Brooklyn is going to be terrible- We really could get a top 5 pick this year...

[LarBrd33]

I wouldn't count on Brooklyn sucking.  They finished the season strong.  Brook Lopez and Thad Young made a difference.  I think our pick from them will end up in the 12-17 range.

So...

Boston made a ton of trades around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season as the second hottest team in the Eastern conference.  That was a total fluke, so that success will not carry over to next season. 

Brooklyn made a trade around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season strong.  That was because the trade made the team better, and so as a result that success full carry over to next season. 

Got it, sound logic.

From a talent standpoint, Brooklyn's late season success made a lot more sense than Boston's.  Brooklyn played well down the stretch because of allstar talent.  Boston played well down the stretch because of effort and execution driven by a wonder-coach.  Which is more sustainable?   I don't think either will be bottom 5 next year.  But if forced to guess which of the two is most likely to bottom out, it has to be the shakey Boston lineup.  Both picks probably end up 12-17.  Injuries can derail Brooklyn, but if they are healthy they should be a playoff team.  A lot has to go right for Boston to sneak into the playoffs again in spite of their blatant lack of talent, imo. 

On paper, Brooklyn looks solidly mediocre. Lopez is 20/10 impact player. Johnson is a borderline all star. There's talent there.  On paper, Boston sucks. Stevens proved last year he could MacGyver a .500 team out of paperclips and superglue, but it's hard to sustain quirk success.  I'll admit I'm a bit enthusiastic about the David Lee addition (though we already had a handful of borderline starter power forwards) , but how excited can you really get about a team when the best player is coming off a playoffs appearance where he averaged 8 minutes off the bench and had 8 coach decision DNP's?

Brook Lopez has never been a 20/10 player.  I don't expect him to become one this season.

Whatever.  The underrating of Brook Lopez is a key reason why people are incorrectly assuming Brooklyn is terrible.  He spent the last couple months of the season averaging 21, 9 and 2 on 54% shooting... the team played well.   They made the playoffs for the third year in a row. 

I get why people think they'll be terrible.  I get why people want them to be terrible.  I want them to be terrible too.  I'm not counting on it.  They should be in the playoff hunt.   Boston proved last year you can make the playoffs in the Eastern conference while arguably not having a single starter-caliber player.  This "Brooklyn = Top 5 pick" thing is just wishful thinking.

It is "wishful thinking," but it's very realistic wishful thinking.  Sure, Brook Lopez is a good player, but he has had significant trouble staying healthy, and he doesn't rebound or defend very well for his position.  Joe Johnson has been getting worse by the year over the course of the last few seasons. 
Those who are trying their hardest to look for negativity for the Celtics are reduced to making the claim that Thad Young is a high impact player.  Please, he's a nice, solid pro, but we've got about 8 or 9 players on our roster as good or better than Thad Young.

Beyond those three, the Nets are a complete mess.  Don't trust me or the rest of the "homers" on Celtics blog.  Look at the season predictions and betting odds that are out there on the internet. 

The idea that the Nets are going to stink this year is not one invented by Celtics fans to feel good about our upcoming draft pick.  Most observers, even those who aren't Celtics fans, seem to agree.

Welp here's hoping the Brooklyn pick ends up top 5.  Don't count on it.   

I still see it as finishing 12-17.  Our own pick should be 12-17 too.  And if we combine those two picks along with a handful of other 1st/2nd rounders, we might have a big enough package to fail to acquire a Top 10 pick with again. 

[celticsclay]

Some of the stuff people are throwing out here isn't based on anything I have seen, and I actually do look at this stuff. A lot of places have not put up their total wins yet for the season, but it looks like the site sportsbook has (one of the bigger ones).

Not sure if I am allowed to post links to that, but they are at 32.5 which is the third least wins in the east. By comparison the Celtics, Hornets and Pacers are all set at 35.5. I am not saying this is gospel, or really means anything in the big scheme of things, but they certainly are not homer picks and are calculated by pretty smart people. I do wish people would stop pretending it is only celtics fans wishful thinking that has the Nets as one of the worst teams in the east, because this just is not true.

