Be Honest: Celtics make the playoffs - Good or Bad Thing?

[Donoghus]

Boston tanked for Duncan and got Billups... which would have been a pretty good haul if we had the patience to develop him.

On the other hand, the team also tanked for Durant and would have gotten Jianlian, so...

And the Celtics had WAY better percentages to land the top pick or even a top 3 pick in those lotteries. 

That hope with this squad went out the window a month ago, if not more.  Landing the top pick or a top 3 pick at this point is a pipe dream.

[Eja117]

For all their tanking look at the Sixers. They couldn't beat Oak Hill Academy. Ok. They could. But if they were told the game counted in the standings they couldn't.

For all their tanking they have Joel Embid and Noel. Whoop de doo.

We have Sully, Marcus Smart, and James Young.

When you look at who they will supposedly pick next year nbadraft.net has them taking Jahil Okafor and Trey Lyles in the first round and we're taking Willy C Stein and Tyus Jones.

Is that their big plan? That's how they're going to get so great?

They're going to have Okafor, Noel, Embid, and T Lyles and we're going to have Sully, WCS, Smart, Young, and Tyus Jones and that's their plan for getting so much better than the rest of the league?

The foundation of their team is losing. They've made it to the Timberwolves zone. Kindred spirits with the 90s Clippers

You wouldn't trade our assets for theirs at this very moment?
They have Saric, the Lakers pick, their own 2015 pick, Noel and Embid.
They have far superior assets to ours.
What do we have that is even as good as Noel at this point? He's more valuable than Marcus Smart that's for sure.

The fact is that without Brad Stevens as a genius coach, we really don't have much other than Smart and Sullinger and some Brooklyn picks.

It's fine to criticize the 76ers, but to act like we are automatically better because we haven't gutted our roster is naive, and we may look like the foolish ones when we have this conversation in 2-3 years time if they present as the Wizards are now with John Wall and Beal shooting them up to a real threat in the East. What exactly are we hoping for at the moment? To be a better version of Atlanta and cross our fingers we can attract a free agent as good as their #3 draft pick Mr Al Horford.
Let's not forget that it's doubtful the East stays this bad for much longer. Miami will be back next year with Bosh and Dragic as Whiteside improves, New York has cap room, a top 3 pick and a top 20 player in his prime who's had a season of rest.
Cleveland has Lebron, Kyrie and Love and the Bucks have Giannis, Jabari Parker and a top 4 record in the East. Then there's the Bulls and Wizards.

Don't get me wrong Eja you get nothing but respect from me but I just want to make it clear that a lot of us aren't so optimistic about our chances at a title sooner than the 76ers- or at least a real shot at creating a championship team.
Smart and Stevens are great starting pieces, but other then them it's not all green happiness.

I would take Smart over Noel every day of the year. Embiid doesn't scare me at all and Euros that aren't here don't scare me either.

But no matter what assets they have they are teaching theirs to lose. We are teaching ours to win. It's not the assets. It's what you do with them.

Just like Oklahoma City was teaching Durant, Westbrook, and Harden to lose.  Yeah.  It has been shown time and time again that winning players will eventually win and losing players will eventually lose no matter how they start.  Losing doesn't create bad habits, just like winning doesn't create good habits.  It is all about the player.

How many rings did OKC get? 

[mmmmm]

I think we just saw that if Bron was on the Sixers it wouldn't make a difference. Tanking...it almost never works

Sure it does.  Oklahoma City tanked and landed Durant, Westbrook, and Harden.  San Antonio tanked and landed Duncan.  Cleveland tanked and landed James (and did it again and landed Irving).  Orlando tanked and landed Howard.  Miami tanked and landed Wade.  Houston tanked and landed Ming.  Tanking works as much as any other method of landing elite level talent and in fact probably works at a higher rate than any other method.  The appeal of tanking is you are assured of a high level draft pick, which means high level talent.  You have to draft correctly and it certainly helps if you get lucky in the drafts you tank in, but teams do it because it works, not because it fails all the time.

When you say "it works" it sounds like you are defining that as "getting a star player out of the draft".

When other define, "it works" (or not), they might define it as "winning a championship within X years and as a direct result of it".

Unless you loosen up the 'X years' to something like 10 years, you can't really directly connect many 'tank for a high pick' events with many championships.  Basically Duncan and Wade are the only such examples in the weighted lottery era.   I suppose you might try to throw in our own 2007 pick because it brought Ray Allen over - but its arguable whether that was as critical as getting KG - who was acquired with assets already acquired prior to 2006-07.  A healthy Tony Allen and NOT tanking might have been just as valuable.

