Do Tanking Advocates Believe Young Players Should Be Benched For Being Too Good?

[Celtics18]

  So you'll be able to manage an answer if I re-ask the question with a reminder that players we draft are on a rookie contract?

Here's your answer:

Every player we draft is an asset.  I'll leave it up to Danny to determine if the player is an untouchable, once-in-a-generation, franchise cornerstone sort of player.  If the player is not, then he's movable in the right deal and the right set of circumstances like everybody else.

Al Jefferson was exactly the sort of All-Star caliber player you describe who Danny moved in the right deal to put us on track to a championship.

As fans we can of course spend days and weeks and even years debating what sort of asset we have on our hands, as we have done with Rondo.  I'm pretty sure it will be quite rare indeed that we draft a player as uniquely polarizing and awesome as Rondo, though.

  Haha. After all that all I get is "whatever Danny thinks is fine with me"? That was useful.

Come on, don't you think I've learned by now that there's no point in actually trying to persuade you to change any of your opinions on Rondo?




The basic point I'm trying to make is that every player has their price, unless they're so good that they're priceless.  I know you are of the opinion that Rondo is, if not in that category, then very close to it.  You know, I think, that I don't really agree with that notion.

I'm kind of disregarding your flippant "So should we trade away young All-Star players if they're helping us win too many games?" question.  Of course you trade them, if you can get assets in return that you believe will be more useful in becoming a top contender than those players themselves (hence the Al Jefferson example).  But no, you don't just dump them for the sake of being bad. 

That's just so obvious that I figured that's not the answer you were really trying to elicit.

  The question (fairly obviously) wasn't related to Rondo. It's also unrelated to Al Jefferson. It was, shockingly, exactly what I asked. People keep telling me that it's counter-productive to have players on the team that aren't superstars but are good enough to keep the team away from the highest lottery picks. It's reasonable to ask them what they intend to do if they draft such players.

  What if you get a PP or a Deron or a Bosh or a Carmelo, players who are stars but clearly a step below a LeBron or a Shaq or a Duncan? Do you keep them for 10-12 years and hope to somehow build a contender around them without top draft picks? Do you discard them for future draft picks to insure that you stay at the bottom until you get your Shaq/LeBron?

Well, to extrapolate from the answer I gave you . . . if you don't deem them to be cornerstone pieces, you keep them until you can flip them for assets that you think will put you closer to getting such a player.

Again, exactly what was done with Al Jefferson.

I think it depends on the player, too.  Pierce was good enough that the Celtics kept him around and tried to build around him.  They probably would have eventually traded him if the KG / Ray Allen trades didn't come together at the right time, though.  But Pierce, though maybe not good enough to be the centerpiece of a championship team, was still an All-Time great and a legitimate #1 scoring option.

When there are only two players in the league right now who fit the description of the "kind of cornerstone franchise centerpiece that you build around," it seems a little absurd to me to make your whole strategy to continue to turn the best players on your franchise over until you get the "next one." 

If we go the route of not even considering trying to be competitive until we land have the next Lebron James, Rajon Rondo may have retired by the time we have our next contender anyway. 

That's fine.  We'll be patient.  We'll wait.  As long as we don't actually have to go through having to root for the team to win games while we do so.

See, I don't at all agree with you that only two players in the league right now necessarily fall within that definition -- or could fall within that definition in the future.

Rather, I'm thinking more in terms of players I'd put in the top 10-15 players in the league.

Rondo doesn't fit in that category for me, though I'm sure you already figured that out.


I hope you'll also notice that what I've said does not necessitate "not trying to be competitive."  Building through the draft doesn't mean continually tanking until you get a superstar.  It does mean using top 5-10 draft picks as assets that you develop into or trade for such a player, though.

Another way of looking at is that until you have a core group of players that you believe can contend for a title, you are in "asset acquisition" mode.  That's where we are now. 

Until you have the potential championship core, you stay in "asset acquisition" mode, and you don't use up cap space or trade assets to try to win in the short term while you're in that mode.

I'm sure you've already figured out that Rondo does fit into that category for me. 

