Bob Cousy says he'd rather tank/draft than get stuck in the middle of the pack.

[truthhurts34]

The middle of the pack statement holds weight if your team is filled with aging vets.


We are the 5th youngest team in the league, which means we are developing and getting better.

Not some declining team whose ownership wants to make a quick buck by scraping into the 8th seed, using band aid trades to barely get by.

[PhoSita]

We are the 5th youngest team in the league, which means we are developing and getting better.

Youth does necessarily mean the same thing as potential for improvement.

[Celtics18]

We are the 5th youngest team in the league, which means we are developing and getting better.

Youth does necessarily mean the same thing as potential for improvement.

I guess not necessarily, but I would say that it generally does. 

I would also say that Marcus Smart, Kelly Olynyk, Jared Sullinger, James Young, Perry Jones, Terry Rozier, RJ Hunter, Jordan Mickey, Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder, Jonas Jerebko, Evan Turner and Tyler Zeller all still have plenty of room for improvement.  Some to a greater extent than others. 

[chambers]

Just turned 87 years old. Still sharp as ever....
Couz may have a point? hehe


http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/08/08/bob-cousy-boston-timeless-treasure/bGAri28zRmJ7l7wBtihiqO/story.html

Cousy professed “great confidence” in Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge and his blueprint for banner No. 18.

But he also offered a pragmatic view of the Celtics’ road back to contention, after a surprising playoff berth last season.

“They’re ending up in the middle, which frankly is the worst place you can be, in my judgment,” Cousy said. “You either get up near the top and enjoy the goodies or you finish last and get the first, second, third pick, and then you’ve got a shot at helping yourself through the draft. When you’re in the middle you’re just not going to get impact players.”

Preach on, Cooz. If the Parishioners of the Parquet aren’t going to listen to bloviating sportswriters (raising hand), maybe they’ll listen to one of their most revered figures.

Nowhere in there it says that he'd rather tank...

Right....He says you should be a true contender OR going after top 5 picks.
No tanking implied at all

Just like Ainge didn't tank in 2013-14 to get Marcus Smart right?
Remember there's more than one way to tank. That's what front offices and 'player Development ' are for.

Are you saying you agree with the Cooz for this year's Celtics?

I think we can all agree that the 2015-2016 Celtics are not a true contender.  Does that mean you would prefer to see us make some moves that would put us in the running for a top five pick as opposed to going for another playoff berth?

I think that now we've come this far, that it's okay to make a push for the playoffs because we want stars and free agents in general to see what our coach can do with a squad of capable players.
I also think that because of the Brooklyn/Dallas picks this year that trying to get to the 2nd round of the playoffs would be an acceptable goal- given the draft insurance we have.

I do worry though, like Couz, that we just don't have enough firepower to be anything more than mediocre. We just don't have a lot of great assets other than Marcus Smart and our picks. IT is okay- but what would we really get for him? Maybe a top 15 pick if we were really lucky? Olynyk and Sully are at pretty low return-on-trade value levels. Bradley might get us a first rounder, Zeller is meh (value wise).
  Our coach is probably our greatest asset at the moment, so giving him a team that he can work with and make people take notice is a solid approach.

I do worry about being stuck in no man's land and basically relying on:

*trying to get one of our mid first round picks to become much better than their draft position.
*hoping that we can sign multiple top 20 NBA players and it basically never happening.

As I said in an earlier post, Ainge can easily hit the reset button after 2016 if he wants to do a proper 'blow up' and let Stevens start with guys he wants to develop.

If we looked pretty average this year and ended up missing the playoffs, I wouldn't be too unhappy if we just cleared the books of all our veteran players and put out a team of:

Rozier
Smart
Hunter
Crowder
Mickey

+ our Brooklyn pick rookies and our own rookies.
Let Stevens coach them up and let Smart lead them and ignite that Celtic fire. We'd lose, but we'd be competitive within a few years and if were lucky and picked well, we could land one or two future top 20 NBA players.
Similarly to what Seattle/OKC did over a 4-5 year stretch.

This is also more plausible when you think about the NBA over the next 5 seasons and how hard it is to win a championship.
You've got Lebron and Cleveland in the East for another 4-5 years, and the Wizards, Bucks, Bulls, Pistons all getting better.
You've got the toughest Western Conference we've ever seen and 3 or 4 teams that could win championships in plenty of other NBA seasons.

So for the next 5 years while we try and sign multiple stars and cross our fingers, if we do actually get lucky enough to sign one or two- they then have to lead us past Lebron/Cleveland and then whoever is good enough to come out of the West.

I mean if Brooklyn was bad enough, we could even get 3 or 4 top 10 picks or better in a two year period. How great would that be to add a cache of young hand picked draft studs to Marcus Smart, Rozier, Hunter and Young?

Letting Brad coach and mold those guys and when Lebron, Kyrie, Love, Griffin, Curry, Aldridge/Leonard all start to decline, our guys will be just reaching their peaks.

I could definitely see that route being a back up plan for Ainge if we don't see 'Fireworks' by summer 2016.

[truthhurts34]

We are the 5th youngest team in the league, which means we are developing and getting better.

Youth does necessarily mean the same thing as potential for improvement.

Potential also means nothing without improvement, i supported a tank for the 13-14 season however not this past one.

As equally important is the improvement and growth of Stevens as a coach in his 2nd year, something that hasn't been brought up here yet. To me its ultimately more important than landing an okafor.

