Danny Should Say to Brad: Thanks for Costing Us Winslow, Dude

[footey]

How exactly would the dude tank anyway? Go into the locker room and say "okay boys go out there and pley like crap"?
I mean, why would players not play as hard as possibly? Do they really want someone like Winslow taking their job the next season?
I'm serious, besides playing scrubs in the 4th quarter, which I can't see thembeing so blantant, how do you do it?
The Celtics played above their talent, and I'm proud of them. I would never be happy with a team that didn't play to the best of their ability.
Just my opinion.

Lineups dictate. Give Crash, Young and Pressey more minutes. Sit guys out with"injuries".

How do you think other coaches pull it off?

[playdream]

Our GM is too good that others afraid to trade with
Our Coach is too good to make a team into the lottery
being too good sometimes hurts you

[Eja117]

Our GM is too good that others afraid to trade with
Our Coach is too good to make a team into the lottery
being too good sometimes hurts you

It's a nice problem to have and I'm fine with it.  Sometimes having cruddy coaches and cruddy GMs hurts you too. (Looking at you Charlotte and Sixers and Denver and Kings)

[twistedrico]

Tanking is the worst thing a professional team could do. Pathetic.

[celts55]

How exactly would the dude tank anyway? Go into the locker room and say "okay boys go out there and pley like crap"?
I mean, why would players not play as hard as possibly? Do they really want someone like Winslow taking their job the next season?
I'm serious, besides playing scrubs in the 4th quarter, which I can't see thembeing so blantant, how do you do it?
The Celtics played above their talent, and I'm proud of them. I would never be happy with a team that didn't play to the best of their ability.
Just my opinion.

Lineups dictate. Give Crash, Young and Pressey more minutes. Sit guys out with"injuries".

How do you think other coaches pull it off?

He actually played all 3 a pretty good amount of time. Both Sully and IT sat a fair amount of time with injuries. I believe KO also misses quite a few games. They won with bench players. I can't possibly find fault with Stevens.

[D.o.s.]

Tanking is the worst thing a professional team could do. Pathetic.

Worse than cheating?

[D Dub]

Tanking is the worst thing a professional team could do. Pathetic.

Worse than cheating?

Tanking = cheating for executives

[D.o.s.]

I am not a fan of tanking. Can Philly be proud of what they have been doing? Are they done tanking or will they continue to tank so they can get lottery picks every year and never actually try to win. Is it their 20-year rebuilding plan?

I say Karma has already started for them with Embid.

Agreed.  The benefits of tanking is more overrated than the benefits of having a "rim protector". 

Are you saying having a rim protector is overrated?...

I just think that that value of a rim protector is overrated on this board.  It's a very tired buzzword.  A lot of people think you have to have a rim protector to be successful.  The NBA Finals this year proved that wrong.   

That might be a point, but using the Finals to make your point is foolishness.

You're absolutely right. Golden State did NOT reinvent the wheel. They still adequate size which helped in the finals including Bogut, Ezeli, Speights and Draymond Green also held his own in the paint when Lebron tried to attack the basket.

Point is even with the trio of Steph, Klay and Iggy, Golden State still had size and rim protectors which helped quite a bit.

In other words, all teams need an effective center to win a title

Agreed...but my point is that you don't need an elite Mutombo-type of "rim protector" to win a championship and Golden State proved it.  Green played very well but Bogut, Ezeli, and Speights are nothing special.  You could have replaced them with any number of backup centers and they still would have won the championship. They didn't win because of their domination at center.  And it definitely helped them that the Cavs had one play on offense...give the ball to Lebron so they didn't have to worry about anyone else.

Golden State absolutely needed an elite rim protector to make it to the Finals. The fact that they didn't need one in the Finals is largely irrelevant to that.

If your point is that you don't need one to guard against bad players, then yes, I agree with you -- but it seems fairly obvious, to the point that it doesn't need two paragraphs.

Tanking is the worst thing a professional team could do. Pathetic.

Worse than cheating?

Tanking = cheating for executives

Lazy thinking, to my mind, and incorrect. In fact, if the goal is to win championships, it would be the mark of a bad general manager to not look into tanking. The fact remains, though: you can't just suck your way to a championship. The best case scenario is, probably, the 2012 Thunder -- who peaked that year and couldn't keep their team together because of all the talent they drafted.

[Yenohb]

Here's Wyc's take:

Scal:   I hate to ask this question, so referencing back you guys got the 16th pick you're in a position at the time, you guys really made a run late in the year to get to that spot. Are you disappointed you have the 16th and you'd rather be in the top 10?

Wyc:   Yeah2x, I think really the difference maker, there were two difference makers that come immediately to mind, one is  Brad Stevens, and you know he's here you know as long as he wants to be here so that's a piece we needed. Another piece is Isaiah Thomas, we got him for three more years, ok so we started taking steps to getting better and I think those probably are two difference makers to getting us to this pick and yeah I’ll take that every time.

http://www.csnne.com/boston-celtics/grousbeck-celtics-unbelievable-offers-were-rejected

[TheTruthFot18]

If you think it's Brad's fault, who do you think made those trades to get us players who helped us make the 7th seed?

Keeping Rondo and Green would have probably made us worse so that's on DA for making the playoffs. I thought we already knew this.

[TheTruthFot18]

Tanking is the worst thing a professional team could do. Pathetic.

Worse than cheating?

It would appear not. The Colts bombed the season before Andrew Luck and cried bloody murder over some under inflated balls that didn't affect the game they were going to lose anyway.

[Jonny CC]

I am not a fan of tanking. Can Philly be proud of what they have been doing? Are they done tanking or will they continue to tank so they can get lottery picks every year and never actually try to win. Is it their 20-year rebuilding plan?

I say Karma has already started for them with Embid.

Tanking is the worst thing a professional team could do. Pathetic.

Worse than cheating?

Tanking = cheating for executives

Lazy thinking, to my mind, and incorrect. In fact, if the goal is to win championships, it would be the mark of a bad general manager to not look into tanking. The fact remains, though: you can't just suck your way to a championship. The best case scenario is, probably, the 2012 Thunder -- who peaked that year and couldn't keep their team together because of all the talent they drafted.

For many executives, the only goal is to make money....championships are secondary.  One could argue that winning championships is a way to make money, but tanking doesn't guarantee championships.  I have to wonder if the Philly execs are happy with the pro-tanking approach to take a hit for a few years now (less ticket sales, less merchandise sales, etc) for the POTENTIAL to be a playoff team in the future.