Cs are at a fork in the road, what path should they take????

[CFAN38]

DA is in an interesting spot. I'm sure he has a loose plan currently in place. just not sure what it is.

Option 1 would be a long term break down and rebuilding OKC style thru the draft. This is dangerous because luck plays a huge part in this.

Option 2 would be more in line with what Danny did in the past. When he became GM he kept PP so that he already had one pierce of the big 3 on the team. I could see him using the trade exemption and pile of picks for another star (Love/Aldridge) to partner up with Rondo and Green for 2014-2015.

Option 3 would keep Rondo happy. The Cs would have a very flawed team but it would actually have a similar feel to J-Kidd's 2000s Nets teams. Rondo = Kidd, Green = Van Horn, J Smith = K Martin. This team will need a solid 15pt + SG, a defensive center, and a deep bench to be more then a perennial 1st round looser.   

[Evantime34]

For what it's worth I would expect a celtics team with Smith and rondo to do more than sneak into the playoffs. The only way we could really get him is a sign and trade where Humphries and picks go to Atlanta. If we did a deal like this he would be signed around 14 mm which is a reasonable contract (for him) which would have value in a future trade.

Signing smoove is the option I want most but I think the most likely is the c's trade rondo then tank hard

[SHAQATTACK]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

I heard Danny Ainge took Lady Luck out to dinner, hustled her in paying for it and the cab ride home and didn`t call back. She said she ain`t ever smiling on Boston as long he lives.

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

On a serious, note free agency started today and technically runs till February next year. A typical trade gets wrapped up in a couple of days, so much could still happen.

[Rondo2287]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

I don't think thats true, it took 22 years last time but we are in much better shape to rebuild now than we were 20 years ago.  Or even when Danny took over for that matter.

[EDWARDO]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

Except that we've had very little luck in the draft and Ainge took us from nothing to 5 years of title contention once already.  If we had had any luck, we'd have Rondo and Durant. Ainge took 3 36-38yr olds and a coach who didn't want to be here and set this team up with assets for the next 5-6 years.  All thw whining and moping is silly at best. Gets disgusting after a while.

[slamtheking]

I think this roster, even with Rondo, will have around the 7th - 8th worst record at best this year.  We have no real center, no back up PG, no scoring SG, a back-up SF/PF that is sliding downhill quickly and a set of PFs that need to show they are starter quality.

A lot of question marks once you get past Rondo and Green and even they have question marks (Rondo's knee, Green's consistency).

I'm not worried about getting into the bottom 3 records since it's extremely rare that the team with the worst record wins the lottery

[CoachBo]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

Except that we've had very little luck in the draft and Ainge took us from nothing to 5 years of title contention once already.  If we had had any luck, we'd have Rondo and Durant. Ainge took 3 36-38yr olds and a coach who didn't want to be here and set this team up with assets for the next 5-6 years.  All thw whining and moping is silly at best. Gets disgusting after a while.

Ainge had less to do with it than Sam Presti and Kevin McHale on his way out the door in Minny.

[CFAN38]

I think this roster, even with Rondo, will have around the 7th - 8th worst record at best this year.  We have no real center, no back up PG, no scoring SG, a back-up SF/PF that is sliding downhill quickly and a set of PFs that need to show they are starter quality.

A lot of question marks once you get past Rondo and Green and even they have question marks (Rondo's knee, Green's consistency).

I'm not worried about getting into the bottom 3 records since it's extremely rare that the team with the worst record wins the lottery

True this team even with Rondo doesn't look good on paper but in the NBA players who are use to winning typically win. They wont beat the elite teams of the east but a lineup of Rondo, AB, Green, Bass and Sully with Lee and Wallace of the bench will win alot of close games against the non top 4 teams. Kind of like the 2009 Rockets.

2013 buck (pre redick trade) vs 2014 celtics

Jennings   < Rondo
Ellis      > AB
Moute      < Green
Ilyasova   > Bass
SAnders    > Sully
Dunleavy   = Wallace
Udoh/Henson> Olynyk
Daniels    < Lee

The Bucks look a little better but not a ton.

I think this team needs to move bass and/or Lee out of boston and put a younger player in there place in order to ensure an unlikely playoff run doesn't happen.

[BballTim]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

Except that we've had very little luck in the draft and Ainge took us from nothing to 5 years of title contention once already.  If we had had any luck, we'd have Rondo and Durant. Ainge took 3 36-38yr olds and a coach who didn't want to be here and set this team up with assets for the next 5-6 years.  All thw whining and moping is silly at best. Gets disgusting after a while.