That aside, at some point "asset acquisition mode" will inevitably overlap with "win now mode."  As a matter of fact, I contend that most of the good franchises almost always have a foot in both of those modes.  "Win now" may not necessarily mean win a title now--as is the case with this year's Celtics--but I don't buy the theory that if we were to make the playoffs and/or not be in a position to land one of the top five picks in the draft that it will be a wasted season.

Maybe you don't believe that either.  Maybe it's not really you, specifically, that I'm arguing against.  But, there are many fans who seem to firmly believe that the only thing worth striving for this upcoming season is to be as bad as absolutely possible.  I just don't agree with that stance. 

Back to the specific subjects of assets and Rondo as an asset--which it seems like what this discussion is really all about--I believe that chances are very high that he is a better asset than anyone we will be able to land by getting rid of him.  I think he will show that this upcoming season. 

Someone mentioned in an earlier post that they think Rajon Rondo has already played his best NBA basketball.  I disagree with that.  As good as he's been, I think he will be even better if he can run a system that relies on a faster pace than he has hitherto had the opportunity to play in. 

That's the main reason that I think that if he can return healthy next year that this team will have a shot at being considerably better than many are currently predicting.  It's not that we'll be able to effectively replace Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.  It's more that their absences will allow Danny to build a team that better suits Rondo's strengths.  I feel that he has some players in place--namely Jeff Green and Avery Bradley (and possibly Kelly Olynyk)--who do fit with the kind of system I'd like to see going forward with Rondo.  We need a couple of more pieces.  I think Danny will find a way to get them. 

[BballTim]

  So you'll be able to manage an answer if I re-ask the question with a reminder that players we draft are on a rookie contract?

Here's your answer:

Every player we draft is an asset.  I'll leave it up to Danny to determine if the player is an untouchable, once-in-a-generation, franchise cornerstone sort of player.  If the player is not, then he's movable in the right deal and the right set of circumstances like everybody else.

Al Jefferson was exactly the sort of All-Star caliber player you describe who Danny moved in the right deal to put us on track to a championship.

As fans we can of course spend days and weeks and even years debating what sort of asset we have on our hands, as we have done with Rondo.  I'm pretty sure it will be quite rare indeed that we draft a player as uniquely polarizing and awesome as Rondo, though.

  Haha. After all that all I get is "whatever Danny thinks is fine with me"? That was useful.

Come on, don't you think I've learned by now that there's no point in actually trying to persuade you to change any of your opinions on Rondo?




The basic point I'm trying to make is that every player has their price, unless they're so good that they're priceless.  I know you are of the opinion that Rondo is, if not in that category, then very close to it.  You know, I think, that I don't really agree with that notion.

I'm kind of disregarding your flippant "So should we trade away young All-Star players if they're helping us win too many games?" question.  Of course you trade them, if you can get assets in return that you believe will be more useful in becoming a top contender than those players themselves (hence the Al Jefferson example).  But no, you don't just dump them for the sake of being bad. 

That's just so obvious that I figured that's not the answer you were really trying to elicit.

  The question (fairly obviously) wasn't related to Rondo. It's also unrelated to Al Jefferson. It was, shockingly, exactly what I asked. People keep telling me that it's counter-productive to have players on the team that aren't superstars but are good enough to keep the team away from the highest lottery picks. It's reasonable to ask them what they intend to do if they draft such players.

  What if you get a PP or a Deron or a Bosh or a Carmelo, players who are stars but clearly a step below a LeBron or a Shaq or a Duncan? Do you keep them for 10-12 years and hope to somehow build a contender around them without top draft picks? Do you discard them for future draft picks to insure that you stay at the bottom until you get your Shaq/LeBron?

Well, to extrapolate from the answer I gave you . . . if you don't deem them to be cornerstone pieces, you keep them until you can flip them for assets that you think will put you closer to getting such a player.

Again, exactly what was done with Al Jefferson.

I think it depends on the player, too.  Pierce was good enough that the Celtics kept him around and tried to build around him.  They probably would have eventually traded him if the KG / Ray Allen trades didn't come together at the right time, though.  But Pierce, though maybe not good enough to be the centerpiece of a championship team, was still an All-Time great and a legitimate #1 scoring option.