[Celtics18]

I wouldn't count on Brooklyn sucking.  They finished the season strong.  Brook Lopez and Thad Young made a difference.  I think our pick from them will end up in the 12-17 range.

So...

Boston made a ton of trades around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season as the second hottest team in the Eastern conference.  That was a total fluke, so that success will not carry over to next season. 

Brooklyn made a trade around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season strong.  That was because the trade made the team better, and so as a result that success full carry over to next season. 

Got it, sound logic.

From a talent standpoint, Brooklyn's late season success made a lot more sense than Boston's.  Brooklyn played well down the stretch because of allstar talent.  Boston played well down the stretch because of effort and execution driven by a wonder-coach.  Which is more sustainable?   I don't think either will be bottom 5 next year.  But if forced to guess which of the two is most likely to bottom out, it has to be the shakey Boston lineup.  Both picks probably end up 12-17.  Injuries can derail Brooklyn, but if they are healthy they should be a playoff team.  A lot has to go right for Boston to sneak into the playoffs again in spite of their blatant lack of talent, imo. 

On paper, Brooklyn looks solidly mediocre. Lopez is 20/10 impact player. Johnson is a borderline all star. There's talent there.  On paper, Boston sucks. Stevens proved last year he could MacGyver a .500 team out of paperclips and superglue, but it's hard to sustain quirk success.  I'll admit I'm a bit enthusiastic about the David Lee addition (though we already had a handful of borderline starter power forwards) , but how excited can you really get about a team when the best player is coming off a playoffs appearance where he averaged 8 minutes off the bench and had 8 coach decision DNP's?

Brook Lopez has never been a 20/10 player.  I don't expect him to become one this season.

Whatever.  The underrating of Brook Lopez is a key reason why people are incorrectly assuming Brooklyn is terrible.  He spent the last couple months of the season averaging 21, 9 and 2 on 54% shooting... the team played well.   They made the playoffs for the third year in a row. 

I get why people think they'll be terrible.  I get why people want them to be terrible.  I want them to be terrible too.  I'm not counting on it.  They should be in the playoff hunt.   Boston proved last year you can make the playoffs in the Eastern conference while arguably not having a single starter-caliber player.  This "Brooklyn = Top 5 pick" thing is just wishful thinking.

It is "wishful thinking," but it's very realistic wishful thinking.  Sure, Brook Lopez is a good player, but he has had significant trouble staying healthy, and he doesn't rebound or defend very well for his position.  Joe Johnson has been getting worse by the year over the course of the last few seasons. 
Those who are trying their hardest to look for negativity for the Celtics are reduced to making the claim that Thad Young is a high impact player.  Please, he's a nice, solid pro, but we've got about 8 or 9 players on our roster as good or better than Thad Young.

Beyond those three, the Nets are a complete mess.  Don't trust me or the rest of the "homers" on Celtics blog.  Look at the season predictions and betting odds that are out there on the internet. 

The idea that the Nets are going to stink this year is not one invented by Celtics fans to feel good about our upcoming draft pick.  Most observers, even those who aren't Celtics fans, seem to agree.

Welp here's hoping the Brooklyn pick ends up top 5.  Don't count on it.   

I still see it as finishing 12-17.  Our own pick should be 12-17 too.  And if we combine those two picks along with a handful of other 1st/2nd rounders, we might have a big enough package to fail to acquire a Top 10 pick with again.

I'm not counting on it, but I have pretty good reason to be optimistic about the possibility of it occurring (or, at least, top ten). 

[crimson_stallion]

Lopez
Bargs
Thad Young
Joe Johnson
Jarrett Jack

That's not a bottom 5 team.

