Just days until an end of an era.

[nickagneta]

Tomorrow is the NBA Draft and on NBA Draft night, the fortunes of clubs can change forever based on the right pick being selected or making the right trade or even both. Remember in 2007 that is was right around this time that the fortunes of the lost-in-obscurity, Boston Celtics had their fortunes turned about by a trade that sent Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and the draft rights to Jeff Green(who the Sonics told us to draft) for Ray Allen and the draft rights to Glen "Big Baby" Davis. Just a month later the Kevin Garnett trade that brought him to Boston occurred and the rest is history.

Its now the eve of NBA Draft Night 2013 and once again the Boston Celtics are at a crossroads. They lost Ray Allen last year to the Miami Heat and just lost their coach, Doc Rivers, to the Los Angeles Clippers. Change is upon us and the most likely time for large change to occur is in the coming days. The NBA Draft happens and a decision on Paul Pierce, the mainstay of this team for 15 years, also has to be made as his contract has a June 30th decision making deadline for whether the Celtics select the option to retain Pierce next year for $15.3 million or pay him $5 million and release him into free agency.

Of course, there are other options and as those options become clearer, what also comes into focus is that more and more change will come about as pieces are added and then need to be subtracted. One rumor has Pierce being shipped, perhaps as early as tomorrow, for a traded player exception and draft picks. The Celtics then would offset that subtraction with the addition of Josh Smith in a sign and trade for that traded player exception and draft picks. If this does go down, then it becomes obvious that more subtraction is needed. With Smith in tow and Jared Sullinger appearing to be an up and coming player at the PF position as well, Brandon Bass and his $6 million a year contract has to go.

Now is when the whole situation becomes very interesting. If Bass has to go, because there would just be too much redundancy at the PF position, how are future transactions going to be handled? Does the team make trades to reload or do they make trades to rebuild? There's a huge difference in those two words. Rebuilding means breaking down completely what you have and building anew. Reloading is just taken spent parts out of the gun and putting new parts in. Do the Celtics break it all down, except for maybe Rondo and Smith, try to get really bad and hope a younger superstar can be drafted and added to two great complimentary pieces in Smith and Rondo? Do the Celtics instead try to move complimentary pieces like Bass, Terry, Lee, Bradley, Crawford, Randolph, Williams, Melo and White for better complimentary pieces and make another run with a reloaded team?

I don't have the answers. I am not sure anyone outside of the Celtics higher up brass does have the answers. Rumors abound and the dominoes have been set up. The one thing we all know about set up dominoes is that once one falls, they all start to fall. Tomorrow is NBA Draft Night 2013 and I expect Danny Ainge's finger to touch that first domino tomorrow and then the rest are going to follow right in line, falling one after the other until this team is changed forever and an end to an era comes to a close.

Let's hope whatever era comes next, is as fun and fruitful as the era that will be closing.

[Prof. Clutch]

[BudweiserCeltic]

So... a few more seasons then?

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

I have a feeling that something huge is gonna go down this off season. New coach, new team leader, new direction, and it won`t be tanking.

[Boris Badenov]

Tomorrow is the NBA Draft and on NBA Draft night, the fortunes of clubs can change forever based on the right pick being selected or making the right trade or even both. Remember in 2007 that is was right around this time that the fortunes of the lost-in-obscurity, Boston Celtics had their fortunes turned about by a trade that sent Wally Szczerbiak, Delonte West and the draft rights to Jeff Green(who the Sonics told us to draft) for Ray Allen and the draft rights to Glen "Big Baby" Davis. Just a month later the Kevin Garnett trade that brought him to Boston occurred and the rest is history.

Its now the eve of NBA Draft Night 2013 and once again the Boston Celtics are at a crossroads. They lost Ray Allen last year to the Miami Heat and just lost their coach, Doc Rivers, to the Los Angeles Clippers. Change is upon us and the most likely time for large change to occur is in the coming days. The NBA Draft happens and a decision on Paul Pierce, the mainstay of this team for 15 years, also has to be made as his contract has a June 30th decision making deadline for whether the Celtics select the option to retain Pierce next year for $15.3 million or pay him $5 million and release him into free agency.

Of course, there are other options and as those options become clearer, what also comes into focus is that more and more change will come about as pieces are added and then need to be subtracted. One rumor has Pierce being shipped, perhaps as early as tomorrow, for a traded player exception and draft picks. The Celtics then would offset that subtraction with the addition of Josh Smith in a sign and trade for that traded player exception and draft picks. If this does go down, then it becomes obvious that more subtraction is needed. With Smith in tow and Jared Sullinger appearing to be an up and coming player at the PF position as well, Brandon Bass and his $6 million a year contract has to go.

Now is when the whole situation becomes very interesting. If Bass has to go, because there would just be too much redundancy at the PF position, how are future transactions going to be handled? Does the team make trades to reload or do they make trades to rebuild? There's a huge difference in those two words. Rebuilding means breaking down completely what you have and building anew. Reloading is just taken spent parts out of the gun and putting new parts in. Do the Celtics break it all down, except for maybe Rondo and Smith, try to get really bad and hope a younger superstar can be drafted and added to two great complimentary pieces in Smith and Rondo? Do the Celtics instead try to move complimentary pieces like Bass, Terry, Lee, Bradley, Crawford, Randolph, Williams, Melo and White for better complimentary pieces and make another run with a reloaded team?