  While this is a fairly reasonable answer it's somewhat the opposite of what I hear from many of the pro-tank crowd, that you need to stay at the bottom until you get that centerpiece because that's the most likely way to acquire one.

[nickagneta]

I think Rondo is the Pierce from 2005-2007 that this team needs to keep like they kept Pierce. Rondo isn't THE cornerstone guy(KG and his defense was) but he is too valuable to trade away hoping to get worse to possibly get one of those guys in the draft.

As the others develop, Ainge will need to judge who to trade, like he did with Jefferson, Green, Telfair and Gomes. And he will need to decide which young players to keep like he did with Perkins, Rondo and Tony Allen.

As long as Humphries and Wallace don't have bounce back years and/or are played a lot or Sully, Green, Bradley and Olynyk suddenly develop extremely fast into excellent players, this extremely young team should be in the lottery next year, though not that low.

In a perfect storm, Rondo could once again be an All-Star leading the league in assist and steals and scoring 15-17 PPG. Bradley could be one of the better D and 3 guys in the league and a 1st team All-Defense player, Olynyk could be a ROY candidate because he can score and those voters love offense. Sully could turn into a double double machine down low with great defense and green could become a 23 PPG scorer and defensive stopper at the wing.

And if that happens, this team could be in the playoffs next year.

And.....so much for the tanking.

[Roy H.]

Even if you're tanking, I don't think it makes sense to artificially bench young stud players.

You might hold them out longer when they're injured, and maybe you sit guys in the last week of the season to give the end of the bench run.  However, benching productive young players just sends the wrong message and stifles their development.

[BudweiserCeltic]

We're not tanking next year. We have a roster filled with young talent and people who actually know how to play basketball.

It'll be an uphill battle to be bad enough to tank. As the roster is currently constructed, tanking is a foolish idea.

Ainge would need to deconstruct this team quite further to make tanking the season a possibility, absent of injuries.

[LilRip]

  So you'll be able to manage an answer if I re-ask the question with a reminder that players we draft are on a rookie contract?

Here's your answer:

Every player we draft is an asset.  I'll leave it up to Danny to determine if the player is an untouchable, once-in-a-generation, franchise cornerstone sort of player.  If the player is not, then he's movable in the right deal and the right set of circumstances like everybody else.

Al Jefferson was exactly the sort of All-Star caliber player you describe who Danny moved in the right deal to put us on track to a championship.

As fans we can of course spend days and weeks and even years debating what sort of asset we have on our hands, as we have done with Rondo.  I'm pretty sure it will be quite rare indeed that we draft a player as uniquely polarizing and awesome as Rondo, though.

  Haha. After all that all I get is "whatever Danny thinks is fine with me"? That was useful.

Come on, don't you think I've learned by now that there's no point in actually trying to persuade you to change any of your opinions on Rondo?




The basic point I'm trying to make is that every player has their price, unless they're so good that they're priceless.  I know you are of the opinion that Rondo is, if not in that category, then very close to it.  You know, I think, that I don't really agree with that notion.

I'm kind of disregarding your flippant "So should we trade away young All-Star players if they're helping us win too many games?" question.  Of course you trade them, if you can get assets in return that you believe will be more useful in becoming a top contender than those players themselves (hence the Al Jefferson example).  But no, you don't just dump them for the sake of being bad. 

That's just so obvious that I figured that's not the answer you were really trying to elicit.

  The question (fairly obviously) wasn't related to Rondo. It's also unrelated to Al Jefferson. It was, shockingly, exactly what I asked. People keep telling me that it's counter-productive to have players on the team that aren't superstars but are good enough to keep the team away from the highest lottery picks. It's reasonable to ask them what they intend to do if they draft such players.

  What if you get a PP or a Deron or a Bosh or a Carmelo, players who are stars but clearly a step below a LeBron or a Shaq or a Duncan? Do you keep them for 10-12 years and hope to somehow build a contender around them without top draft picks? Do you discard them for future draft picks to insure that you stay at the bottom until you get your Shaq/LeBron?

