The next 10 games will obliterate our lottery chances.

[pokeKingCurtis]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- if the reward for enduring this overlong and frequently unpleasant season is less than a top 10 pick, I'll be very disappointed, and while I think calling it a disaster might be hyperbole, it certainly would be a pretty significant bit of misfortune. 

In any normal season, this team would have no chance of falling outside of the top 7-8 teams.  But this is not a normal season, and there are going to be at least a few teams lacking in talent that will end up picking in the middle of the 1st round because of how bad the East is.

  I'm starting to think this isn't a one season only thing but the new (or at least current) nba. A few weeks ago I checked the number of bad teams (I might have used 30 wins or an equivalent winning% in strike years) every year to see if there was a spike in years like 2003. What I found was a pretty static number of bad teams and little to no relationship between the draft and the number of bad teams.

  What I did notice, however, was a significant increase in the number of bad teams (50% or so more) before the LeBron FA summer, and that higher level of bad teams has held pretty steady. I'm guessing the new CBA might be involved. You probably can't go back to any of the first 8-9 years of the century and find as many teams as we have now, but the last few years have had comparable numbers. Off topic no doubt, but IMO fairly interesting.

You may be onto something there, although my feeling is that it's not just the win totals -- I feel like the overall talent level is very low in the East this season, and the teams at the bottom are really bad.  There are probably a handful of teams that would be the clear-cut worst in the league in previous years.

Detroit, Milwaukee, of course the New York teams, Chicago and Cleveland weren't supposed to be as bad as they are.

Even though MIL and CLE are horrible right now, at the start of the season, people expected them to be playoff teams above the C's. They looked like playoff teams and a case could be made that they probably weren't looking to tank.

The rest of the teams have been mismanaged (DET) or unlucky or haven't gelled yet.

[Quetzalcoatl]

 

In any normal season, this team would have no chance of falling outside of the top 7-8 teams.  But this is not a normal season, and there are going to be at least a few teams lacking in talent that will end up picking in the middle of the 1st round because of how bad the East is.

  I'm starting to think this isn't a one season only thing but the new (or at least current) nba. A few weeks ago I checked the number of bad teams (I might have used 30 wins or an equivalent winning% in strike years) every year to see if there was a spike in years like 2003. What I found was a pretty static number of bad teams and little to no relationship between the draft and the number of bad teams.

  What I did notice, however, was a significant increase in the number of bad teams (50% or so more) before the LeBron FA summer, and that higher level of bad teams has held pretty steady. I'm guessing the new CBA might be involved. You probably can't go back to any of the first 8-9 years of the century and find as many teams as we have now, but the last few years have had comparable numbers. Off topic no doubt, but IMO fairly interesting.

Detroit, Milwaukee, of course the New York teams, Chicago and Cleveland weren't supposed to be as bad as they are.

The rest of the teams have been mismanaged (DET) or unlucky or haven't gelled yet.

I have a theory about tanking during "good draft" years and it isn't that there are more teams that are bad during these times, but it's that there are more well managed teams at the bottom of the ranks than in years with bad drafts.  A lot of it has to be coincidence, but you notice that the Spurs and Celtics tanked it out for Duncan and this year, the Lakers and Celtics are both cellar dwellers.  Last year, which had a terrible draft, all the bad teams were poorly managed and for the most part, were cheapskates.  This year, there are some excellent GMs and GMs with deep pockets both at the bottom of the rankings, which is a pretty quick switch. 

[D.o.s.]

The Spurs were encouraged to let their star players recover fully from injury because of Tim Duncan, but that's not the kind of "tanking" that most people are talking about--that was a 50 win team taking one year off.

[BballTim]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- if the reward for enduring this overlong and frequently unpleasant season is less than a top 10 pick, I'll be very disappointed, and while I think calling it a disaster might be hyperbole, it certainly would be a pretty significant bit of misfortune. 