2014/15 Stats for the above players:

Lopez: 17.2 pts, 7.4 reb, 0.7 ast, 0.6 stl, 1.8 blk
Bargnani: 14.8 pts, 4.4 reb, 1.6 ast, 0.1 stl, 0.9 blk
Thadeus Young: 14.1 pts, 5.4 reb, 2.3 ast, 1.6 stl, 0.3 blk, 46% FG, 33% 3PT, 66% FT
Joe Johnson: 14.4 pts, 4.8 reb, 3.7 ast, 0.7 stl, 0.2 blk, 43% FG, 36% 3PT, 80% FT
Jarrett Jack: 12.9 pts, 3.1 reb, 4.7 ast. 0.9 stl, 0.2 blk, 44% FG, 27% 3PT, 88% FT

Kinda reminds me of the starting lineup of our 2013.14 Celtics:

Jared Sullinger: 13.3 pts, 8.1 reb, 1.6 ast, 0.7 blk, 0.5 stl, 43% FG, 27% 3PT, 78% FT
Brandon Bass: 11.1 pts, 5.7 reb, 1.1 ast, 0.9 blk, 0.4 stl, 49% FG, 33% 3PT, 86% FT
Jeff Green: 16.9 pts, 4.6 reb, 1.7 ast, 0.7 stl, 0.6 blk, 41% FG, 34% 3PT, 79% FT
Avery Bradley: 14.9 pts, 3.8 reb, 1.4 ast, 1.1 stl, 0.2 blk, 44% FG, 39% 3PT, 80% FT
Jordan Crawford: 11 pts, 2.3 reb, 3.5 ast, 0.6 stl, 0.1 blk, 42% FG, 32% 3PT, 86% FT

I won't get started on the bench, because our 2013/14 bench (Kelly Olynyk, Jerryd Bayless, Phil Pressey, Kris Humphreys, Courtney Lee) was far, far better than Brooklyn's current bench.

Overall, I'd say you would be pretty hard-pressed to argue that the current nets team is really any better than our 13/14 Celtics team overall (arguably a slightly better starting lineup, offset by our far superior bench) and that team finished tied with Utah for the 5th worst record in the entire league - which got us Marcus Smart at pick #6!



I mean, lets be real here:

* Their best player is Lopez, who avearaged 17/6 and has missed 50% of his career games
* Their second best player is Young, who has been a borderline starter his whole career
* Their third best player is Johnson. who is 34 and has declined every year for the last 4 seasons
* Their fourth best player is Jack, who has been a good bench guy most of his career
* Their fifth best player is Bargnani, who the wooden-spoon Knicks couldn't wait to get rid of
* Their best prospect right now is probably Kevin Seraphin (unless RHJ proves otherwise)
* They have no bench
* They have no cap space
* They have no draft picks

How good can they possibly be?!?

They don't have Kevin Seraphin, he's on the Knicks. They also have Chris McCoullough as a highly touted prospect.

But I agree that we will get a great pick from them

My bad, I was looking at the Knicks roster earlier today as well to see how bad they were, and got the two mixed up. 

I remembered Seraphin was on a really crappy roster, just couldn't remember which ones! hahaha   

[crimson_stallion]

Edit: Double post

[crimson_stallion]

I wouldn't count on Brooklyn sucking.  They finished the season strong.  Brook Lopez and Thad Young made a difference.  I think our pick from them will end up in the 12-17 range.

So...

Boston made a ton of trades around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season as the second hottest team in the Eastern conference.  That was a total fluke, so that success will not carry over to next season. 

Brooklyn made a trade around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season strong.  That was because the trade made the team better, and so as a result that success full carry over to next season. 

Got it, sound logic.

From a talent standpoint, Brooklyn's late season success made a lot more sense than Boston's.  Brooklyn played well down the stretch because of allstar talent.  Boston played well down the stretch because of effort and execution driven by a wonder-coach.  Which is more sustainable?   I don't think either will be bottom 5 next year.  But if forced to guess which of the two is most likely to bottom out, it has to be the shakey Boston lineup.  Both picks probably end up 12-17.  Injuries can derail Brooklyn, but if they are healthy they should be a playoff team.  A lot has to go right for Boston to sneak into the playoffs again in spite of their blatant lack of talent, imo. 