For all the other teams that at some point were lousy enough to earn a really high draft pick and then took a decade or two before they won it as being a compelling indication that "it worked" seems quite a stretch.

[kozlodoev]

Just like Oklahoma City was teaching Durant, Westbrook, and Harden to lose.  Yeah.  It has been shown time and time again that winning players will eventually win and losing players will eventually lose no matter how they start.  Losing doesn't create bad habits, just like winning doesn't create good habits.  It is all about the player.

Except they were a 50-win team in Harden's rookie season and never looked back.

[Eja117]

This whole tanking works theory....mathematically it doesn't even make sense. If we allow that 10 teams tank every year.....because getting Paul Pierce means we tanked for a championship...then that means 10 teams are tanking for a championship every year. How can they all tank successfully every year? If everyone tanks then how are you the winner? Oh hey. We got the 5th pick this year. We are tanking to a ring. Never mind the other 4 teams that picked ahead of us and the 5 that tanked and picked after us.

Ok, so say you get your Paul Pierce with your 10th pick. Now is it ok to try to start winning because you have tanked for your guy? Never mind the part that very few players stay with their original teams their whole career. So we have got two lotto players on the team now and could easily add another this year. Will it be ok to start trying to win? When will it be ok?

Because we are going to want to add free agents and maybe trade for people. Will they want to be here if we are tanking?

I'm curious how this tanking thing is even supposed to work. Denver tanked for Melo. Successful tank? Should they have tried to keep tanking to get him more help or try to win so he'd want to stay? Then he goes to the Knicks. Where they can't win anything. So are they tanking and that's how they win?

How about the Bulls? How is that going?

How about the T Wolves? They tank and get Love. They tank and get Johnny Flynn and Rubio who doesn't arrive for two years. They trade Love for Anthony Bennet (the result of a tank no doubt). They tank and get Wiggins and Zach Lavine. The Wolves. They're on the championship path. No doubt it's going to be the Wolves, Sixers, and Bucks all winning rings in the future.

Tanking. It doesn't work almost ever

[Future Celtics Owner]

Its a bad thing. I can't read this thread...it only makes me want to punch the screen.

This was the year we were going to draft our center. IMO Myles Turner may still be an option, but the chances are very slim.

Same Myles Turner that is currently scoreless into the second half against a butler team with a very average frontcourt?

Yea thats him.
I guess watching March Madness makes you an expert.

[Quetzalcoatl]

This whole tanking works theory....mathematically it doesn't even make sense. If we allow that 10 teams tank every year.....because getting Paul Pierce means we tanked for a championship...then that means 10 teams are tanking for a championship every year. How can they all tank successfully every year? If everyone tanks then how are you the winner? Oh hey. We got the 5th pick this year. We are tanking to a ring. Never mind the other 4 teams that picked ahead of us and the 5 that tanked and picked after us.

Ok, so say you get your Paul Pierce with your 10th pick. Now is it ok to try to start winning because you have tanked for your guy? Never mind the part that very few players stay with their original teams their whole career. So we have got two lotto players on the team now and could easily add another this year. Will it be ok to start trying to win? When will it be ok?

Because we are going to want to add free agents and maybe trade for people. Will they want to be here if we are tanking?

I'm curious how this tanking thing is even supposed to work. Denver tanked for Melo. Successful tank? Should they have tried to keep tanking to get him more help or try to win so he'd want to stay? Then he goes to the Knicks. Where they can't win anything. So are they tanking and that's how they win?

How about the Bulls? How is that going?

How about the T Wolves? They tank and get Love. They tank and get Johnny Flynn and Rubio who doesn't arrive for two years. They trade Love for Anthony Bennet (the result of a tank no doubt). They tank and get Wiggins and Zach Lavine. The Wolves. They're on the championship path. No doubt it's going to be the Wolves, Sixers, and Bucks all winning rings in the future.

Tanking. It doesn't work almost ever

Tanking isn't the end all be all, it's a tool that you use in conjunction with other tools.  The Nuggets didn't win with Carmelo and OKC hasn't won with Durant, but you certainly have to agree that tanking got them a lot closer to a championship than if they hadn't done that.

The other issue is that some of the teams that tanked won multiple championships and wouldn't have been in position to win if it wasn't for tanking.  Think of it this way: in the last 10 years, how many title teams had a prominent player that they got via tanking?

