maybe a first round draft pick would have really boosted along the rebuilding process.

it absolutely would have because the celtics would have gotten worse, missed the playoffs, and gotten a lottery pick (and maybe would have gotten lucky).

And if that didn't work?  Go take a look at Minnesota and see how many times they had one of the worst records in the league and missed on getting the 1st or 2nd best player in the draft.

Mike

[Tai]

I did this draft pick breakdown in one of those debbie downer topics, and lookie:

Blazers: 4 (1st: 6, 11 2nd: 11, 14)
Cavaliers: 4 (1st: 8, 25 2nd: 2, 8
Celtics: 4 (1st: 18, 21 2nd: 15, 18)
Raptors: 3 (1st: 4 2nd: 4, 24)
Wizards: 3 (1st: 3 2nd: 3, 19)
Warriors: 3 (1st: 27 2nd: 6, 20)
Jazz: 3 (1st: 10, 13 2nd: 13)
Pistons: 3 (1st: 7 2nd: 7, 16)
Nuggets: 3 (1st: 17 2nd: 10, 17)
Sixers: 3 (1st: 22 2nd: 22, 23)
Magic: 2 (1st: 26 2nd: 26)
Bobcats: 2 (1st: 1  2nd: 1)
Hawks: 2 (1st: 20 2nd: 12)
Hornets: 2 (1st: 2, 14 2nd: None)
Kings: 2 (1st: 5 2nd: 5)
Nets: 2 (1st: 16 2nd: 28)
Mavericks: 2 (1st: 19 2nd: 25)
Rockets: 1 (1st: 9 2nd: None)
Suns: 1 (1st: 12 2nd: None)
Bucks: 1 (1st: 15 2nd: None)
Grizzlies: 1 (1st: 23 2nd: None)
Pacers: 1 (1st: 24 2nd: None)
Heat: 1 (1st: 28 2nd: None)
Thunder: 1 (1st: 29 2nd: None)
Bulls: 1 (1st: 30 2nd: None)
Knicks: 1 (1st: None 2nd: 9)
Clippers: 1(1st: None 2nd: 21)
Spurs: 1 (1st: None 2nd: 27)
Timberwolves: 1 (1st: None 2nd: 29)
Lakers 1 (1st: None 2nd: 30)

Teams with 4 Picks: 3
Teams with 3 Picks: 7
Teams with 2 Picks: 7
Teams with 1 Pick: 13

Hey, we're one of 3 teams with 4 picks, and tied for the most in the draft. What is this talk of not being able to rebuild?

[xmuscularghandix]

So The Celtics should have traded all these older guys for younger ones who they are STILL better than? Why? Just let all the expiring contracts give up and build through the draft/FA.

[OmarSekou]

Until I see otherwise, the key to being a successful GM is either making smart gambles and shrewd decisions (very hard) or capitalizing on other teams mistakes (very easy).

By literally doing nothing, I think we did better than the majority of teams who made trades. It doesn't improve our chances in the short term, but it puts us in better position to capitalize on teams in the future.

[theswitch]

Hey, we're one of 3 teams with 4 picks, and tied for the most in the draft. What is this talk of not being able to rebuild?

It'd be really, really interesting if DA says screw it, goes into full rebuilding mode and we end up with Rondo, Pierce, Bradley, Johnson, Moore, Green and 4 rookies as 10 of our 15 guys.

[Jon]

Unfortunately, Ford is part of the national media contingent that likes to talk about how the Big Three should be traded for young talent, and then fails to actually come up with plausible scenarios.  It's very easy to abstractly talk about the need to rebuild with young pieces, it's another to actually do it.  

This all stems back to that idiotic Red Auerbach story that Danny Ainge likes to tell and quite possibly made up: that Red was made offers for the Big Three, turned them down, and that (according to Ainge) Red should've made the deals.  This view overlooks so many things that's it's ridiculous:

1) First and foremost, Red did have a rebuilding plan.  Tragically, Len Bias and Reggie Lewis passed away.  

2) Due to salary cap restrictions and salary inflation, it's no longer easy to simply flip aging superstars for young talent.  When you have to take back as much salary as you give up, it makes things, much, much harder.  

3) Even the alleged trade offers Red had would hardly have made the Celtics a sure-fire contender.  Allegedly this conversation with Red took place in the early '90s and apparently the deals were as follows:

"He had a chance to trade Larry (to Indiana) for Chuck Person and Herb Williams and (Steve) Stipanovich and he had a chance to trade Kevin (to Dallas) for Detlef Schrempf and Sam Perkins"

http://articles.boston.com/2012-01-18/sports/30640019_1_training-camp-trade-danny-ainge

While those were some nice player, it's not like Boston would've had their next dynasty set up.  