In any normal season, this team would have no chance of falling outside of the top 7-8 teams.  But this is not a normal season, and there are going to be at least a few teams lacking in talent that will end up picking in the middle of the 1st round because of how bad the East is.

  I'm starting to think this isn't a one season only thing but the new (or at least current) nba. A few weeks ago I checked the number of bad teams (I might have used 30 wins or an equivalent winning% in strike years) every year to see if there was a spike in years like 2003. What I found was a pretty static number of bad teams and little to no relationship between the draft and the number of bad teams.

  What I did notice, however, was a significant increase in the number of bad teams (50% or so more) before the LeBron FA summer, and that higher level of bad teams has held pretty steady. I'm guessing the new CBA might be involved. You probably can't go back to any of the first 8-9 years of the century and find as many teams as we have now, but the last few years have had comparable numbers. Off topic no doubt, but IMO fairly interesting.

You may be onto something there, although my feeling is that it's not just the win totals -- I feel like the overall talent level is very low in the East this season, and the teams at the bottom are really bad.  There are probably a handful of teams that would be the clear-cut worst in the league in previous years.

Detroit, Milwaukee, of course the New York teams, Chicago and Cleveland weren't supposed to be as bad as they are.

Even though MIL and CLE are horrible right now, at the start of the season, people expected them to be playoff teams above the C's. They looked like playoff teams and a case could be made that they probably weren't looking to tank.

The rest of the teams have been mismanaged (DET) or unlucky or haven't gelled yet.

  The East got off to a terrible star but the imbalance seems to be lessening a bit. There are 5 teams winning less than 40% of their games in the east and 3 in the west. There are 9 teams under .500 in the east and 6 in the west. Not that the west isn't better, but the skew's lessening as some of the teams (at the moment Chi and the NY teams) right the ship somewhat.

[pokeKingCurtis]

Okay, some people in this thread need to calm down and take a step off the ledge. Take a look at this sentence

"I would like a high draft pick, because I think it increases our odds of drafting an impact player or making a meaningful trade for one."

That is a reasonable thing to say. But, that is a very different thing from saying,

"It will be an unmitigated disaster if we don't get a high draft pick, it will ruin this franchise going forward, because the only possible route to salvation is to draft [Jabari/Embiid/insert your favorite college player here]."

If you can't tell the difference between these two statements, you need to go look up the word "hyperbole" in the dictionary. Too many people in this thread are saying the latter, which is patently absurd. There are numerous paths to "salvation" in the NBA, as history has proven time and time again. There is no such thing as a 100% in the lottery; look at every draft in NBA history. At least one player in the top 5 is a bust, guaranteed. In some drafts it is more. But there has never been an NBA draft without a bust in the top 5.

The path to a championship is through overall good management. This INCLUDES the lottery, but is not EXCLUSIVE to the lottery. Good management, as Danny Ainge, Larry Bird, Daryl Morey, and others have proven, is NOT following some pre-determined boilerplate template for success - in fact, that is the route to failure. It is inflexible and idiotic. Good management is the process of reacting to new situations and making the best out of them.

If you honestly think that there is any player in this draft that is a 100% sure thing, you are insane, because those don't exist. For every Lebron there is a Darko. If you honestly think that not getting this supposed sure thing means this championship never wins another title ever, you are also insane, because that assumes you can see the future.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on what is best for this franchise. But stop acting like you are the only prescient one and that nobody else knows or cares as much about this franchise as you, and spewing wild vitriolic hyperbole is not conducive to having an enjoyable or productive discussion about our team.

Remember, say this:

"I would like a high draft pick, because I think it increases our odds of drafting an impact player or making a meaningful trade for one."

NOT this:

"It will be an unmitigated disaster if we don't get a high draft pick, it will ruin this franchise going forward, because the only possible route to salvation is to draft [Jabari/Embiid/insert your favorite college player here]."

