Since Ainge began drafting in 2004, the Celtics have missed out on:
Varajao-took Al Jefferson, which netted us KG. glad we missed out on him
David Lee- Not a Center. Bad draft though (gerald green)
Blatche- headcase, though we shouldve picked anyone other than Green
Gortat-clear miss, tbf a lot of teams did and hes an international player. Ainge should hire better international scouts.
Hawes-Drafted Jeff Green (traded for Ray) again, glad we missed out
Marc Gasol-see above
Noah-see Hawes
Pekovic-clear miss, one of Ainge's worst draft year
Asik-see above, ill add Jordan to this list
Miles Plumlee-shouldve been taken instead of The Fabolous Melo
Dieng-took Olynyk, jury is out (although I wouldntve taken Dieng and took the Greek Freak instead)
Nurkic-took smart, nurkic would be a reach there and was picked before their next pick
McGary-Early to tell if hes a better pick than James Young
From Above the only clear misses Ainge had was the year he drafted Giddens, Fab Melo. and Gerald Green. Draft is a crapshoot, and the only draft where you can say at that time that Ainge shouldve drafted a big was in the Giddens draft (Asik Jordan Pekovic). The Rationale though was we were set in bigs at that time (Perk, KG, Powe, Big Baby were healthy) and we had to replace James Posey. We didnt know at that time that Perk, KG, and Powe would have career altering injuries.
The draft is not a crap-shoot. There are always talented players available. Always. Even in 2013
Now, you may be right about Perk, but I seem to recall the bone spurs in KG's knee being discovered prior to the 08-09 season, and Powe, like Bill Walton, was, unfortunately, a ticking time bomb with those knees. We also shouldn't have had to replace Posey - we should have resigned him. Period. I don't care if it was for 4 years or not.
The draft is a crap shoot. And Posey wasn't anywhere close to worth that deal. Danny was smart to pass on it.
Really? The MLE for 4 years was too expensive for our glue guy who hit huge shots, played great defense at multiple positions and was Mr. Intangibles? Come on, man. We never replaced him, and the only guy that might have come close to doing so, Wesley Matthews, was passed over in the 2009 draft. Ugh.
Yes, the MLE for 4 years was too expensive for Posey. His biggest value add to the 2008 team was those intangibles, such as grit, toughness, championship experience and leadership. After the team won the title they had all those things in spades. It would have been a foolish signing.
I remember wanting to throw the tv out the window when we passed on him, especially for Lester Hudson? Come on, Danny - wake up! The kid wasn't even in the league for two years before he was gone. It's one thing to miss out on players, but it's quite another to take guys who won't even be in the league in two years. That's pathetic, so for Danny, yeah, the draft is a crap shoot. Ginobili was taken at 57. It's not like this hasn't happened before. It's rare, yes, but it does happen, and those opportunities are few and far between. We needed Matthews. He would have made a huge difference, on both ends, not just for that year, but for the subsequent ones. HUGE MISTAKE. Ugh.
Your analysis of Danny's drafting is fairly ridiculous. If you're going to compare a GM's draft picks to the best players who were chosen after them then every GM in the history of the league will look bad. Danny's picks have been seen as well above average in pretty much every unbiased evaluation I've seen. Lester Hudson seems like a bad pick when you compare him to one player that *everyone* passed on, including the GM of the team he ended up on. But if you take a more realistic view of the situation you'd realize that most of the players drafted at that spot never play in a single nba game, the pick doesn't look so bad.
Not really - not when it was so blatantly obvious as to who the bpa was. Just because a draft slot doesn't produce players historically doesn't mean that you should just throw in the towel and give up. That's just stupid. Hudson wasn't going to play anyway because Eddie House was still there, so it made no sense in terms of fit, either.
If it was so blatantly obvious who the bpa was then he wouldn't have been available when Danny was drafted, or he would have surely been scooped up within a pick or two. All you're giving us is 20/20 hindsight.
Also, I don't think my analysis is ridiculous at all. How else are you to evaluate the ability of your gm to draft quality players if he keeps whiffing on the guys who could have helped you? That's the only way to evaluate the people in your front office, and don't give me the excuse that Danny didn't have prime draft position so he couldn't have been realistically expected to draft well from said spots. Bull****.
The most obvious way to evaluate Danny's ability would be to compare the Celts drafting record with Danny to the drafting records of the other 29 teams. How do they do in similar spots? How do Danny's picks in the teens or 20s or 2nd round compare to players historically drafted in those spots? Danny's clearly well above average if you look at the draft like that. Al was a great pick at 15, Sully, Rondo and Perk were great picks at their spots, TA and West were good picks, and he's had tons of picks in the 2nd round that were well above what you'd expect at the spots that they were taken in.
I just find it incredibly frustrating that a moron like me can read over some scouting reports, blog posts, watch some clips on YouTube and be consistently able to pick better players than Ainge, who has everything at his disposal. It's kind of embarrassing, honestly.
I'm not sold that's really what's happening and not just selective memory on your part. But who knows, maybe you're better at this than most people who get paid to do it. But maybe I'm wrong about it. Danny picked 6th, so why don't you give us brief rundowns on just how good the players from 5-8 in the draft will be, there seems to be some debate on the subject. Danny also had #17, so who will be the top players in the 17-24 range would be great. Also, since this seems to be in your wheel house, why don't you let us know who's going to be the best player taken in the 55-60 range, and which undrafted players will make the most impact? We'll keep an eye on your picks in the future and then decide how you stack up to the pros.
No, I'm not, and I wouldn't feel so strongly about this had that been the case. These are the players I wanted at the time, and whether you choose to believe me or not, history has clearly shown that the guys who I wanted have been far better players than the ones selected by Ainge, and it's not even close. Without further ado, then, by year, here are the guys I wanted at that moment in time (all of these selections were made from the Celtics' original draft positions, btw):
2008: Deandre Jordan (30th).
2009: Wesley Matthews (57th).
2010: Lance Stephenson (19th) and Samardo Samuels (52nd).
2011: Honestly, this one is my worst draft. Jordan Hamilton (25th) and Scotty Hopson (55th).
2012: Jared Sullinger (21st. Ainge had to take him there.), Tony Wroten (22nd. If I remember this one correctly. At the very least, it was between Wroten, PJ III, and Arnett Moultrie; and no, Wroten would not have fit on our team had Stephenson been here, but, imo, he was the bpa.), and Henry Sims (51st).
2013: Tim Hardaway Jr. (16th).
2014: I actually liked Danny's picks for once, as I wanted Smart and Young, too. It was a toss-up between Smart and Randle, though, and it was tough seeing Phoenix take TJ Warren, but the other guys who I wished we could have gotten were McGary and KJ McDaniels. Rodney Hood may also come back to haunt us, as well. Man was that draft loaded lol.
I'd also like to point out that, probably because I'm a pessimist lol, I don't tend to make player comparisons. Did I have any idea that Lance Stephenson would be this good? No, but I loved his talent.
So, how'd I do?