So overall, I agree with Jackie MacMullan's angle:

“I hear people say the Celtics were big losers. I don’t think they were big losers; I certainly wouldn’t call them big winners. I think they were just sort of neutral," she said. "And I think that’s not for a lack of trying. But I think it would have been unwise to unload the Big Three -- any of them -- for 60 cents on a dollar. I just don’t see the point in that.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4690962/macmullan-ainge-had-no-choice

[MosheP]

"What exactly is the Celtics' plan for rebuilding this franchise?"


The plan is clear as day. 

Great. Now I'm curious.

Go into the offseason with Rondo, Pierce, plenty of cap space and a couple of draft picks and see what happens.  Maybe Ainge will sign somebody like Kaman or trade for Okafor and try to put the band back together.  Maybe he'll sign Green and Bass and try to put together a team of young athlets to run up and down the court with Rondo.  Maybe he'll package those picks with Rondo and/or Pierce to bring in a franchise free agent (think Orlando's going to go through this again if they can't re-sign Dwight to an extension?)  Maybe he'll sign some mid-level guys to short term deals that don't go past Pierce's and spend the next 2 years trying to tank our way to a great lottery pick.

Er... so maybe anything can happen?

You know what happens to you when you have "a plan"?  You wind up in salary cap hell like the Knicks used to be or a franchise that's completely screwed if your plan goes wrong, like New Jersey.

And what's exactly the alternative? The Knicks got in hell because they never had a plan, not because they had one. And the Nets are basically as "screwed" as Boston.

You need to have a strategy, a direction. Either you are prioritizing wins now or you are prioritizing winning in the future (and prioritize means exactly that, to give priority, not exclusivity).

Not having a strategy means losing now and in the future.

 

[MosheP]

ranking us dead last is too generous.  I still can't believe we didn't do a single thing to improve our team in the short or long term.  Unbelievable.  We basically are rolling over and dying.  Probably sign another unknown like Stinksma to fill our starting center spot ... and then watch us get ripped to shreds and embarrassed in the first round by the Heat or Bulls...

Then in the offseason KG probably retires, Ray signs with a contender and we replace these hall of famers with someone along the lines of Chris Kaman... so that we can toil away in mediocrity through Rondo's prime.

Agreed.

I'd be okay with trading some future assets to make the team more competitive now or trade some wins this season to give the team more assets in the future.

Punting isn't an option.

[MBunge]

You need to have a strategy, a direction. Either you are prioritizing wins now or you are prioritizing winning in the future (and prioritize means exactly that, to give priority, not exclusivity).

Not having a strategy means losing now and in the future.

1.  Again, Danny's strategy was to set it up so Boston would have as much cap room as possible this coming off season.  Maybe it will work out.  Maybe it won't.  But that's true of everything and if you try and get to specific with your plans, you wind up like the Nets.  If DWill walks away from those guys, they're going to be destroyed for the next 4 or 5 years because they followed a strategy that had only one possible objective.

2.  Danny's strategy also got this team a title, two trips to the Finals and the only thing that stopped it from being even more successful was two freak injuries.  Outside of the Lakers, who's been more successful over the last 4 years than Boston?

Mike

[chambers]

I still find it funny that people don't think Danny has a plan for the future and he's just 'winging' it.
This is the same guy that built an asset portfolio big enough to acquire two top level free agents.

How many times has it been stated that he tried to get first round picks for the big 3, but because of this draft, no teams were willing to give them up?

I've stated this before, but to me his plan is to resign KG and Ray to friendly deals as a sweetener to attract big FA's.
If they can't attract anyone, then he uses those friendly contracts in a deal to get picks. Again, I've said this idea at least twice before;
If we miss out on Dwight or Deron, we can move the re-signed big 2/3 (Pierce must go too) for legit assets and not pathetic 2nd rounders or other teams young underachieving scrubs.

Just as an example of multiple possible scenarios that Danny will be conjuring up:
* Chicago's Charlotte pick+ their own first round pick should be available if we take Boozer and Rip Hamilton and gave them Pierce, Ray and KG. They'd be pretty much guaranteed a championship.
* We can then move both of those chumps (Boozer+Hamilton) for a late first rounder. As bad as Boozer is, there will be teams that will pay his contract with $$$ for the few extra wins a season it gives them.