Spurs (2005) / Heat (2006) / Spurs (2007) / Celtics (2008) / Lakers (2009) / Lakers (2010) / Mavericks (2011) / Heat (2012) / Heat (2013) / Spurs (2014)

The Heat tanked for LeBron (they got Wade instead) and the Spurs tanked for Duncan.  Those two alone make up 6 of the last 10 championships.  The Celtics and Mavs got Pierce and Dirk with top ten picks when they weren't full on tanking, but certainly were not as competitive as they could have been.

Or in other words, the Lakers are the only team that played as competitive as they could have leading up to their championships in the last ten years.  The other 8 teams either outright tanked or didn't field competitive teams for a couple years leading up to their titles.

[Eja117]

As much as I agree the Spurs tanked to a ring I still have to point something out. They had TWO number 1 picks on that team. (Don't be silly and get your hopes up that we could ever get even one #1 pick, let alone two. Between the Oden draft and the Duncan one we should have learned this by now. The Celts can't ever depend on getting the most desirable player in a draft). So is that two tanks that were successful or one? Anyway Robinson is long gone.

Who are their next most important players that they never could have won without? T Parker and Manu. And Kawhi these days. Where were those guys picked?

So who do they beat routinely for years? The team that apparently successfully tanked over in OKC. They tanked soooooo well. They got Durant and Russell and Harden! They tanked 3 times! They should be three times as successful as the Spurs that haven't tanked since the Clinton years. But they're not.

Shaq. Rings. But not with the team that tanked for him.

Bron. Rings. But not with the team that tanked for him.

Griffin. Paul. Two tank prizes teaming up. No rings.

Charlotte. How many top 5 picks have they made? No rings.

When will Anthony Davis get rings? John Wall? Alridge? Alex Len? There's a top 5 pick. The Jazz? Bargnani? Allen Iverson? Yao Ming? D Howard? Bogut? Glen Robinson? Elton Brand?

Hey here are some #2 overall picks for you. They're all the results of tanks. When are they getting rings?
 Michael Kidd-Gilchrist,  Derrick Williams,  Evan Turner, Hasheem Thabeet,  Michael Beasley, Marvin Williams, Emeka Okafor, Darko Milicic, Jay Williams, Stromile Swift,  Steve Francis, Mike Bibby, Keith Van Horn, Marcus Camby,  Antonio McDyess,  Shawn Bradley, Kenny Anderson

I just realized that Nets team that went to the finals had two #2 overall picks and a #1 overall. (Kidd, Van Horn, Kenyon Martin).  No rings.

Should we get into the 3rd overall picks and the Grant Hills?

Here are the 3rd overall guys. No rings. Pau has one, but not with the team that tanked for him.

  2013 Otto Porter  Georgetown Washington
2012 Bradley Beal  Florida Washington
2011 Enes Kanter  Kentucky Utah
2010 Derrick Favors  Georgia Tech  New Jersey 
2009 James Harden  Arizona State  Oklahoma
2008 O.J. Mayo USC Minnesota
2007 Al Horford Florida Atlanta
2006 Adam Morrison Gonzaga Portland
2005 Deron Williams Illinois Jr. Utah
2004 Ben Gordon UConn Jr. Chicago
2003 Carmelo Anthony Syracuse Fr. Denver
2002 Mike Dunleavy Duke Jr. Golden State
2001 Pau Gasol Spain Memphis
2000 Darius Miles HSSr. LA Clippers
1999 Baron Davis UCLA So. NO Hornets
1998 Raef LaFrentz  Kansas  Denver
1997 Chauncey Billups Colorado Boston
1996 Shareef Abdur-Rahim  California  Vancouver
1995 Jerry Stackhouse  North Carolina  Philadelphia
1994 Grant Hill  Duke  Detroit
1993 Anfernee Hardaway  MemphisState  Golden State
1992 Christian Laettner  Duke  Minnesota
1991 Billy Owens 

[Eja117]

This whole tanking works theory....mathematically it doesn't even make sense. If we allow that 10 teams tank every year.....because getting Paul Pierce means we tanked for a championship...then that means 10 teams are tanking for a championship every year. How can they all tank successfully every year? If everyone tanks then how are you the winner? Oh hey. We got the 5th pick this year. We are tanking to a ring. Never mind the other 4 teams that picked ahead of us and the 5 that tanked and picked after us.

Ok, so say you get your Paul Pierce with your 10th pick. Now is it ok to try to start winning because you have tanked for your guy? Never mind the part that very few players stay with their original teams their whole career. So we have got two lotto players on the team now and could easily add another this year. Will it be ok to start trying to win? When will it be ok?

Because we are going to want to add free agents and maybe trade for people. Will they want to be here if we are tanking?

