2014
Superstars:
Wiggins
Parker
stars:
gordon
randle
andrew harrison
aaron harrison
young
missing out on wiggins next year wont be bad because theres multiple good consolation prizes
literally you can throw a dart at any of these names you can leave the draft smiling.
I know a lot of people are going to be very very upset, but hopefully I can help talk people off the ledge a bit. At this point in their careers, you aren't going to get anything substantial for Pierce and KG. Those guys could have been bought out for nothing... they contemplated retirement LAST offseason. I think if you tried to trade KG and Pierce for three 1st rounders (even late 1st rounders) in a video game, the game AI would say you were nuts and reject it.
This is definitely the right move. It's going to be a painful year, but in 2014 when Pierce is a free agent again (feel free to sign him) and KG is probably retired... You'll be thrilled that you have those three picks and a shot at gold in the 2014 lotto. If you were going to do it, you do it now... you don't do it in 2015... you dont' do it in 2016... you do it NOW when there are superstars coming.
Ainge is a beast and deserves credit. This trade isn't for the short-sighted. If you think Ainge deserves to be fired for this, you don't understand what being an NBA GM is all about and you don't understand Ainge's philosophy. Ainge is all about collecting assets. Frown on the having two picks in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018 all you want, but you have to understand that picks like that give you assets, options and flexibility to make moves. It was assets like those that allowed us to trade for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in the first place! And even then, we know those guys were past their prime and the window was short. We dragged it out two years too long and still came out of it with three 1st rounders (plus the one we got for Doc)... that's fantastic return for guys who could retire before the end of the 2013-14 season.
This is a good thing whether you understand it or not. Our future is going to be very bright... as opposed to a dark cloud of progressive sickness.
When Ainge took over, he took a dump of a franchise and made them a contender in 4 years. As fully expected, we will tank this season. We will get gold out of the tankjob. The Wallace contract seems like it stinks, but long-term it's fantastic. Say you tank. Say you draft Wiggins in 2014. Say you stink again during his rookie year. Say you draft another stud in 2015. Now you have two cornerstones + Rondo + Gerald Wallace's expiring contract and a boatload of young assets... If Ainge plays this right, he could put together a contender in three years... and this time, it will be one built around guys who aren't in their early 30s.
You would have never been able to trade for KG without Theo Ratliff's expiring contract. That Wallace contract stinks this year, but we're tanking. It will stink in 2015, but we'll probably tank that year too. In 2016... that contract + some young assets might be what gets us a piece to put us back into contention. It's a process... a very well thought out process that has already proven to be 100% successful by Danny Ainge the first time around.