I don't have the answers. I am not sure anyone outside of the Celtics higher up brass does have the answers. Rumors abound and the dominoes have been set up. The one thing we all know about set up dominoes is that once one falls, they all start to fall. Tomorrow is NBA Draft Night 2013 and I expect Danny Ainge's finger to touch that first domino tomorrow and then the rest are going to follow right in line, falling one after the other until this team is changed forever and an end to an era comes to a close.

Let's hope whatever era comes next, is as fun and fruitful as the era that will be closing.

Cool post.

I'll be bummed if/when KG and Pierce have played their last games in green.

But, I think we all feel like the ball has started rolling. It'll be interesting.

[chambers]

Nice post. TP.

I'm excited to see if we switch pierce for Smith and run it back one more time with a starting unit of
Rondo
Bradley
Green
Smith
KG

I'd love to replace Bradley with a scorer but heck we'd be a nasty defensive team with smith and KG inside. We'd have to turn smith into an interior player to his shooting % up.
My dream would be to get JJ Reddick or a pure shooter to come in as starter to replace Bass salary wise.
Take out Bass's salary now that we have Smith and sully and bring in Reddick to stretch the floor.
With Sully, Bradley, Melo, Randolph, T Will coming back. Give up the 16th pick for Thomas Robinson or draft gorier Dieng with the 16th and make him back up centre from day one.

If we aren't running it back then forget smith and get some assets and tank to the lottery.
Collect assets ready for Marc Gasol and Love free agency in 2015 and hopefully get a top 3 pick.
Wiggins, Parker or randle.

[AB_Celtic]

I really believe this Pierce deal is going to go down, for better or for worse. Ainge has never been a sentimental GM, which in some ways is good. We need him to make the hard decisions that we can't. If we can turn Pierce and Bradley into two early seconds and Josh Smith, then we need to do that.

After that happens, it's only a matter of time for KG. And then the era will be over.

[prov1ml34]

is there ANY possible way we can acquire Smith without Pierce involved? Would the Hawks take on Bradley, Bass, a pick and our unguaranteeds? They are getting something for him rather than nothing but maybe they would rather have nothing (cap space) than our spare parts.....

I just feel like acquiring Smith would be so much more beneficial to our situation if we had both Pierce and KG here as well.

[BudweiserCeltic]

is there ANY possible way we can acquire Smith without Pierce involved? Would the Hawks take on Bradley, Bass, a pick and our unguaranteeds? They are getting something for him rather than nothing but maybe they would rather have nothing (cap space) than our spare parts.....

I just feel like acquiring Smith would be so much more beneficial to our situation if we had both Pierce and KG here as well.

Bass + Terry + pick + unguarantees or Bass + Lee + pick + unguarantees should certainly do it.

[Birdman]

Been a great ride!!! Only regret is losing in the 2010 Finals..if Perkins knee didnt go out, we would have won #18..

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Been a great ride!!! Only regret is losing in the 2010 Finals..if Perkins knee didnt go out, we would have won #18..

That was tough, but my biggest Cs-related regret is KG's knee in '09—if that doesn't happen, I think Boston threepeats.

[Roy H.]

I'm not looking forward to this at all.

[LilRip]

TP for the OP

[nickagneta]

is there ANY possible way we can acquire Smith without Pierce involved? Would the Hawks take on Bradley, Bass, a pick and our unguaranteeds? They are getting something for him rather than nothing but maybe they would rather have nothing (cap space) than our spare parts.....

I just feel like acquiring Smith would be so much more beneficial to our situation if we had both Pierce and KG here as well.

Bass + Terry + pick + unguarantees or Bass + Lee + pick + unguarantees should certainly do it.

I don't think Atlanta, who will have next to no salary commitments after Horford, Lou Williams and Jeff Teague, would want back any salary whatsoever. So my guess is the only way this goes down is the C's trade Pierce for a TPE, then Atlanta signs Smith to fit into the TPE, and then trade him for TPE of $15.3 million and maybe a 1st and 2nd round pick. Whether that first is the better or worst of the two 2015 picks the Celtics own and a 2014 or 2015 2nd rounder, I don't know. But the guess is there is probably no players headed back to Atlanta unless they are non-guaranteed contracts(China 3).

Think about it. Why in the world would Atlanta want players like Bass, Lee, or Terry clogging up their cap space doing virtually nothing to make them a contender? They wouldn't. They would want cap space for top level free agents and draft picks. They need to build from the bottom up.

[slamtheking]

I strongly suspect we've seen the last of PP and KG in a Celtics uniform. 

I'm not 100% sure we'll see the trigger pulled on the PP deal before the draft though.  His deal isn't guaranteed until 7/1 so we could see a post-draft deal go through where he's moved for that TPE and players Danny arranged to have picked in the draft-->waiting to make sure the guys he wants are still available.

I'm not sure Danny jumps at using that TPE right away.  I wouldn't be surprised if he sat on that for awhile to see if Rondo/Sully come back at the start of the season or midseason.  if midseason, we most likely will be in lottery land and using that TPE to land a Josh Smith would seem to be a waste of $ and hurt the lottery positioning

I think the PP deal would happen before anything with KG to nudge him into waiving the no-trade clause or retiring.