On paper, Brooklyn looks solidly mediocre. Lopez is 20/10 impact player. Johnson is a borderline all star. There's talent there.  On paper, Boston sucks. Stevens proved last year he could MacGyver a .500 team out of paperclips and superglue, but it's hard to sustain quirk success.  I'll admit I'm a bit enthusiastic about the David Lee addition (though we already had a handful of borderline starter power forwards) , but how excited can you really get about a team when the best player is coming off a playoffs appearance where he averaged 8 minutes off the bench and had 8 coach decision DNP's?  Stevens has his work cut out for him and he struggled early last season finding success while balancing an overloaded roster filled with redundancies.

With all due respect, there is absolutely no sense in any of the points / arguments you're trying to make here. 

What All-Star talent did Brooklyn have at the end of the season, that they didn't have in the first half of the season? 

The only guy on the Brooklyn roster who is even CLOSE to being an All-Star talent is Brook Lopez, and for the first time in recent memory he actually played starters minutes  (72 games @ 30 MPG).  You certainly can't try to argue that Thaddeus Young (14 and 5 last season) is an All-Star talent, because that would just be plain trolling.

Also how on earth is Lopez a 20/10 player?  He's he's not averaged 20/10 once in his entire career. The closest he ever came was in 2009/10 when he averaged 18.8 points and 8.6 rebounds.  That 8.6 rebounds was also (for the record) a career high for him, and still is.  Which is downright embarrassing for  a guy with his physical profile (7'1" / 260 pound / 7'5" wingspan) who's entire game is based in the paint.  Once you factor in his size and his style of play, he must seriously be one of the worst rebounding bigs ever to play the game.

Also, if you're going to label Lopez (with his 17 / 7 in 29 minutes) as All-Star talent, then you can't really get away from awarding Isaiah Thomas (with his 19 / 5 in 29 minutes) with the same label.  If you don't then I would love to hear your reason why, since neither player actually made the All-Star team and both put up similar numbers over the course of the season.

Likewise your claim that Joe Johnson is a borderline All-Star is might have been a respectable claim back in 2013/14, but trying to make that argument for last season is quite honestly laughable.  He's 34 years old and his his Per-36 stats from last year (14.9 points, 5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists) were the worst of his career.  He's clearly on the decline and a shadow of his former self, and if those are 'border All-Star' numbers, then you must love our Celtics, because that would mean that Tyler Zeller (17 / 10 / 2.4), Jared Sullinger (17 / 10 / 2.5), Avery Bradley (16 / 3.5 / 2), Kelly Olynyk (16.5 / 7.7 / 2.8 ), Jonas Jerebko (14.1 / 9.6 / 2.0), David Lee (15.5 / 10 / 3.4) and Evan Turner (12.4 / 6.6 / 7.2) are all borderline All-Stars too.

It's simple - Boston turned their record around because they traded out their two greatest on-court liabilities and re-allocated those minutes to guys who had far, far more positive impact.

Advanced stats show that Rondo was one of the NBA's biggest liabilities at his position, with a Real Plus Minus of -3.21 (ranking him 69th out of 84 NBA Point Guards).  When Boston traded him out, they gave those minutes to Marcus Smart (+2.22, 12th among PG) and Isaiah Thomas (+1.45, 21st among PG).  That is a improvement of +5.43 when Smart is on the court, and +4.66 when Thomas is on the court.  Both are HUGE turnarounds, and that type of improvement at the Point Guard spot along is enough to generate a huge improvement as a team.

But if you look at stats shot that Jeff Green you'll see that there was a similar story at the SF spot too.   Green was statistically a major liability for us, with a a RPM of -3.56 ranking him right towards the bottom of NBA Small Forwards (68th out of 80).  When he was traded out his minutes went to a combination of Evan Turner (-1.37, 45th among Shooting Guards), Jae Crowder (-0.44, 29th among Small Forwards) and Jonas Jerebko (+2.6, 14th among Power Forwards).  This was basically a simple case of addition by subtraction, because even though not all of out players actually had a positive RPM, every one of them was a substantial improvemnt over Green regardless of whether it was Turner (+2.19), Crowder  (+3.12) or Jerebko (+6.16) - the improvement at the SF was drastic.

