Celtics Rank 4th in Top Young Cores

[colincb]

Golden State wasn't mentioned.  They have Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Harrison Barnes that fall into the appropriate age range.  That would be a nice little trio for any team to start with.  Not to mention James McAdoo and Kevin Looney. 

I'd take one Anthony Davis, Demarcus Cousins, Kawhi Leonard, Andre Drummond, etc. over every single player on the Celtics.  Heck Wiggins, Towns, Rubio, Lavine, etc. is an incredible young core.  You see this is the problem with the methodology chosen.  Quantity outranks quality and just can't do that in the NBA.

You had to be under 26 by the end of the next season which throws Green and Thompson out. I'd take the 4 players you mentioned over any one player on our team too, but not sure that's what you meant. I'd trade the whole team for Davis as a transcendent player, but not the rest if you meant that.

Think you're over-rating the Minnesota core. You rate Lavine and Rubio a lot higher than you should. Lavine was  a 2nd team rookie solely off his dunking performance at the ASG. One of the poorer players in the league last season (491 out of 492 in VORP, 417 in Box +/-). Rubio is notorious for disappearing at the end of the games, shoots 38% from 2 point range, and has a lower career total shooting % than Rondo. Wiggins was shockingly bad as a defender in his rookie season despite winning the ROY for his chucking. Does have lots of upside, but his rookie stats were surprisingly bad once you drill down. KAT does look like he'll be very good though. Dieng doesn't fit the criteria.

[oldtype]

This whole four quarters don't equal a dollar thing has become a bit of an overdone cliché.

Four quarters may not equal a dollar, but seven or eight quarters might. At some point quantity in prospects does match quality, if only because of the small chance that one of your decent young guys may have a Draymond Green-esque epiphany. Even for a top prospect like Wiggins, it's pretty hyperbolic to say that he's worth more than the entire Celtics team.

This of course does not apply to established young superstars like Anthony Davis or Demarcus Cousins, who are probably better analogized as a freshly minted hundred-dollar bill.

[SHAQATTACK]

Until Hunter breaks into starting lineup .

Beating out worthless ET should not take more than 20 games .

[PhoSita]

Think you're over-rating the Minnesota core. You rate Lavine and Rubio a lot higher than you should. Lavine was  a 2nd team rookie solely off his dunking performance at the ASG. One of the poorer players in the league last season (491 out of 492 in VORP, 417 in Box +/-). Rubio is notorious for disappearing at the end of the games, shoots 38% from 2 point range, and has a lower career total shooting % than Rondo. Wiggins was shockingly bad as a defender in his rookie season despite winning the ROY for his chucking. Does have lots of upside, but his rookie stats were surprisingly bad once you drill down. KAT does look like he'll be very good though. Dieng doesn't fit the criteria.

I don't much care for Rubio or Lavine, but Wiggins and Towns alone makes their core far better than ours, plus Dieng is a pretty nice player, and Shabazz started to look like he might be a decent player last year. 

[Fred Roberts]

This ranking seems to equate having a lot of young players with having a valuable core.

Unfortunately for us, five quarters are actually worth much less than a dollar in the NBA world.

My first thought on this is that if Carmelo Anthony = $1.00, I'd rather take the 5 x $0.25 on the Celtics.

The Knicks were on a positive trajectory prior to that trade. . . .though they did have one mid 50's winning season prior to going into full blown rebuild.

[LooseCannon]

I'd take one Anthony Davis, Demarcus Cousins, Kawhi Leonard, Andre Drummond, etc. over every single player on the Celtics.  Heck Wiggins, Towns, Rubio, Lavine, etc. is an incredible young core.  You see this is the problem with the methodology chosen.  Quantity outranks quality and just can't do that in the NBA.

OK this is taking it too far. Every young guy on our team for Zach Lavine or Kawhi Leonard? Are you kidding me?

It's better to have a dollar than 4 quarters in the NBA. But 4 quarters are better than a slightly shinier quarter.

Kawhi Leonard is the second-best player in the NBA 25 years old or under.

[Hardwood Harry]

This ranking seems to equate having a lot of young players with having a valuable core.

Unfortunately for us, five quarters are actually worth much less than a dollar in the NBA world.

This is what I was talking about. It seems like we can't say anything positive about our young players without it being followed by, well they aren't stars so it doesn't matter if they are any good.

 No need to wonder why the stigma surround Boston ( The City ) is one of negativity....

[Celtics4ever]

No need to wonder why the stigma surround Boston ( The City ) is one of negativity....

Yeah Boston is so cursed they never win a title, in any sport.   The horror at least it is not CLE or Philly, now those are cities with stigmas.

[danglertx]

What I don't understand is if these young players on other teams are so good, why aren't they winning?  Everyone wants Cousins, but what has he won?  That team stinks year after year after year and yet people want to trade our entire team for him.  Why can't Sactown win with him?  If Vucevic and Olidipo are so good, why was Orlando so bad... again.

It isn't like we had a ton of really good vets carrying us, in fact, when we traded our vets our team got better.  A lot better. 

Either CBS is the best coach ever or our young players are a lot better than the nay sayers on this board give them credit for being.

[D.o.s.]

To that, I think a lot of people have a flawed idea of what people who dare to question the pure sanctity of our rookies and young players are actually saying.