One is the well-thought out opinion of a basketball fan, the other are the ramblings of a lunatic.

TP A+++++

The only way Danny succeeded was by landing the #5 pick in the 2007, then trading it for RA, which enabled him to land KG. So that pick was necessary, but not sufficient (that is, Danny also had to use it well after he had built up other tradeable assets) for him to bring us the C's last run of success.

  I don't know that that's really true. If we'd had a lower pick we still probably could have worked something out with Seattle. Let's face it, the trade was more to get Ray off the roster than the return. It's also not set in stone that we couldn't have eventually gotten KG without Ray.

Okay, I'll amend it to "the only way Danny did succeed"--does that work for you?

mmmmm said it best:

It can be argued that acquiring Ray was only "necessary" because our team sucked that year -- the rumors at the time were that KG didn't want to come to another losing team.

If Paul and Tony had not gotten injured, we would likely NOT have gotten the #5 pick (and possibly not have even been in the lottery at all).  If the roster looked more competitive to KG (he would have joined a starting lineup that would have been identical except for replacing Ray Allen with Tony Allen) it is entirely possible he still would have come.  Tony was an emerging young talent before the injury.  If healthy, that's a legit contender lineup.  Yes, it gives up a lot on offense.  But it would have been stifling on defense.

So the 'necessity' of the #5 pick is circular.  It was only necessary because we sucked bad enough to have the #5 pick.

-----

agreed, but in the same vein, rooting for a win streak could bee seen as either lunacy or being short-sighted as well. there's a difference between:
1. Rooting for wins, just to win, and
2. Rooting for development of the young guys

getting a high draft pick just makes too much sense this year. Whether that pick will be used to draft a rookie or trade for an all-star on a bad team, we'll let Ainge decide. But a top-3 pick will definitely hold more value than a 'barely-miss-the-playoffs' win streak by players who might not even be here in a year or two. IMO, falling to the 12th-14th pick will be the worst loss we suffer this season.

People are insane because they don't go:

"Well, that's just great. OUR LOTTERY CHANCES ARE RUINED" after every win?

or

"YES WE LOST! GREAT LOSS!" after every loss?

[pokeKingCurtis]

The Spurs were encouraged to let their star players recover fully from injury because of Tim Duncan, but that's not the kind of "tanking" that most people are talking about--that was a 50 win team taking one year off.

Also, some on this thread point to the Lakers. Maybe, just maybe, are the cause of their recent losing streak. Steve Blake was scorching before he went down, so I heard.

[pokeKingCurtis]

This weird idea that the Celtics' future hinges so completely on where they draft in this coming draft has blown up into silly proportions.

Yeah. If the only thing Ainge has up his sleeve is tanking, THAT would be a sure sign that we're truly screwed.

Sometimes, it's just dumb, dumb luck.

We might have stuck with Oden and built around him had we "won" the lottery.

Maybe if Denver got the 5th pick, they would have drafted Wade instead. Maybe then they would have gotten a chip or at the very least kept their star.

Of course, Darko.

Maybe if we lose too many games, we'd get the Beasley of the draft.

It's sheer dumb luck sometimes. There are so, so many variables to say for sure that not getting a pick would mean we're completely screwed.

The Cavaliers have had back to back to back to back lottery picks. They had LeBron. Kyrie Irving could be a surefire transcendent superstar.

[LooseCannon]

I just want some team, any team, to successfully rebuild without a top five pick, especially in this draft, so that people can point to that team as an example of why teams have a choice other than tanking.  I would be ecstatic if that team was the Celtics.

[nickagneta]

I see some of the details of that Ray/KG trade summer have been lost over time.

Minnesota tried to KG to Boston before the Ray trade happened but the trade didn't occur because KG refused to sign an extension in Boston. Yes, Boston being a bad team was a factor but those plugged into KG were saying that KG would never sign long term with any team that had Wally Szczerbiak on it.