Now if you look at our other starters, we had no real liabilities at the other positions.  We were going just fine at SG (Bradley: -0.34), at PF (Sully: +1.66) and at C (Zeller: +0.58 / Olynyk: +3.50).

Now lets do a very rough calculation of the change between old and new scenario.

Old Roster:
Zeller: +0.58
Sully: +1.66
Green: -3.56
Bradley: -0.34
Rondo: -3.21
Net RPM: -4.87

Old Roster:
Zeller:+0.58
Sully: +1.66
Turner: -1.37
Bradley: -0.34
Smart: +2.22
Net RPM: +2.75

Not obviously this isn't the perfect scientific method for calculating this, but at a quick glance I think this easily demonstrates how the mid seasons trades made by DA could very easily have transformed this team from a really, really bad team to an actually pretty darn good one.

You may like or loathe RPM, but regardless of how you feel I think it's easy for any fan who actually watched the games to see from the eye test that the above makes a lot of sense.  Even when Rondo was on the team, we always seemed to play much better when he came off the court, and Smart came one - we tended to close gaps, build leads, etc.  Likewise I think we all felt like we played much better as a team when we had Turner, Jerebko or Crowder on the court as opposed to when Green was out there.

Now lets look at the Brooklyn trade. 

Brooklyn traded Kevin Garnett to the Timberwolves in exchange for Theddeus Young, right?  Well Kevin Garnett had an RPM last year of  +0.90 (25th among PF) while Theddeus Young had an RPM of +1.20 (18th among Small Forwards). 

So Brooklyn have essentially traded one plus contributor for another slightly more plus' contributor.  This trade improves Brooklyn as a team, but only by +0.3 which is barely (if at all) significant.

Ultimately, that was really the only significant trade that Brooklyn made last year, so that move alone is nowhere near enough (according to stats) to account for Brooklyn's late season surge. 

Now even if you completely ignore the statistics, it's pretty blatantly obvious that Boston made far more in the way or roster changes (trading away two starters) than Brooklyn trading away one starter) did, so no matter how you look at it I cannot understand how you can possible try to argue that Brooklyn's late season surge is a result of roster changes, while Boston's was just a result of "last minute increase in hustle". 

It just makes no sense whatsoever.

Boston clearly made more drastic changes to their roster mid-season than Brooklyn did, so the "roster changes" argument is far more justifiable for Boston than it is for Brooklyn.  It is far more believable that Boston could have made a huge turnaround as a team after all those roster changes, then it is that Brooklyn could have made such a big turnaroud after one small roster change.  Especially if you're only real argument for Brooklyn is based on the the supposed new-found bond between Lopez and Young - yeah, that's very sustainable!

No matter how you look at it, Boston had a better season AND that did more to improve this season.  There is absolutely not a single rational justification as to why anyone would believe that Brooklyn would finish with a better record then Boston this year.  Even if injuries come in to play, Boston has so much depth that their impact would be minimal - while one or two injuries could absolutely cripple the nets.

[GC003332]

It will be interesting to see if the late season play of Lopez & Young was merely inspired by their desire to get better contracts, now that that mission is complete , do they maintain the hunger over the full season.

[LarBrd33]

I wouldn't count on Brooklyn sucking.  They finished the season strong.  Brook Lopez and Thad Young made a difference.  I think our pick from them will end up in the 12-17 range.

So...

Boston made a ton of trades around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season as the second hottest team in the Eastern conference.  That was a total fluke, so that success will not carry over to next season. 

Brooklyn made a trade around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season strong.  That was because the trade made the team better, and so as a result that success full carry over to next season. 

Got it, sound logic.

From a talent standpoint, Brooklyn's late season success made a lot more sense than Boston's.  Brooklyn played well down the stretch because of allstar talent.  Boston played well down the stretch because of effort and execution driven by a wonder-coach.  Which is more sustainable?   I don't think either will be bottom 5 next year.  But if forced to guess which of the two is most likely to bottom out, it has to be the shakey Boston lineup.  Both picks probably end up 12-17.  Injuries can derail Brooklyn, but if they are healthy they should be a playoff team.  A lot has to go right for Boston to sneak into the playoffs again in spite of their blatant lack of talent, imo. 

