would you prefer tanking again ?

[fitzhickey]

I don't want to ever root for my team to lose games again.

When the Celtics tank another season I will make sure to keep as far away from them as possible.

kelly olynyk will not win us a championship. might as well try to gamble in the lotto.

Or trade for a proven player maybe?

[Celtics18]

- Lose Rondo
- Lose most of our games
- Get screwed in the lottery again.

Why do you guys insist on doing this? It isn't going to work.. 

Because youth...potential...higher ceilings!!!!   

I find it interesting that a lot of the posters who advocate against tanking are some of the same posters that very loudly proclaim that the Celtics are 'all about Championships' or some other mostly useless Lombardi-esque nonsense. It seems to me that those people would be willing to recognize that winning a championship with a superstar on a rookie deal is, on paper, easier than winning one with max-deal vets, at least as far as roster construction is concerned.

As for me, I don't want to tank again because I want to watch entertaining basketball. The Celtics did not play entertaining hoops last year.

My apologies for double quoting you here, but since when is it easier on paper to win a championship with a superstar on a rookie deal?

That's actually a fairly rare occurrence.

that was quickly typed -- should read 'kept through his rookie contract' rookie. As in, the best guy on your team, ala Duncan, or the second best, ala Kobe. The usual suspects in the same argument everyone makes about the importance of draft picks every time the issue comes up.

But you're ignoring the key part of my post in your excerpt, which is actually the answer to your question: the all-important "at least as far as roster construction is concerned."


as for your other question, 'a lot' is not 'most', but you can't reasonably tell me that there aren't a lot of people who think we should move as many assets as we can to become as competitive as possible, even at the expense of planting a ceiling on the team.

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure I get your point.  I will say this, though; we already have a player on the roster who we drafted who is here through his rookie deal, who has proven that he can be among one of the top players on a championship contending team.  To me, the thing to do is to keep that player and try to build around him to add other players who can be top level players on a championship contending team. 

I don't think the way to do that is to bottom out again. 

[Celtics18]

Nope. But complete this rebuild properly.  Trade rondo.

I want smart, gordon and hairston

"I don't want to tank, but we have to trade our best player..."

Not sure I see the logic in this?

Unless you're being serious when you think Olynyk is a future perennial allstar...

I actually believe in our young players. You can talk all the crap about them if you want

So Rondo, at age 28, is too old?  Or do you just not believe in him?

I believe Rondo can't excel unless he is surrounded by HOFs like KG, PP, Allen.  I believe he will never be a consistent confident shooter. And i don't believe he is a max player though he will want to get paid like one.  You can't have him lead your team and expect to get anywhere

  We've gotten to the finals and the conference finals with Rondo leading the team. The odds on being able to say something similar about any of the young players on the team or those players you want to draft are remote at best.

Tim we have had this talk a million times now. It was not Rondo that carried the team on his back.  The big three or two were also there.  You know how much focus KG , PP, Allen required?  There almost needed to be 1.5 guys on each at all times.   The attention on Rondo was less, he received the passes or had pathways to come through for the team and did so. 

It's like a guy is double teamed and another lower level player open for the jump shot. Some don't make it still but others can make it all game long. Rondo took adv . Rondo is sneaky

Now that the limelight is on Rondo how has he fared since the beginning of the 2012 season?  You put on a fairly good defender on rondo and he can't shoot, he can't drive in for layups. All he can do is try to pull multiple guys in to make his passes (unnessary at times).  You put Tony Allen on Rondo and the rest of the team is instructed to not lose sight of their man and Rondo has little to no impact for the game

Rondo didn't lead the team by himself in either 2010 or 2012, but would you disagree that he was one of the top three players on the team in both of those years?

[freshinthehouse]

I think both teams have to be under the cap. If your trading partner is over, they must abide by the "within 15%" salary rule.