Ainge had less to do with it than Sam Presti and Kevin McHale on his way out the door in Minny.

  Ainge had everything to do with it, the whole conspiracy thing is delusional. Were you ever actually a coach at a high enough level that whether you won or lost actually mattered to people? If you were, how often did you intentionally lose games because you were friendly with someone involved with the opposing team?

[PhoSita]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

Except that we've had very little luck in the draft and Ainge took us from nothing to 5 years of title contention once already.  If we had had any luck, we'd have Rondo and Durant. Ainge took 3 36-38yr olds and a coach who didn't want to be here and set this team up with assets for the next 5-6 years.  All thw whining and moping is silly at best. Gets disgusting after a while.

Ainge had less to do with it than Sam Presti and Kevin McHale on his way out the door in Minny.

  Ainge had everything to do with it, the whole conspiracy thing is delusional. Were you ever actually a coach at a high enough level that whether you won or lost actually mattered to people? If you were, how often did you intentionally lose games because you were friendly with someone involved with the opposing team?

Yeah, it's funny how other teams are still stupid enough to employ McHale, considering he's clearly willing to make self-destructive moves for the sake of helping the Celtics.

[nickagneta]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

Except that we've had very little luck in the draft and Ainge took us from nothing to 5 years of title contention once already.  If we had had any luck, we'd have Rondo and Durant. Ainge took 3 36-38yr olds and a coach who didn't want to be here and set this team up with assets for the next 5-6 years.  All thw whining and moping is silly at best. Gets disgusting after a while.

Ainge had less to do with it than Sam Presti and Kevin McHale on his way out the door in Minny.

  Ainge had everything to do with it, the whole conspiracy thing is delusional. Were you ever actually a coach at a high enough level that whether you won or lost actually mattered to people? If you were, how often did you intentionally lose games because you were friendly with someone involved with the opposing team?

Yeah, it's funny how other teams are still stupid enough to employ McHale, considering he's clearly willing to make self-destructive moves for the sake of helping the Celtics.

Another way of looking at what CoachBo is saying is that maybe, the stars aligned and Ainge lucked into the deals he did because of his relationships with Presti and McHale and circumstances that may never happen again.

Those circumstances are that Boston was loaded with young talent that appeared to be growing very competitive(seemed they lost every close game they played in 2006-07 despite the effort they gave), Boston owned multiple 1st round picks, Boston had a really big expiring contract, Minnesota was trying to move a disgruntled top 5 player in the league and their GM has an extremely close personal relationship with Ainge, and Seattle was blowing up their team to get a buyer enticed and were moving the best shooter of his generation and top 20 player in the league and their GM had a close business relationship with Ainge(not 100% sure of this but Presti is Boston born and raised and was trying to get into established in the game at about the time Ainge took over in Boston).

Ainge was lucky that everything worked out just the way it did because the type of instant turnaround the Celtics had, with two trades within a month netting such high quality players without free agency being a part of the question, is unprecedented. The turnaround on the court is unprecedented.

If Ainge is trying to recreate what happened in the summer of 2007, I think he's nuts because trying to get those stars to realign is unrealistic. Yes, the Celtics had little luck in the draft lottery that year but he had a lot of luck with everything else that summer, including his relationships with the two GMs that were moving star players. I wonder, does Ainge still have that type of relationship with GMs as rumors are he is rubbing people the wrong way in his recent trade demands for players.

[clover]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

Except that we've had very little luck in the draft and Ainge took us from nothing to 5 years of title contention once already.  If we had had any luck, we'd have Rondo and Durant. Ainge took 3 36-38yr olds and a coach who didn't want to be here and set this team up with assets for the next 5-6 years.  All thw whining and moping is silly at best. Gets disgusting after a while.

Ainge had less to do with it than Sam Presti and Kevin McHale on his way out the door in Minny.

  Ainge had everything to do with it, the whole conspiracy thing is delusional. Were you ever actually a coach at a high enough level that whether you won or lost actually mattered to people? If you were, how often did you intentionally lose games because you were friendly with someone involved with the opposing team?

Yeah, it's funny how other teams are still stupid enough to employ McHale, considering he's clearly willing to make self-destructive moves for the sake of helping the Celtics.

Another way of looking at what CoachBo is saying is that maybe, the stars aligned and Ainge lucked into the deals he did because of his relationships with Presti and McHale and circumstances that may never happen again.