On paper, Brooklyn looks solidly mediocre. Lopez is 20/10 impact player. Johnson is a borderline all star. There's talent there.  On paper, Boston sucks. Stevens proved last year he could MacGyver a .500 team out of paperclips and superglue, but it's hard to sustain quirk success.  I'll admit I'm a bit enthusiastic about the David Lee addition (though we already had a handful of borderline starter power forwards) , but how excited can you really get about a team when the best player is coming off a playoffs appearance where he averaged 8 minutes off the bench and had 8 coach decision DNP's?  Stevens has his work cut out for him and he struggled early last season finding success while balancing an overloaded roster filled with redundancies.

With all due respect, there is absolutely no sense in any of the points / arguments you're trying to make here. 

What All-Star talent did Brooklyn have at the end of the season, that they didn't have in the first half of the season? 

The only guy on the Brooklyn roster who is even CLOSE to being an All-Star talent is Brook Lopez, and for the first time in recent memory he actually played starters minutes  (72 games @ 30 MPG).  You certainly can't try to argue that Thaddeus Young (14 and 5 last season) is an All-Star talent, because that would just be plain trolling.

Also how on earth is Lopez a 20/10 player?  He's he's not averaged 20/10 once in his entire career. The closest he ever came was in 2009/10 when he averaged 18.8 points and 8.6 rebounds.  That 8.6 rebounds was also (for the record) a career high for him, and still is.  Which is downright embarrassing for  a guy with his physical profile (7'1" / 260 pound / 7'5" wingspan) who's entire game is based in the paint.  Once you factor in his size and his style of play, he must seriously be one of the worst rebounding bigs ever to play the game.

Also, if you're going to label Lopez (with his 17 / 7 in 29 minutes) as All-Star talent, then you can't really get away from awarding Isaiah Thomas (with his 19 / 5 in 29 minutes) with the same label.  If you don't then I would love to hear your reason why, since neither player actually made the All-Star team and both put up similar numbers over the course of the season.

Likewise your claim that Joe Johnson is a borderline All-Star is might have been a respectable claim back in 2013/14, but trying to make that argument for last season is quite honestly laughable.  He's 34 years old and his his Per-36 stats from last year (14.9 points, 5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists) were the worst of his career.  He's clearly on the decline and a shadow of his former self, and if those are 'border All-Star' numbers, then you must love our Celtics, because that would mean that Tyler Zeller (17 / 10 / 2.4), Jared Sullinger (17 / 10 / 2.5), Avery Bradley (16 / 3.5 / 2), Kelly Olynyk (16.5 / 7.7 / 2.8 ), Jonas Jerebko (14.1 / 9.6 / 2.0), David Lee (15.5 / 10 / 3.4) and Evan Turner (12.4 / 6.6 / 7.2) are all borderline All-Stars too.

It's simple - Boston turned their record around because they traded out their two greatest on-court liabilities and re-allocated those minutes to guys who had far, far more positive impact.

Advanced stats show that Rondo was one of the NBA's biggest liabilities at his position, with a Real Plus Minus of -3.21 (ranking him 69th out of 84 NBA Point Guards).  When Boston traded him out, they gave those minutes to Marcus Smart (+2.22, 12th among PG) and Isaiah Thomas (+1.45, 21st among PG).  That is a improvement of +5.43 when Smart is on the court, and +4.66 when Thomas is on the court.  Both are HUGE turnarounds, and that type of improvement at the Point Guard spot along is enough to generate a huge improvement as a team.

But if you look at stats shot that Jeff Green you'll see that there was a similar story at the SF spot too.   Green was statistically a major liability for us, with a a RPM of -3.56 ranking him right towards the bottom of NBA Small Forwards (68th out of 80).  When he was traded out his minutes went to a combination of Evan Turner (-1.37, 45th among Shooting Guards), Jae Crowder (-0.44, 29th among Small Forwards) and Jonas Jerebko (+2.6, 14th among Power Forwards).  This was basically a simple case of addition by subtraction, because even though not all of out players actually had a positive RPM, every one of them was a substantial improvemnt over Green regardless of whether it was Turner (+2.19), Crowder  (+3.12) or Jerebko (+6.16) - the improvement at the SF was drastic.