If a team can fit the traded player(s) salary under the salary cap, they don't have to send any players back.  An example of this would be the Lebron James sign and trade.  Cleveland trade Lebron to Miami for a draft pick or two.  Since Miami was under the cap, they didn't have to send any salary back to Cleveland.

[More Banners]

I don't want to ever root for my team to lose games again.

When the Celtics tank another season I will make sure to keep as far away from them as possible.

kelly olynyk will not win us a championship. might as well try to gamble in the lotto.

Or trade for a proven player maybe?

Gosh, they just come around so rarely, and to get 3 together in their prime...

It's tough to build a contender, but almost impossible through the draft alone.  Most teams flame out or lose their assets just as they mature into real players.

First things first:  shake every tree for the best 3 players we can get.  Then, go from there.

Tanking is really an indication of a failure, over quite a while, to pull things together.  At least a couple of drafts, trade deadlines, and an offseason or two go by before a team resorts to tanking.

Let's not make a habit out of it.

[D.o.s.]

- Lose Rondo
- Lose most of our games
- Get screwed in the lottery again.

Why do you guys insist on doing this? It isn't going to work.. 

Because youth...potential...higher ceilings!!!!   

I find it interesting that a lot of the posters who advocate against tanking are some of the same posters that very loudly proclaim that the Celtics are 'all about Championships' or some other mostly useless Lombardi-esque nonsense. It seems to me that those people would be willing to recognize that winning a championship with a superstar on a rookie deal is, on paper, easier than winning one with max-deal vets, at least as far as roster construction is concerned.

As for me, I don't want to tank again because I want to watch entertaining basketball. The Celtics did not play entertaining hoops last year.

My apologies for double quoting you here, but since when is it easier on paper to win a championship with a superstar on a rookie deal?

That's actually a fairly rare occurrence.

that was quickly typed -- should read 'kept through his rookie contract' rookie. As in, the best guy on your team, ala Duncan, or the second best, ala Kobe. The usual suspects in the same argument everyone makes about the importance of draft picks every time the issue comes up.

But you're ignoring the key part of my post in your excerpt, which is actually the answer to your question: the all-important "at least as far as roster construction is concerned."


as for your other question, 'a lot' is not 'most', but you can't reasonably tell me that there aren't a lot of people who think we should move as many assets as we can to become as competitive as possible, even at the expense of planting a ceiling on the team.

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure I get your point.  I will say this, though; we already have a player on the roster who we drafted who is here through his rookie deal, who has proven that he can be among one of the top players on a championship contending team.  To me, the thing to do is to keep that player and try to build around him to add other players who can be top level players on a championship contending team. 

I don't think the way to do that is to bottom out again.

The point is that its easier to fill out a roster with talent when you've got star players you've drafted, since they'll be on team friendly deals right now. It's easier to fill in the gaps when you go the Spurs route than you do the Heat route.

So my larger point is that it might foolish to trade away a large portion of our assets in order to be competitive again with the players that are available in trade and FA right now, which is what a lot of the win now people seem to be advocating.

I also think it's silly to completely bottom out -- and I disagree that we bottomed out last year, since we kept Rondo, who can clearly be the starting point guard on a team that goes all the way.

Further complicated by the fact that no one likes to root for losses, but you can only watch 'developing' teams for so long before the enthusiasm starts to wane.

[Future Celtics Owner]

- Lose Rondo
- Lose most of our games
- Get screwed in the lottery again.

Why do you guys insist on doing this? It isn't going to work.. 

Because youth...potential...higher ceilings!!!!   

I find it interesting that a lot of the posters who advocate against tanking are some of the same posters that very loudly proclaim that the Celtics are 'all about Championships' or some other mostly useless Lombardi-esque nonsense. It seems to me that those people would be willing to recognize that winning a championship with a superstar on a rookie deal is, on paper, easier than winning one with max-deal vets, at least as far as roster construction is concerned.

As for me, I don't want to tank again because I want to watch entertaining basketball. The Celtics did not play entertaining hoops last year.