I'm curious how this tanking thing is even supposed to work. Denver tanked for Melo. Successful tank? Should they have tried to keep tanking to get him more help or try to win so he'd want to stay? Then he goes to the Knicks. Where they can't win anything. So are they tanking and that's how they win?

How about the Bulls? How is that going?

How about the T Wolves? They tank and get Love. They tank and get Johnny Flynn and Rubio who doesn't arrive for two years. They trade Love for Anthony Bennet (the result of a tank no doubt). They tank and get Wiggins and Zach Lavine. The Wolves. They're on the championship path. No doubt it's going to be the Wolves, Sixers, and Bucks all winning rings in the future.

Tanking. It doesn't work almost ever

Tanking isn't the end all be all, it's a tool that you use in conjunction with other tools.  The Nuggets didn't win with Carmelo and OKC hasn't won with Durant, but you certainly have to agree that tanking got them a lot closer to a championship than if they hadn't done that.

The other issue is that some of the teams that tanked won multiple championships and wouldn't have been in position to win if it wasn't for tanking.  Think of it this way: in the last 10 years, how many title teams had a prominent player that they got via tanking?

Spurs (2005) / Heat (2006) / Spurs (2007) / Celtics (2008) / Lakers (2009) / Lakers (2010) / Mavericks (2011) / Heat (2012) / Heat (2013) / Spurs (2014)

The Heat tanked for LeBron (they got Wade instead) and the Spurs tanked for Duncan.  Those two alone make up 6 of the last 10 championships.  The Celtics and Mavs got Pierce and Dirk with top ten picks when they weren't full on tanking, but certainly were not as competitive as they could have been.

Or in other words, the Lakers are the only team that played as competitive as they could have leading up to their championships in the last ten years.  The other 8 teams either outright tanked or didn't field competitive teams for a couple years leading up to their titles.

On that list I don't see a single team that is the result of tanking. There's not one.

The Heat is a bunch of buddies that ganged up because they didn't want to compete and build their own teams. The Spurs is really just good drafting and coaching. The Celts were constructed from a trade that didn't involve players that were really gotten from tanking unless you consider Jeff Green. The Mavs got lucky with a 9th pick and won a ring many many years later. The Lakers aren't a tank job.

If tanking is how you win rings then any team could do it. Hardly ever happens

[Quetzalcoatl]

This whole tanking works theory....mathematically it doesn't even make sense. If we allow that 10 teams tank every year.....because getting Paul Pierce means we tanked for a championship...then that means 10 teams are tanking for a championship every year. How can they all tank successfully every year? If everyone tanks then how are you the winner? Oh hey. We got the 5th pick this year. We are tanking to a ring. Never mind the other 4 teams that picked ahead of us and the 5 that tanked and picked after us.

Ok, so say you get your Paul Pierce with your 10th pick. Now is it ok to try to start winning because you have tanked for your guy? Never mind the part that very few players stay with their original teams their whole career. So we have got two lotto players on the team now and could easily add another this year. Will it be ok to start trying to win? When will it be ok?

Because we are going to want to add free agents and maybe trade for people. Will they want to be here if we are tanking?

I'm curious how this tanking thing is even supposed to work. Denver tanked for Melo. Successful tank? Should they have tried to keep tanking to get him more help or try to win so he'd want to stay? Then he goes to the Knicks. Where they can't win anything. So are they tanking and that's how they win?

How about the Bulls? How is that going?

How about the T Wolves? They tank and get Love. They tank and get Johnny Flynn and Rubio who doesn't arrive for two years. They trade Love for Anthony Bennet (the result of a tank no doubt). They tank and get Wiggins and Zach Lavine. The Wolves. They're on the championship path. No doubt it's going to be the Wolves, Sixers, and Bucks all winning rings in the future.

Tanking. It doesn't work almost ever

Tanking isn't the end all be all, it's a tool that you use in conjunction with other tools.  The Nuggets didn't win with Carmelo and OKC hasn't won with Durant, but you certainly have to agree that tanking got them a lot closer to a championship than if they hadn't done that.

The other issue is that some of the teams that tanked won multiple championships and wouldn't have been in position to win if it wasn't for tanking.  Think of it this way: in the last 10 years, how many title teams had a prominent player that they got via tanking?

Spurs (2005) / Heat (2006) / Spurs (2007) / Celtics (2008) / Lakers (2009) / Lakers (2010) / Mavericks (2011) / Heat (2012) / Heat (2013) / Spurs (2014)

The Heat tanked for LeBron (they got Wade instead) and the Spurs tanked for Duncan.  Those two alone make up 6 of the last 10 championships.  The Celtics and Mavs got Pierce and Dirk with top ten picks when they weren't full on tanking, but certainly were not as competitive as they could have been.