Now if you look at our other starters, we had no real liabilities at the other positions.  We were going just fine at SG (Bradley: -0.34), at PF (Sully: +1.66) and at C (Zeller: +0.58 / Olynyk: +3.50).

Now lets do a very rough calculation of the change between old and new scenario.

Old Roster:
Zeller: +0.58
Sully: +1.66
Green: -3.56
Bradley: -0.34
Rondo: -3.21
Net RPM: -4.87

Old Roster:
Zeller:+0.58
Sully: +1.66
Turner: -1.37
Bradley: -0.34
Smart: +2.22
Net RPM: +2.75

Not obviously this isn't the perfect scientific method for calculating this, but at a quick glance I think this easily demonstrates how the mid seasons trades made by DA could very easily have transformed this team from a really, really bad team to an actually pretty darn good one.

You may like or loathe RPM, but regardless of how you feel I think it's easy for any fan who actually watched the games to see from the eye test that the above makes a lot of sense.  Even when Rondo was on the team, we always seemed to play much better when he came off the court, and Smart came one - we tended to close gaps, build leads, etc.  Likewise I think we all felt like we played much better as a team when we had Turner, Jerebko or Crowder on the court as opposed to when Green was out there.

Now lets look at the Brooklyn trade. 

Brooklyn traded Kevin Garnett to the Timberwolves in exchange for Theddeus Young, right?  Well Kevin Garnett had an RPM last year of  +0.90 (25th among PF) while Theddeus Young had an RPM of +1.20 (18th among Small Forwards). 

So Brooklyn have essentially traded one plus contributor for another slightly more plus' contributor.  This trade improves Brooklyn as a team, but only by +0.3 which is barely (if at all) significant.

Ultimately, that was really the only significant trade that Brooklyn made last year, so that move alone is nowhere near enough (according to stats) to account for Brooklyn's late season surge. 

Now even if you completely ignore the statistics, it's pretty blatantly obvious that Boston made far more in the way or roster changes (trading away two starters) than Brooklyn trading away one starter) did, so no matter how you look at it I cannot understand how you can possible try to argue that Brooklyn's late season surge is a result of roster changes, while Boston's was just a result of "last minute increase in hustle". 

It just makes no sense whatsoever.

Boston clearly made more drastic changes to their roster mid-season than Brooklyn did, so the "roster changes" argument is far more justifiable for Boston than it is for Brooklyn.  It is far more believable that Boston could have made a huge turnaround as a team after all those roster changes, then it is that Brooklyn could have made such a big turnaroud after one small roster change.  Especially if you're only real argument for Brooklyn is based on the the supposed new-found bond between Lopez and Young - yeah, that's very sustainable!

No matter how you look at it, Boston had a better season AND that did more to improve this season.  There is absolutely not a single rational justification as to why anyone would believe that Brooklyn would finish with a better record then Boston this year.  Even if injuries come in to play, Boston has so much depth that their impact would be minimal - while one or two injuries could absolutely cripple the nets.

Neat. I anticipate both brooklyn and Boston to be in the hunt for the last couple playoff seeds in the Least.  It would be a surprise to see either in the bottom 5, but I'd say Boston's success last year was the most flukey for a variety of reasons... thus they are the most likely candidate for a disaster season of the two teams. Of the two teams, Boston's success is the least repeatable.  I think we can all acknowledge that winning games without NBA starters is a heck of an achievement.  Much easier to finish .500 with an all-star low post scorer, 7x all-star shooting guard, and additional veteran starters.

[greenrunsdeep41]

I wouldn't count on Brooklyn sucking.  They finished the season strong.  Brook Lopez and Thad Young made a difference.  I think our pick from them will end up in the 12-17 range.

So...