Remember Wally and KG spent years together in Minnesota squabbling over things and both trying to be the alpha dog.(A position KG was obviously qualified for and Wally wasn't). KG HATED Wally and didn't want to play with him anymore.

The Ray trade was great and got KG here for two reasons. It gave Boston another piece that could convert them into a winner and, possibly more important, it got rid of Wally Szczerbiak from the Boston roster.

[D.o.s.]

I just want some team, any team, to successfully rebuild without a top five pick, especially in this draft, so that people can point to that team as an example of why teams have a choice other than tanking.  I would be ecstatic if that team was the Celtics.

Going all in on the Pacers, then?

[LooseCannon]

I just want some team, any team, to successfully rebuild without a top five pick, especially in this draft, so that people can point to that team as an example of why teams have a choice other than tanking.  I would be ecstatic if that team was the Celtics.

Going all in on the Pacers, then?

Did you expect me to root for the Heat?

[pokeKingCurtis]

I just want some team, any team, to successfully rebuild without a top five pick, especially in this draft, so that people can point to that team as an example of why teams have a choice other than tanking.  I would be ecstatic if that team was the Celtics.

Going all in on the Pacers, then?

Did you expect me to root for the Heat?

He said that because the Pacers have no top 5 picks.

Wow. They have no top 5 picks.

It's only right that Larry Legend himself builds the team that breaks all molds.

[D.o.s.]

I just want some team, any team, to successfully rebuild without a top five pick, especially in this draft, so that people can point to that team as an example of why teams have a choice other than tanking.  I would be ecstatic if that team was the Celtics.

Going all in on the Pacers, then?

Did you expect me to root for the Heat?

Touche.

I agree with you--I think that the pro-tanking buzz has turned into noise. Lots of people spouting lots of Hemmingway-style sentences about things that require a relatively high level of nuance.

On the other hand, I look at someone like Tim Duncan's career, and I can't help but be intoxicated by the idea that we, too, could land a player that would bridge the gap between our contending days with the Big Three and 15-20 years of realistic Finals optimism.

[clover]

I just want some team, any team, to successfully rebuild without a top five pick, especially in this draft, so that people can point to that team as an example of why teams have a choice other than tanking.  I would be ecstatic if that team was the Celtics.

Going all in on the Pacers, then?

Did you expect me to root for the Heat?

Touche.

I agree with you--I think that the pro-tanking buzz has turned into noise. Lots of people spouting lots of Hemmingway-style sentences about things that require a relatively high level of nuance.

On the other hand, I look at someone like Tim Duncan's career, and I can't help but be intoxicated by the idea that we, too, could land a player that would bridge the gap between our contending days with the Big Three and 15-20 years of realistic Finals optimism.

Dwade, of course, was a #5 pick on the part of the Heat.

But asking Danny to fill Larry's shoes is always asking a bit too much.

[LilRip]

I see some of the details of that Ray/KG trade summer have been lost over time.

Minnesota tried to KG to Boston before the Ray trade happened but the trade didn't occur because KG refused to sign an extension in Boston. Yes, Boston being a bad team was a factor but those plugged into KG were saying that KG would never sign long term with any team that had Wally Szczerbiak on it.

Remember Wally and KG spent years together in Minnesota squabbling over things and both trying to be the alpha dog.(A position KG was obviously qualified for and Wally wasn't). KG HATED Wally and didn't want to play with him anymore.

The Ray trade was great and got KG here for two reasons. It gave Boston another piece that could convert them into a winner and, possibly more important, it got rid of Wally Szczerbiak from the Boston roster.

I have a side question because I dont know the answer to this. Did the Ray Allen trade happen because 1) Seattle was able to draft Durant and they decided they wanted a youth movement? 2) Ray was a 32-year old player coming off a surgery that often spelled the downside of SG's careers and they would've traded him for a high pick and a prospect anyway? Or 3) other reasons I may have missed?