Those circumstances are that Boston was loaded with young talent that appeared to be growing very competitive(seemed they lost every close game they played in 2006-07 despite the effort they gave), Boston owned multiple 1st round picks, Boston had a really big expiring contract, Minnesota was trying to move a disgruntled top 5 player in the league and their GM has an extremely close personal relationship with Ainge, and Seattle was blowing up their team to get a buyer enticed and were moving the best shooter of his generation and top 20 player in the league and their GM had a close business relationship with Ainge(not 100% sure of this but Presti is Boston born and raised and was trying to get into established in the game at about the time Ainge took over in Boston).

Ainge was lucky that everything worked out just the way it did because the type of instant turnaround the Celtics had, with two trades within a month netting such high quality players without free agency being a part of the question, is unprecedented. The turnaround on the court is unprecedented.

If Ainge is trying to recreate what happened in the summer of 2007, I think he's nuts because trying to get those stars to realign is unrealistic. Yes, the Celtics had little luck in the draft lottery that year but he had a lot of luck with everything else that summer, including his relationships with the two GMs that were moving star players. I wonder, does Ainge still have that type of relationship with GMs as rumors are he is rubbing people the wrong way in his recent trade demands for players.

I think that's unfair to Danny.  He worked for years to develop that assets like AlJeff, Gomes, DWest, etc.--as well as to lose their way high in the lottery--to be able to make the final moves with Ray and KG.  Sure, it was quick and transformative once it all came to the head, but it was actually the culmination of a strategy that Danny had followed with discipline.

[BballTim]

path is destruction,  it's already been chosen

it will take 20 years for a non destination city like Boston to regain a bid for a banner

only Lady Luck ,  adding a few superstar by accident , is what this team bases it's fortune on from now on,   no way to buy your self back into contention with cap limits,

so it's sit here and wait till Lady Luck smiles on Boston basketball

no stars , no championships.

Except that we've had very little luck in the draft and Ainge took us from nothing to 5 years of title contention once already.  If we had had any luck, we'd have Rondo and Durant. Ainge took 3 36-38yr olds and a coach who didn't want to be here and set this team up with assets for the next 5-6 years.  All thw whining and moping is silly at best. Gets disgusting after a while.

Ainge had less to do with it than Sam Presti and Kevin McHale on his way out the door in Minny.

  Ainge had everything to do with it, the whole conspiracy thing is delusional. Were you ever actually a coach at a high enough level that whether you won or lost actually mattered to people? If you were, how often did you intentionally lose games because you were friendly with someone involved with the opposing team?

Yeah, it's funny how other teams are still stupid enough to employ McHale, considering he's clearly willing to make self-destructive moves for the sake of helping the Celtics.

Another way of looking at what CoachBo is saying is that maybe, the stars aligned and Ainge lucked into the deals he did because of his relationships with Presti and McHale and circumstances that may never happen again.

Those circumstances are that Boston was loaded with young talent that appeared to be growing very competitive(seemed they lost every close game they played in 2006-07 despite the effort they gave), Boston owned multiple 1st round picks, Boston had a really big expiring contract, Minnesota was trying to move a disgruntled top 5 player in the league and their GM has an extremely close personal relationship with Ainge, and Seattle was blowing up their team to get a buyer enticed and were moving the best shooter of his generation and top 20 player in the league and their GM had a close business relationship with Ainge(not 100% sure of this but Presti is Boston born and raised and was trying to get into established in the game at about the time Ainge took over in Boston).

Ainge was lucky that everything worked out just the way it did because the type of instant turnaround the Celtics had, with two trades within a month netting such high quality players without free agency being a part of the question, is unprecedented. The turnaround on the court is unprecedented.

If Ainge is trying to recreate what happened in the summer of 2007, I think he's nuts because trying to get those stars to realign is unrealistic. Yes, the Celtics had little luck in the draft lottery that year but he had a lot of luck with everything else that summer, including his relationships with the two GMs that were moving star players. I wonder, does Ainge still have that type of relationship with GMs as rumors are he is rubbing people the wrong way in his recent trade demands for players.

  People tend to say "nothing like this ever happened before" a lot but every situation is like that if you describe it properly. He uses phrases like "did Danny a favor" or "Kevin McHale on is way out the door" or many variations. He's trying to say that those teams gave Danny sweetheart deals because he's trying to claim that Danny hadn't acquired or developed any valuable assets. It's a common theme that you hear all the time from his detractors, often enough that people assume that it has some merit because they don't give it enough though to see how far-fetched it is.