* Constructed tank the rest of 2012-13. Have a horrid year and hit the lottery. With no Pierce, and only Rondo and some young picks and sophomores we will be a bottom 5 team for sure.

* Bobcats pick starts to come in play in 2016 (top 10 protected in 14', top 8 in 15' and unprotected in 16'). This is like getting the Jeff Green pick that we moved to Seattle for Ray-someone is going to kill for that 2016 pick, but Chicago will want to win before then and Boozer is stopping them from doing that.
So through a constructed tank of 2-3 years, we could get 2-3 top 10 picks and possibly more by 2015 and a boat load of cap space moving forward, with Rondo only just turning 29.

[KCattheStripe]

ranking us dead last is too generous.  I still can't believe we didn't do a single thing to improve our team in the short or long term.  Unbelievable.  We basically are rolling over and dying.  Probably sign another unknown like Stinksma to fill our starting center spot ... and then watch us get ripped to shreds and embarrassed in the first round by the Heat or Bulls...

I  too am indignant that Danny didn't make the deals that were so obviously there to be made despite all evidence to the contrary, for I am a reactionary fan with a wannabe Cassandra complex.

[MosheP]

You need to have a strategy, a direction. Either you are prioritizing wins now or you are prioritizing winning in the future (and prioritize means exactly that, to give priority, not exclusivity).

Not having a strategy means losing now and in the future.

1.  Again, Danny's strategy was to set it up so Boston would have as much cap room as possible this coming off season.

This is demonstrably false. If true, he'd have traded Pierce for an expiring or a smaller contract.

If his goal was to preserve the cap space he already has, that wouldn't prevent him from making another deals by trading expirings for expiring. I do have a hard time to call that a strategy. That's merely a short term objective, a mean to an end. What strategy that mean serves? That's Ford's point. Ainge seemed happy to tread water when that was the only nonsensical option.

 Maybe it will work out.  Maybe it won't.  But that's true of everything and if you try and get to specific with your plans, you wind up like the Nets.  If DWill walks away from those guys, they're going to be destroyed for the next 4 or 5 years because they followed a strategy that had only one possible objective.

I don't see the difference. The Nets banked on getting Howard in the next off-season to build an instant contender - like Boston did. Howard is off the table, so they had to go another way - they're trying to improve the team to convince Deron to stay and then build a contender around him next year by adding Garnett and other free-agents to their current core. They made moves that make that strategy clear.

2.  Danny's strategy also got this team a title, two trips to the Finals and the only thing that stopped it from being even more successful was two freak injuries.  Outside of the Lakers, who's been more successful over the last 4 years than Boston?

This is a fallacy. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The same could have been said about Joe Dumas a few years ago. Didn't stop him from making quite obvious strategic mistakes.

[theswitch]

You need to have a strategy, a direction. Either you are prioritizing wins now or you are prioritizing winning in the future (and prioritize means exactly that, to give priority, not exclusivity).

Not having a strategy means losing now and in the future.

1.  Again, Danny's strategy was to set it up so Boston would have as much cap room as possible this coming off season.

This is demonstrably false. If true, he'd have traded Pierce for an expiring or a smaller contract.

If his goal was to preserve the cap space he already has, that wouldn't prevent him from making another deals by trading expirings for expiring. I do have a hard time to call that a strategy. That's merely a short term objective, a mean to an end. What strategy that mean serves? That's Ford's point. Ainge seemed happy to tread water when that was the only nonsensical option.

Why would he trade Pierce? He can always just amnesty him next year. If he's not going to get a reasonable return on him, then it's just not worth it.

And who is to say he didn't try to do expirings for expirings? Without picks, those are useless. What trades out there could he have trumped? Camby got two young players and a 2nd round pick. They aren't the best players, but you never know and Flynn has proved relatively capable. In any case, they have more value than what we had to offer. Jordan Hill cost Fisher and a 1st. Sessions cost a 1st. Kaman would've cost a 1st. Barbosa was absorbed by the Pacers. There was no move that I'm aware of where Danny could've trumped the offer without giving up a 1st rounder in this draft, which he clearly did not want to do.

The strategy is quite clear in this case. Keep the cap room, build through the draft and collect assets. Hope you pick 1-3 rotation players out of your 4 picks this year. Keep at it and keep the cap space free for when you can cash in. You're not going to win the 2013 championship, most likely, but Rome wasn't built in a day.