Like I said, tanking for a higher draft pick is not as black and white given  our situation, after taking all things into consideration.

Outside of celtics blog and even celtics fandom, gms and others are praising the job our franchise is doing during our rebuild. The only time I've read negativity about it is here really, and they are the minority on the subject.

Not my problem.

[D.o.s.]

As equally important is the improvement and growth of Stevens as a coach, which is something that hasn't been brought up here yet. To me its ultimately more important than landing an okafor.

Well then.

[incoherent]

Always easier to tell the fanbase of a team you are not a fan of that it's easier to tank.
(Cousy is a Miami fan)

[D.o.s.]

Always easier to tell the fanbase of a team you are not a fan of that it's easier to tank.
(Cousy is a Miami fan)

Simmons wrote a pretty good column about why he was rooting for losses in 2007:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070202_magazine

The fantanking debate caused a ruckus on my Celtics message board -- OK, maybe I shouldn't be calling anyone else a loser -- where one poster equated rooting against the Celtics to selling one's soul. Where does he get off? The Celtics long ago sold their collective soul by hiring Lucky the Leprechaun and bringing in the dance team that killed Red Auerbach. Other anti-fantankers argue that losing breeds losing, that a 20-win season could inadvertently contaminate our young roster. I don't buy this. Losing can't affect your body like radiation unless you're Ricky Davis. Some believe there's a karmic price for fantanking, as evidenced by Tony Allen's recent season-ending injury. I think this is complete crap. In 1997, San Antonio appreared to hold out a healthy David Robinson for the final few weeks and still landed Tim Duncan.

I'm sure he has written pretty bad columns since then waffling on this position. I also don't really agree with the premise (I can't watch games and hope for C's losses, myself), but it seems relevant since it's a Celtics fan telling other Celtics fans that it's easier to tank.

[greece66]

@chambers

Thank you for the reply.

If what we are talking here is a contingency plan, in case we get in trouble (injuries or very bad performance at the first 30 games for whatever reason) then I certainly agree. Full tank mode would be something to consider seriously.

But as you say, plans A and B are different.

Good posts btw. 

[PhoSita]

We are the 5th youngest team in the league, which means we are developing and getting better.

Youth does necessarily mean the same thing as potential for improvement.

I guess not necessarily, but I would say that it generally does. 

I think that being young often means that a player has room to improve.  My point is just that it's a fallacy to equate youth with a high ceiling. 

The Celts have a lot of players who are 25 or younger, but very few (possibly none) of them have the talent required to ever make an All-Star team, let alone become one of the very best players in the league.

It's not like you can just put together a bunch of guys 25 or younger, hire a nice coach, give them some time, and watch them grow better and better year after year until they're winning 50+ games.

[D.o.s.]

My point is just that it's a fallacy to equate youth with a high ceiling. 

[PhoSita]

Outside of celtics blog and even celtics fandom, gms and others are praising the job our franchise is doing during our rebuild.

There have been plenty of articles written raising an eyebrow at what the Celtics are doing, wondering aloud if Danny Ainge will be able to get the Celtics past the purgatory of the middle without any high draft picks.  It's not just on Celticsblog that you hear that.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/25263702/should-nba-teams-rebuild-through-draft-free-agency-or-trade

Still, there are pitfalls to rebuilding through trades as well. For one, the Celtics won't be in position to land a top-two caliber lottery pick unless the bottom falls completely out on Brooklyn (which isn't impossible, but also unlikely). They're too good to fail and not good enough to contend. Without the big dreamy trade, the Celtics are just stuck in neutral, no matter how many butterflies Brad Stevens puts in their fans' stomachs. Stevens could be a cyborg version of Popovich and it's not going to lead that team to a title.

[Celtics18]

We are the 5th youngest team in the league, which means we are developing and getting better.

Youth does necessarily mean the same thing as potential for improvement.

I guess not necessarily, but I would say that it generally does. 

I think that being young often means that a player has room to improve.  My point is just that it's a fallacy to equate youth with a high ceiling. 

The Celts have a lot of players who are 25 or younger, but very few (possibly none) of them have the talent required to ever make an All-Star team, let alone become one of the very best players in the league.

It's not like you can just put together a bunch of guys 25 or younger, hire a nice coach, give them some time, and watch them grow better and better year after year until they're winning 50+ games.

This is probably going to sound nuts to most of you, but I think the vast majority of players who are talented enough to make it to the NBA and stick around and become legitimate pros have the talent to make an All Star team someday.

Of course it's true that most never will.  Given the right role in the right situation, though, I think an All Star game appearance could be possible for a number of our guys. 

[PhoSita]

This is probably going to sound nuts to most of you, but I think the vast majority of players who are talented enough to make it to the NBA and stick around and become legitimate pros have the talent to make an All Star team someday.

I mean, Jamaal Magloire did make an All-Star team.


Still, I disagree with this sentiment.  Give Phil Pressey all the time and attention in the world, he's never going to be an All-Star.  Just like you can plant a tomato seed and give it all the water and sunlight you want and it won't turn into a peach tree.

[D.o.s.]

Jury's still out on whether Phil Pressy stuck around or just got an NBA gig because of who his dad was.

I think it's more akin to how AC Green made the All Star game in 1990 and when confronted with that fact everyone on this blog went "how on earth did AC Green make an All Star game??" a couple of days ago?