Seriously overrating our players

[Eja117]

There's nothing better than NBA hot stove, and its nice that the Cs have some great assets to bring to the table.  However, in reading a lot of trade proposals, I find that we really tend to overrate our own players. 
I'm a fellow green teamer, don't get me wrong, but we all need to be a little more objective in regards to our own guys value.  My biggest issue is with Sullinger.  While he is a nice player, I find it laughable to think that he is really a valuable "chip" is DA's arsenal.  Maybe it's because we got him so late in his draft class, but to think an overweight 22 year old with a history of back problems is a highly coveted asset is ridiculous.
I'd be curious to see how fans from other teams perceive this player.  I think we all know our biggest chips are the 1st round picks in this draft, and in the years to come.  Lets start to be more honest with ourselves.

I don't see Sully as an all star but i see him as a 16/12/1 guy without lots of defense and that's better than lots of draft picks. He has some ability to shoot outside and some ability to play inside. He can also hopefully be had on a reasonable contract.  Guys like Sully don't grow on trees in the draft and Minny knows that. But Minny can't be like "Woooowww. We get Sully!" They have to be like "Sully? That's a start. What else you got?"

[incoherent]

Al Jefferson averaged 16ppg and 11rpg when we traded him for Garnett after his 3rd year.

Jeffersons per 36 then is identical to sullingers per 36 now. Both avg 17pts and 11rbs.

[hwangjini_1]

Al Jefferson averaged 16ppg and 11rpg when we traded him for Garnett after his 3rd year.

Jeffersons per 36 then is identical to sullingers per 36 now. Both avg 17pts and 11rbs.

but sullinger plays better defense and is stronger under the basket. sully's strength should increase over the next few years with more conditioning he will be able to block out/push out opposing pf and c better than jefferson ever did.

i liked jefferson, and i also like sully. both are talented players...but neither is as good as love.

[paidthecost2betheboss]

Sully and Love's 2nd year #'s are almost identical. Sully got more boards actually. He's a nasty nasty guy too.

I'd prefer to keep Sully if at all possible.

[PickNRoll]

Sully is a solid positional defender and one of the best positional rebounders in the game, maybe just behind Kevin Love.  He just can't play any help side defense while he's carrying that weight.  If the love deal doesn't go down, I hope Sully kills himself to get in shape and unleashes a 93' Barkley season on us in the next 3 years.

[Celtics18]

I strongly believe in Kelly Olynyk's future.  He's got some hurdles to overcome with his lack of elite athleticism and length, but it's rare that you see a seven footer with the kind of ball skills that he possesses.

I think he'll be a good starter in the NBA with the possibility of becoming a multiple time All Star.  Time will tell whether or not I'm wildly overrating him. 

[mainevent]

Funny, there was the same EXACT thread before the KG trade happened lol. This is a surreal dejavu moment I'm having here.  As a matter of fact, there are MANY similarities to that particular time period.

An abysmal  2006 > 2013 season
Rumors of KG ran rampant then calmed down as the draft approached
Same Team (Wolves)
Same first named link (Kevin)
Same things said by coach at the time (that he was going anywhere)
Missed out on projected superstars at the top of the draft (Durant/Oden)
Close to same pick we had (5th > 6th)
We had a few youngsters that were promising (Jefferson, Green, Gomes)
No one thought highly of our young talent or thought that it would be enough to get KG

If we trade for an established star BEFORE we trade for KL then it will definitely be 2007 all over again.

Get er done Danny! Make the magic happen again! 
 

[tstorey_97]

A point to keep in mind in any deal is "leverage."

"Sully has warts."

The Timberwolves are not going to get Kevin Love back in a trade. This is the first evidence of leverage in this deal. The Timberwolves are in the process of "settling for less."

The next leverage issue for Flip? His player is g-o-n-e. Flip has no options here except try to get a bidding war. In effect, he does not have enough leverage to get that either.

Transparency is in play here. All the teams know what all the other teams have, they know what they have and most important of all, they all know Jeff Schwartz and "which way the wind is blowing."

Flip has no leverage. He is going to get what he is going to get as the two or three teams who "have enough assets" and the desire to give them up, decide who wins. This decision has already been made.