Well, to extrapolate from the answer I gave you . . . if you don't deem them to be cornerstone pieces, you keep them until you can flip them for assets that you think will put you closer to getting such a player.

Again, exactly what was done with Al Jefferson.

I think it depends on the player, too.  Pierce was good enough that the Celtics kept him around and tried to build around him.  They probably would have eventually traded him if the KG / Ray Allen trades didn't come together at the right time, though.  But Pierce, though maybe not good enough to be the centerpiece of a championship team, was still an All-Time great and a legitimate #1 scoring option.

  While this is a fairly reasonable answer it's somewhat the opposite of what I hear from many of the pro-tank crowd, that you need to stay at the bottom until you get that centerpiece because that's the most likely way to acquire one.

don't mean to burst in mid-conversation, but what i see often from the pro-tank crowd is that:
1) 2014 is a stacked draft so let's suck this year to get a good chance at landing a potential franchise-player
2) the Nets trade was good because we got something of value from Pierce and KG, despite his NTC.
3) acquiring assets is never a bad thing. we can get someone useful in future drafts, or via trade like in 2007.
4) building through the draft is just as reliable as building through free agency, so might as well try to get wiggins, parker, etc. this year

so while there are indeed a lot of people advocating to do bad this year, i don't really recall seeing much posts about being bad every year until we land a centerpiece.

[JSD]

Who do we consider our young players? Does Green and Rondo fall into this category?


To me, I classify prospects as being on their rookie scale contract, and I don't look at this as a tanking phase in Celtic history but more a development phase. One of the plus' of having a development phase is that it comes with losses in a year where there is a lot of talent in the draft.

[LilRip]

we're not tanking advocates, we're realistic championship seekers and people who dont want to be 1st round playoff exits.

Realistically, most eventual championship contenders go through a phase where they lose in the first round of the playoffs.

yes, and many teams also end up as first round fodder. Good enough to make it to the playoffs, but it's not in their ceiling to make it past the 2nd round. it's the difference between the Milwaukee Bucks of last year, and the Chicago Bulls that took it the Celtics games in...2008-09? well, that year KG got injured.

[Boris Badenov]

We're not tanking next year. We have a roster filled with young talent and people who actually know how to play basketball.

It'll be an uphill battle to be bad enough to tank. As the roster is currently constructed, tanking is a foolish idea.

Danny? Is that you?

Back on topic I will say, as someone who is fine with getting worse to improve draft position, that I would never recommend benching good players because they're "too good." There's a fine line - probably exemplified by the decision to sit Pierce in 2007. But he was a vet whose development wouldn't have been hurt by sitting if he actually could have played. (And he seems to have been on board with getting the "extra rest").

And, to address BudweiserCeltic's point, I think our quality next year is pretty unknown at this point. We have a lot of players who are all over the place in terms of how they could end up playing: Rondo, Lee, Green, Olynyk, Bradley, etc. - those are some of our key guys and there are a lot of question marks right now.

If they all perform well (most notably if Rondo comes back at 90-100% early in the year), we might be decent. If not...we could be pretty darn awful. That's how I see it anyway.

[PhoSita]

We're not tanking next year. We have a roster filled with young talent and people who actually know how to play basketball.

It'll be an uphill battle to be bad enough to tank. As the roster is currently constructed, tanking is a foolish idea.

Danny? Is that you?

Back on topic I will say, as someone who is fine with getting worse to improve draft position, that I would never recommend benching good players because they're "too good." There's a fine line - probably exemplified by the decision to sit Pierce in 2007. But he was a vet whose development wouldn't have been hurt by sitting if he actually could have played. (And he seems to have been on board with getting the "extra rest").

And, to address BudweiserCeltic's point, I think our quality next year is pretty unknown at this point. We have a lot of players who are all over the place in terms of how they could end up playing: Rondo, Lee, Green, Olynyk, Bradley, etc. - those are some of our key guys and there are a lot of question marks right now.

If they all perform well (most notably if Rondo comes back at 90-100% early in the year), we might be decent. If not...we could be pretty darn awful. That's how I see it anyway.

Yeah, it's so hard to say how this team will perform right now.