Or in other words, the Lakers are the only team that played as competitive as they could have leading up to their championships in the last ten years.  The other 8 teams either outright tanked or didn't field competitive teams for a couple years leading up to their titles.

On that list I don't see a single team that is the result of tanking. There's not one.

The Heat is a bunch of buddies that ganged up because they didn't want to compete and build their own teams. The Spurs is really just good drafting and coaching. The Celts were constructed from a trade that didn't involve players that were really gotten from tanking unless you consider Jeff Green. The Mavs got lucky with a 9th pick and won a ring many many years later. The Lakers aren't a tank job.

If tanking is how you win rings then any team could do it. Hardly ever happens

The Spurs did tank for Duncan.  The Heat did tank in the Wade year.  You aren't going to get a quote from either team saying that they tanked, but that's what happened.  The Heat also won with Wade without LBJ and Bosh the first time.  The buddies meeting up part wouldn't have happened without tanking, because they wouldn't have had the first buddy in the first place.

Again, you don't win just by tanking.  You win by tanking in conjunction with other moves, but the player you got from tanking is a huge part of it.  You can win a championship without tanking, but it's a lot rarer. 

[nickagneta]

I am not getting that teams that ended up with picks that were 5th or 7th or 9th or 10th are conclusive proof of a team that tanked. I remember some of those teams. They didn't try to lose on purpose, they just were bad and ended up as the 5th or 9th or 10th worse record that year. There is a difference.

[Quetzalcoatl]

I am not getting that teams that ended up with picks that were 5th or 7th or 9th or 10th are conclusive proof of a team that tanked. I remember some of those teams. They didn't try to lose on purpose, they just were bad and ended up as the 5th or 9th or 10th worse record that year. There is a difference.

The Heat records around their drafting Wade:

52-30
50-32
36-46 (Alonzo's last season)
25-57
42-40
59-23

The Spurs' records around their drafting Duncan

55-27
62-20
59-23
20-62
56-26
37-13

So it's completely coincidental that these teams that were otherwise winning hit rock bottom for one year coinciding with the draft in which people said had generational talents in them. 

[Donoghus]

I am not getting that teams that ended up with picks that were 5th or 7th or 9th or 10th are conclusive proof of a team that tanked. I remember some of those teams. They didn't try to lose on purpose, they just were bad and ended up as the 5th or 9th or 10th worse record that year. There is a difference.

With enough indirect correlations, you can make anything look like a tank job.   

[Future Celtics Owner]

All I want to get across is that IMO the Celts should not make the playoffs. And the BPA if they do not make the playoffs is Myles Turner. Hopefully he will be around 9-12.

[Eja117]

I am not getting that teams that ended up with picks that were 5th or 7th or 9th or 10th are conclusive proof of a team that tanked. I remember some of those teams. They didn't try to lose on purpose, they just were bad and ended up as the 5th or 9th or 10th worse record that year. There is a difference.

The Heat records around their drafting Wade:

50-32
36-46 (Alonzo's last season)
25-57
42-40

The Spurs' records around their drafting Duncan

62-20
59-23
20-62
56-26

The bolded years are the ones that lead to them drafting their marquee player if you couldn't tell, that also completely coincidentally also had players in them that people said were generational talents.  So odd that otherwise successful teams hit rock bottom in the year that coincided with the generational talent, not suspicious at all.

Ok. So let's go with the Duncan year for a minute. Should we conclude that because the Spurs tanked for Duncan and got him and then won that tanking works? Or should we conclude that the team that had a much better chance of getting him (the Celts) didn't get him and therefore that tanking doesn't work? Also there were other teams in that draft. The ones that got Tony Battie and Keith Van Horn and Anthony Daniels and Tracy McGrady. Tanking didn't work for them.
Do we conclude tanking works because one team got one player, or do we conclude it doesn't because of the experiences of the other 7 teams?

The Heat. They weren't tanking for Wade. They were tanking for Bron like everyone else. It was just as possible for Wade to go to Cleveland to play with Bron as it was for Bron to go to Miami. In the event they got the 2nd pick or the 3rd they were probably going to go with Melo or Darko, or maybe Bosh.

Wade simply doesn't get a ring without Shaq or Bron. He is incidental to a ring, not the cause of one.  He's Scottie Pippen at best. He's not Jordan.