"You are getting Jared Sullinger, warts, picks and filler and you are going to like it....your player has already left the building.....he's at Fenway Park watching a game that the Twins aren't playing in....oh wait, games over...he's at bar where the Celtics people drink now...fancy that."

Now Mr. Saunders has to put on the "good show." He has make it look like he's getting a good deal when he isn't.

We all need to keep the following in mind, Jeff Schwartz and Kevin Love need to be in the right market to sell "Kevin Love stuff." This player is a marketing organization. He gets money for wearing sneakers, drinking beer, driving Chevrolets and buying (green) paint at Home Depot. Lebron earns 5 times his $19M salary in endorsements...you have 3 seconds to answer the following...."Where do the Minnesota Timberwolves play their home games?"

I rest my endorsement case.

Jeff Schwartz does not earn a big check when Kevin Love recommends "Twin City Dodge dealers." Jeff Schwartz does far better when his client is playing on one of the greatest sports franchises in history. Got it Flip?

Flip Saunders became a spectator when Love said good bye. Jeff Schwartz talked to Flip and they figured what would be best for all parties and Love got on a direct flight to Logan Airport in Boston Massachusetts.

[BballTim]

Funny, there was the same EXACT thread before the KG trade happened lol. This is a surreal dejavu moment I'm having here.  As a matter of fact, there are MANY similarities to that particular time period.

An abysmal  2006 > 2013 season
Rumors of KG ran rampant then calmed down as the draft approached
Same Team (Wolves)
Same first named link (Kevin)
Same things said by coach at the time (that he was going anywhere)
Missed out on projected superstars at the top of the draft (Durant/Oden)
Close to same pick we had (5th > 6th)
We had a few youngsters that were promising (Jefferson, Green, Gomes)
No one thought highly of our young talent or thought that it would be enough to get KG

If we trade for an established star BEFORE we trade for KL then it will definitely be 2007 all over again.

Get er done Danny! Make the magic happen again! 

  I can remember a ton of posts after the celts lost the 2007 lottery that we needed to blow it up and start from scratch because we had no assets on the team that other teams would be interested in. Anyone who disagreed was drinking the green kool-aid and wildly overrating our players/assets.

[guava_wrench]

The problem isn't overrating or underrating. Player value is subjective. Different executives have differing opinions on players. Likewise, different fans have differing evaluations. Clearly there are people who are way out there in both directions, but the reality is that there is no magic formula for forecasting player development. We don't know which players will 'figure it out' and which will never quite develop. There is a lot of guessing.

We got KG with a deal where the outgoing best player (Big Al) was better than anything we can offer now but the second best player was almost useless. In KG's case we had someone willing to stay in Minny but the owner wanted to get some value while they still could. In Love's case, we have a younger player who is going to bolt in a year, but whom ownership wishes they could retain. I would say that Minny has less leverage now, and the player value question is tricky considering Love will never be as good as KG at his peak nor will he ever have the level of impact on a team that KG did, but he has a long career remaining. Another big difference was KG signed an extension before the trade. Love will not. A promise to re-sign is not binding, as we saw with Brand and Boozer. It isn't clear to me that Love should get more assets in return than KG did.

[Vermont Green]

Funny, there was the same EXACT thread before the KG trade happened lol. This is a surreal dejavu moment I'm having here.  As a matter of fact, there are MANY similarities to that particular time period.

An abysmal  2006 > 2013 season
Rumors of KG ran rampant then calmed down as the draft approached
Same Team (Wolves)
Same first named link (Kevin)
Same things said by coach at the time (that he was going anywhere)
Missed out on projected superstars at the top of the draft (Durant/Oden)
Close to same pick we had (5th > 6th)
We had a few youngsters that were promising (Jefferson, Green, Gomes)
No one thought highly of our young talent or thought that it would be enough to get KG

If we trade for an established star BEFORE we trade for KL then it will definitely be 2007 all over again.

Get er done Danny! Make the magic happen again! 

But in this case, I think Love is more analogous to the Ray Allen trade as the set up to getting Carmelo Anthony.

Overrated or not, I think we have the assets to get Love.  The question is will we be able to outbid everyone else.