[Future Celtics Owner]

The Jazz also have Rodney Hood. They could be a very special team and are definitely better at every position than us. Rudy Gobert could have a serious breakout year also.....actually many of the Jazz players can/should have breakout years.

All I can say is that we do not have the fourth best young core in the league. The best way to remedy that and have a better chance at landing a star is to have a bad record for 2-3 years. I think if we drafted Myles Turner this year, like we were suppose to, everyone of us would be feeling better about our young core....but keeping Bass, Jonas J, Gigi, Crowder after the trade deadline was just too important I guess.....good joke

We have a special opportunity the next few years to have a ton of top picks not even including our own. But If we were to trade IT, ET, AB, KO, Sully, Zeller for prospects(like Myles Turner or etc even if we overpay) and picks; our chances of getting multiple future stars dramatically increases. Before people say anything about tanking, thats not what this would be. Firstly, we all know with CBS our players are gonna play as hard as possible, be held accountable on defense, and develop into better players with more time than they usually would get. This is getting back to basics.

Over the next 3 years there are very good players coming out and we can draft and trade, especially if we have multiple top picks. Also it gives the players we just signed a way to boost their value for trades.

[Rondo9]

The Jazz also have Rodney Hood. They could be a very special team and are definitely better at every position than us. Rudy Gobert could have a serious breakout year also.....actually many of the Jazz players can/should have breakout years.

All I can say is that we do not have the fourth best young core in the league. The best way to remedy that and have a better chance at landing a star is to have a bad record for 2-3 years. I think if we drafted Myles Turner this year, like we were suppose to, everyone of us would be feeling better about our young core....but keeping Bass, Jonas J, Gigi, Crowder after the trade deadline was just too important I guess.....good joke

We have a special opportunity the next few years to have a ton of top picks not even including our own. But If we were to trade IT, ET, AB, KO, Sully, Zeller for prospects(like Myles Turner or etc even if we overpay) and picks; our chances of getting multiple future stars dramatically increases. Before people say anything about tanking, thats not what this would be. Firstly, we all know with CBS our players are gonna play as hard as possible, be held accountable on defense, and develop into better players with more time than they usually would get. This is getting back to basics.

Over the next 3 years there are very good players coming out and we can draft and trade, especially if we have multiple top picks. Also it gives the players we just signed a way to boost their value for trades.

They've purged the roster: twice. The Celtics playoff run was mostly fueled by their young players.

[MBunge]

To that, I think a lot of people have a flawed idea of what people who dare to question the pure sanctity of our rookies and young players are actually saying.

Nah, I think most people get it.  The anti-homer brigade has to differentiate themselves from the rest of us grubby fans, which they think they accomplish by being more "realistic" about our players.

Mike

[Smitty77]

Doolittle did a nice write-up about the top young cores in the NBA according to the WARP.

http://espn.go.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/13284788/nba-ranking-young-cores-nba

He defines young players as anyone on the roster who won't be 26 by the end of next season, or 25 and younger.

The Bucks were first, but I think they probably moved into the lead with the signing of Monroe.
The Pelicans were second, completely carried by Davis.
The Jazz were third. They have drafted and developed a lot of young talent all over the first round over the past few years.
We were fourth, largely because of the sheer amount of young depth that we have at each position.

We were also ahead of Philly (5th), even though we have been in a rebuild as long as they have.

We were also ahead of the Blazers, even though they have a "superstar" and a lot of young prospects like us.

We were also ahead of the Magic and Pistons, even though most NBA fans generally believe they have a better young core than we do.

Could you please tell me where the Hornets are on this list??

Thanks,

Smitty77

[oldtype]

The Jazz also have Rodney Hood. They could be a very special team and are definitely better at every position than us. Rudy Gobert could have a serious breakout year also.....actually many of the Jazz players can/should have breakout years.

All I can say is that we do not have the fourth best young core in the league. The best way to remedy that and have a better chance at landing a star is to have a bad record for 2-3 years. I think if we drafted Myles Turner this year, like we were suppose to, everyone of us would be feeling better about our young core....but keeping Bass, Jonas J, Gigi, Crowder after the trade deadline was just too important I guess.....good joke

We have a special opportunity the next few years to have a ton of top picks not even including our own. But If we were to trade IT, ET, AB, KO, Sully, Zeller for prospects(like Myles Turner or etc even if we overpay) and picks; our chances of getting multiple future stars dramatically increases. Before people say anything about tanking, thats not what this would be. Firstly, we all know with CBS our players are gonna play as hard as possible, be held accountable on defense, and develop into better players with more time than they usually would get. This is getting back to basics.

Over the next 3 years there are very good players coming out and we can draft and trade, especially if we have multiple top picks. Also it gives the players we just signed a way to boost their value for trades.

They've purged the roster: twice. The Celtics playoff run was mostly fueled by their young players.

What exactly were we supposed to do in order to get even worse after trading Rondo and Green? There wasn't anything we could do beyond flushing actual NBA player with actual trade value down the toilet for derisory offers.

I'm all for Tanking when there's a sensible window but when a team is preforming really well and you take extreme measures to undermine it, you lose the trust of everybody involved. Why would Stevens or any of the players bother staying invested int he team if we did something like dump AB for a late first at the deadline?

Being strategic is all well and good, but sometimes you forget that there are actual human beings involved.