One thing that doesn't get taken into consideration is that whatever starting lineup we put out there is probably going to have a couple guys who have not been part of the starting unit, at least not for more than a couple games.  This unit is going to have to learn how to play together.  Couple that with being overmatched in terms of size and talent more often than not, and I think it's reasonable to err on the side of expecting significantly more losses than wins.

Especially if Danny ends up trading away some of the veteran bench guys (Lee, Bass, Humphries, Wallace).  Then the reserve unit will be nearly as bad as what Portland had last year.

[Boris Badenov]

We're not tanking next year. We have a roster filled with young talent and people who actually know how to play basketball.

It'll be an uphill battle to be bad enough to tank. As the roster is currently constructed, tanking is a foolish idea.

Danny? Is that you?

Back on topic I will say, as someone who is fine with getting worse to improve draft position, that I would never recommend benching good players because they're "too good." There's a fine line - probably exemplified by the decision to sit Pierce in 2007. But he was a vet whose development wouldn't have been hurt by sitting if he actually could have played. (And he seems to have been on board with getting the "extra rest").

And, to address BudweiserCeltic's point, I think our quality next year is pretty unknown at this point. We have a lot of players who are all over the place in terms of how they could end up playing: Rondo, Lee, Green, Olynyk, Bradley, etc. - those are some of our key guys and there are a lot of question marks right now.

If they all perform well (most notably if Rondo comes back at 90-100% early in the year), we might be decent. If not...we could be pretty darn awful. That's how I see it anyway.

Yeah, it's so hard to say how this team will perform right now.

One thing that doesn't get taken into consideration is that whatever starting lineup we put out there is probably going to have a couple guys who have not been part of the starting unit, at least not for more than a couple games.  This unit is going to have to learn how to play together.  Couple that with being overmatched in terms of size and talent more often than not, and I think it's reasonable to err on the side of expecting significantly more losses than wins.

Also unknown is how taking KG and Pierce off the team will affect the remaining guys - even "vets" like Lee, Bradley, Sully and Green.

This is especially true on defense, I think. Who knows how hard everyone will work and how well everyone will play without having KG guiding them (and/or barking at them).

[PhoSita]

We're not tanking next year. We have a roster filled with young talent and people who actually know how to play basketball.

It'll be an uphill battle to be bad enough to tank. As the roster is currently constructed, tanking is a foolish idea.

Danny? Is that you?

Back on topic I will say, as someone who is fine with getting worse to improve draft position, that I would never recommend benching good players because they're "too good." There's a fine line - probably exemplified by the decision to sit Pierce in 2007. But he was a vet whose development wouldn't have been hurt by sitting if he actually could have played. (And he seems to have been on board with getting the "extra rest").

And, to address BudweiserCeltic's point, I think our quality next year is pretty unknown at this point. We have a lot of players who are all over the place in terms of how they could end up playing: Rondo, Lee, Green, Olynyk, Bradley, etc. - those are some of our key guys and there are a lot of question marks right now.

If they all perform well (most notably if Rondo comes back at 90-100% early in the year), we might be decent. If not...we could be pretty darn awful. That's how I see it anyway.

Yeah, it's so hard to say how this team will perform right now.

One thing that doesn't get taken into consideration is that whatever starting lineup we put out there is probably going to have a couple guys who have not been part of the starting unit, at least not for more than a couple games.  This unit is going to have to learn how to play together.  Couple that with being overmatched in terms of size and talent more often than not, and I think it's reasonable to err on the side of expecting significantly more losses than wins.

Also unknown is how taking KG and Pierce off the team will affect the remaining guys - even "vets" like Lee, Bradley, Sully and Green.

This is especially true on defense, I think. Who knows how hard everyone will work and how well everyone will play without having KG guiding them (and/or barking at them).

I expect that a number of guys who were surprisingly effective on defense the last season or two when KG was here will be much less so.

Bass, Green, and Sullinger are at the top of that list, I think.

I don't know how effective Rondo will be defensively coming off his injury.  Especially considering how bad he was last season.

I'm not expecting good defense from this team, with all respect to Bradley.  I think Wallace will probably be our second best defender after Bradley, and I don't expect him to play more than 20 minutes a night.