My apologies for double quoting you here, but since when is it easier on paper to win a championship with a superstar on a rookie deal?

That's actually a fairly rare occurrence.

that was quickly typed -- should read 'kept through his rookie contract' rookie. As in, the best guy on your team, ala Duncan, or the second best, ala Kobe. The usual suspects in the same argument everyone makes about the importance of draft picks every time the issue comes up.

But you're ignoring the key part of my post in your excerpt, which is actually the answer to your question: the all-important "at least as far as roster construction is concerned."


as for your other question, 'a lot' is not 'most', but you can't reasonably tell me that there aren't a lot of people who think we should move as many assets as we can to become as competitive as possible, even at the expense of planting a ceiling on the team.

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure I get your point.  I will say this, though; we already have a player on the roster who we drafted who is here through his rookie deal, who has proven that he can be among one of the top players on a championship contending team.  To me, the thing to do is to keep that player and try to build around him to add other players who can be top level players on a championship contending team. 

I don't think the way to do that is to bottom out again.

The point is that its easier to fill out a roster with talent when you've got star players you've drafted, since they'll be on team friendly deals right now. It's easier to fill in the gaps when you go the Spurs route than you do the Heat route.

So my larger point is that it might foolish to trade away a large portion of our assets in order to be competitive again with the players that are available in trade and FA right now, which is what a lot of the win now people seem to be advocating.

I also think it's silly to completely bottom out -- and I disagree that we bottomed out last year, since we kept Rondo, who can clearly be the starting point guard on a team that goes all the way.

Further complicated by the fact that no one likes to root for losses, but you can only watch 'developing' teams for so long before the enthusiasm starts to wane.

I agree with DOS, we did not bottom out. We still had a lot of equal opportunity players left from our previous year:like Bass, Courtney Lee, Crawford. And Humphries played good ball. My point is we could have been a lot worse. Those guys I mentioned can play on contending teams, maybe with exception to crawford.

[cometboy]

No, thank you!

with a healthy Rondo, we could have contended for an 8th seed last year. Without gutting the team, like Philly did, we tanked about as well as we could last year, then didn't get any lottery luck. We could have won another 5 - 10 games last year. Why does anyone think it would be any better next year to trust the lottery?  Way too many variables. This year's draft supposedly has 4 top tier talents, so it was worth taking a shot rather than a first round embarrassment.

Now it's time for Danny to start using the assets we've accumulated.

If we do not get Love, or someone comparable, plus maybe Asik or Sanders, then Rondo will probably be traded and we're in for a longer rebuild. Just don't kid yourself that the lottery will get us there. It's a low probability approach.

CB

[BballTim]

Nope. But complete this rebuild properly.  Trade rondo.

I want smart, gordon and hairston

"I don't want to tank, but we have to trade our best player..."

Not sure I see the logic in this?

Unless you're being serious when you think Olynyk is a future perennial allstar...

I actually believe in our young players. You can talk all the crap about them if you want

So Rondo, at age 28, is too old?  Or do you just not believe in him?

I believe Rondo can't excel unless he is surrounded by HOFs like KG, PP, Allen.  I believe he will never be a consistent confident shooter. And i don't believe he is a max player though he will want to get paid like one.  You can't have him lead your team and expect to get anywhere

  We've gotten to the finals and the conference finals with Rondo leading the team. The odds on being able to say something similar about any of the young players on the team or those players you want to draft are remote at best.

Tim we have had this talk a million times now. It was not Rondo that carried the team on his back.  The big three or two were also there.  You know how much focus KG , PP, Allen required?  There almost needed to be 1.5 guys on each at all times.   The attention on Rondo was less, he received the passes or had pathways to come through for the team and did so. 

