I am a passive commenter, frequent lurker to this board. I am 31 years old, and have been watching this team my entire life. That means I barely remember the championship years of the 80's and grew up on the putrid filth of the mid 90's Celtics. The reason I am chiming in now is this whole tank vs anti-tank thing has just gotten absolutely ridiculous.
Folks...there is NO DEBATE
I was able to entertain the thought earlier in the year of attempting to win as many games as possible, but at this point, anyone that either is wishing the Celtics to win or regaling in "Tanker's misery" is at best ignorant and at worst a fool.
Yes, the lottery is not an exact science, but at this point, we are stuck there, and it behooves the team to have the best shot at the best player. We have all seen countless lists of who was drafted at what spot in the draft, and what is quantifiable and measureable is the simple fact that better players come from the top spots. The fact that this even needs to be brought up is incredible to me, but yet some posters here can't look past the next week.
I read comments like "I will never root against the Celtics." Well that's terrific for you, but I hope you are happy with mediocrity for the next 10 years, because that's where they are heading unless they start adding impact talent. Impact talent rarely comes late in the draft, it happens but you have to be lucky. Yes, you also must be lucky to hit at the top of the draft, but the odds are much, much better.
Also, having a higher pick also benefits those that are in the camp of "the draft is a crap shoot, we never know." Yes, obviously, thanks for pointing that out. However, if we are going to trade our pick to bring in impact talent from another team...do you think that team would prefer the 3rd pick or the 6th? Some years that doesn't matter all that much, this one does.
In the end, any win at this point of the year has little to no value going forward, but the extra ping pong balls we might get by losing out has enormous potential. Anyone that can't see that at this point needs to take a step back and look at priorities, because clearly they can't see the forest for the trees.