[BballTim]

The problem isn't overrating or underrating. Player value is subjective. Different executives have differing opinions on players. Likewise, different fans have differing evaluations. Clearly there are people who are way out there in both directions, but the reality is that there is no magic formula for forecasting player development. We don't know which players will 'figure it out' and which will never quite develop. There is a lot of guessing.

We got KG with a deal where the outgoing best player (Big Al) was better than anything we can offer now but the second best player was almost useless. In KG's case we had someone willing to stay in Minny but the owner wanted to get some value while they still could. In Love's case, we have a younger player who is going to bolt in a year, but whom ownership wishes they could retain. I would say that Minny has less leverage now, and the player value question is tricky considering Love will never be as good as KG at his peak nor will he ever have the level of impact on a team that KG did, but he has a long career remaining. Another big difference was KG signed an extension before the trade. Love will not. A promise to re-sign is not binding, as we saw with Brand and Boozer. It isn't clear to me that Love should get more assets in return than KG did.

  When people look at KG, though, the real expectation wasn't that we'd end up with the production that we did but with the level of production we'd have gotten if not for the knee injury, namely 2-3 years of near MVP level of play and then a few years of solid play after that.

[j804]

Funny, there was the same EXACT thread before the KG trade happened lol. This is a surreal dejavu moment I'm having here.  As a matter of fact, there are MANY similarities to that particular time period.

An abysmal  2006 > 2013 season
Rumors of KG ran rampant then calmed down as the draft approached
Same Team (Wolves)
Same first named link (Kevin)
Same things said by coach at the time (that he was going anywhere)
Missed out on projected superstars at the top of the draft (Durant/Oden)
Close to same pick we had (5th > 6th)
We had a few youngsters that were promising (Jefferson, Green, Gomes)
No one thought highly of our young talent or thought that it would be enough to get KG

If we trade for an established star BEFORE we trade for KL then it will definitely be 2007 all over again.

Get er done Danny! Make the magic happen again! 

But in this case, I think Love is more analogous to the Ray Allen trade as the set up to getting Carmelo Anthony.

Overrated or not, I think we have the assets to get Love.  The question is will we be able to outbid everyone else.

I don't get how we'd get Carmelo though wouldn't Love cost us almost all of our valuable assets (one of our young bigs and a couple of our best picks)? Since we can't just sign Carmelo how would we get him I don't think our scraps left would make a Melo deal work. We would have to unload some bad contracts and players no one wants right someone explain how it'd happen

[thedawg]

There's nothing better than NBA hot stove, and its nice that the Cs have some great assets to bring to the table.  However, in reading a lot of trade proposals, I find that we really tend to overrate our own players. 
I'm a fellow green teamer, don't get me wrong, but we all need to be a little more objective in regards to our own guys value.  My biggest issue is with Sullinger.  While he is a nice player, I find it laughable to think that he is really a valuable "chip" is DA's arsenal.  Maybe it's because we got him so late in his draft class, but to think an overweight 22 year old with a history of back problems is a highly coveted asset is ridiculous.
I'd be curious to see how fans from other teams perceive this player.  I think we all know our biggest chips are the 1st round picks in this draft, and in the years to come.  Lets start to be more honest with ourselves.

I TP'd you as I completely agree with you on the overvalue part. Our main assets are the 1st round picks we got and Danny Ainge has done a great job in finding talent deep in the draft.

I bet 90% of our fans are willing to strip our roster to the bare bones (reads: 3-4 1st round picks, Sullinger, Olynyk, Green, 6th pick 2014 etc) in order to get Love playing with Rondo. If we are so willing to get rid of this package then we are not having  any faith in our roster. 

Besides, Love isnt going to uproot his career in another postcode just because there is a nice baseball team, good restsurants and friendly people. He gets that in Minny. He wants to go to a team that can challenge or at least get past 1st round of Playoffs. Celtics need to add much more to their roster for him to come.

[Celtics4ever]

3's made - 56 - 0

Sullinger shot 26% that is abyssmal.  Give me a guy sho can play D and knows he is a big over someone who thinks he can shoot threes when he can't and has conditioning issues.