It's like a guy is double teamed and another lower level player open for the jump shot. Some don't make it still but others can make it all game long. Rondo took adv . Rondo is sneaky

Now that the limelight is on Rondo how has he fared since the beginning of the 2012 season?  You put on a fairly good defender on rondo and he can't shoot, he can't drive in for layups. All he can do is try to pull multiple guys in to make his passes (unnessary at times).  You put Tony Allen on Rondo and the rest of the team is instructed to not lose sight of their man and Rondo has little to no impact for the game

  Since the beginning of the 2012 season Rondo took a team with a few past their prime stars to game 7 of the conference finals and was injured during the next season. Even that's probably more than you'll be able to say about any of the young players you want to build around. And by your claims about all the attention the "big three" were commanding from defenses I'd wonder whether you stopped watching games a few years before that. Try and find some videos of KG scoring in those 2012 playoffs, KG scored a ton of his points on open jumpers and some easy lobs. Ray was severely hobbled. The player on the team that commanded the most attention from the defense was Rondo and it wasn't that close.

  It's true Rondo struggled to hit his shots (especially his layups) when he was coming back from a knee injury but it's worth pointing out that your defense to render Rondo ineffective is theoretical. If it was as simple as you claim you'd be telling me "I was watching teams do this to stop Rondo" and not "if teams tried something they never did it would probably work". Coaches have been talking about slowing Rondo down for years but they haven't been doing it much. It's not because they can't think of some appallingly simple strategy.

[Celtics4ever]

some of you guys are really good fans. When the team stinks you put a paper bag over your head

This took some stones to say +1.

[gpap]

some of you guys are really good fans. When the team stinks you put a paper bag over your head

When the team does well you come out cheering like your the #1 fans. 

The team right now is not going to win a championship tomorrow. It needs time and trust to grow and succeed.  Ainge does not need to make quick moves and screw up the team like the Knicks are screwed up now.

Oh give me a break!!! If you want to see losing teams (which clearly you do for whatever strange reason), then you're in the wrong city.

[gpap]

some of you guys are really good fans. When the team stinks you put a paper bag over your head

This took some stones to say +1.

No, not really. I thought it was kinda dumb, personally.  It's quite obvious this person advocates less than stellar results and I am certainly not in favor of that.

[Donoghus]

some of you guys are really good fans. When the team stinks you put a paper bag over your head

This took some stones to say +1.

No, not really. I thought it was kinda dumb, personally.  It's quite obvious this person advocates less than stellar results and I am certainly not in favor of that.

Pretty much.  Also, questioning people's fan hoods because they don't see eye to eye with the way one person wants things done is pretty absurd.

If we're posting on these forums regularly, we're beyond the casual fan type.

[nickagneta]

some of you guys are really good fans. When the team stinks you put a paper bag over your head

This took some stones to say +1.

No, not really. I thought it was kinda dumb, personally.  It's quite obvious this person advocates less than stellar results and I am certainly not in favor of that.

Pretty much. Also, questioning people's fan hoods because they don't see eye to eye with the way one person wants things done is pretty absurd.

If we're posting on these forums regularly, we're beyond the casual fan type.

And yet its pretty much standard operating procedure for the poster that posted the comment.

[Celtics18]

The point is that its easier to fill out a roster with talent when you've got star players you've drafted, since they'll be on team friendly deals right now. It's easier to fill in the gaps when you go the Spurs route than you do the Heat route.

So my larger point is that it might foolish to trade away a large portion of our assets in order to be competitive again with the players that are available in trade and FA right now, which is what a lot of the win now people seem to be advocating.

I also think it's silly to completely bottom out -- and I disagree that we bottomed out last year, since we kept Rondo, who can clearly be the starting point guard on a team that goes all the way.

Further complicated by the fact that no one likes to root for losses, but you can only watch 'developing' teams for so long before the enthusiasm starts to wane.

Sure, it might end up being foolish to trade away a bunch of assets for, say, Kevin Love right now.  On the other hand, it might end up working out brilliantly if Danny were to go for it.

The reality that it might not work out is going to exist no matter what path our GM takes.  At some point, some gambles are probably going to have to be taken.