Boston made a ton of trades around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season as the second hottest team in the Eastern conference.  That was a total fluke, so that success will not carry over to next season. 

Brooklyn made a trade around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season strong.  That was because the trade made the team better, and so as a result that success full carry over to next season. 

Got it, sound logic.

From a talent standpoint, Brooklyn's late season success made a lot more sense than Boston's.  Brooklyn played well down the stretch because of allstar talent.  Boston played well down the stretch because of effort and execution driven by a wonder-coach.  Which is more sustainable?   I don't think either will be bottom 5 next year.  But if forced to guess which of the two is most likely to bottom out, it has to be the shakey Boston lineup.  Both picks probably end up 12-17.  Injuries can derail Brooklyn, but if they are healthy they should be a playoff team.  A lot has to go right for Boston to sneak into the playoffs again in spite of their blatant lack of talent, imo. 

On paper, Brooklyn looks solidly mediocre. Lopez is 20/10 impact player. Johnson is a borderline all star. There's talent there.  On paper, Boston sucks. Stevens proved last year he could MacGyver a .500 team out of paperclips and superglue, but it's hard to sustain quirk success.  I'll admit I'm a bit enthusiastic about the David Lee addition (though we already had a handful of borderline starter power forwards) , but how excited can you really get about a team when the best player is coming off a playoffs appearance where he averaged 8 minutes off the bench and had 8 coach decision DNP's?  Stevens has his work cut out for him and he struggled early last season finding success while balancing an overloaded roster filled with redundancies.

With all due respect, there is absolutely no sense in any of the points / arguments you're trying to make here. 

What All-Star talent did Brooklyn have at the end of the season, that they didn't have in the first half of the season? 

The only guy on the Brooklyn roster who is even CLOSE to being an All-Star talent is Brook Lopez, and for the first time in recent memory he actually played starters minutes  (72 games @ 30 MPG).  You certainly can't try to argue that Thaddeus Young (14 and 5 last season) is an All-Star talent, because that would just be plain trolling.

Also how on earth is Lopez a 20/10 player?  He's he's not averaged 20/10 once in his entire career. The closest he ever came was in 2009/10 when he averaged 18.8 points and 8.6 rebounds.  That 8.6 rebounds was also (for the record) a career high for him, and still is.  Which is downright embarrassing for  a guy with his physical profile (7'1" / 260 pound / 7'5" wingspan) who's entire game is based in the paint.  Once you factor in his size and his style of play, he must seriously be one of the worst rebounding bigs ever to play the game.

Also, if you're going to label Lopez (with his 17 / 7 in 29 minutes) as All-Star talent, then you can't really get away from awarding Isaiah Thomas (with his 19 / 5 in 29 minutes) with the same label.  If you don't then I would love to hear your reason why, since neither player actually made the All-Star team and both put up similar numbers over the course of the season.

Likewise your claim that Joe Johnson is a borderline All-Star is might have been a respectable claim back in 2013/14, but trying to make that argument for last season is quite honestly laughable.  He's 34 years old and his his Per-36 stats from last year (14.9 points, 5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists) were the worst of his career.  He's clearly on the decline and a shadow of his former self, and if those are 'border All-Star' numbers, then you must love our Celtics, because that would mean that Tyler Zeller (17 / 10 / 2.4), Jared Sullinger (17 / 10 / 2.5), Avery Bradley (16 / 3.5 / 2), Kelly Olynyk (16.5 / 7.7 / 2.8 ), Jonas Jerebko (14.1 / 9.6 / 2.0), David Lee (15.5 / 10 / 3.4) and Evan Turner (12.4 / 6.6 / 7.2) are all borderline All-Stars too.

It's simple - Boston turned their record around because they traded out their two greatest on-court liabilities and re-allocated those minutes to guys who had far, far more positive impact.

Advanced stats show that Rondo was one of the NBA's biggest liabilities at his position, with a Real Plus Minus of -3.21 (ranking him 69th out of 84 NBA Point Guards).  When Boston traded him out, they gave those minutes to Marcus Smart (+2.22, 12th among PG) and Isaiah Thomas (+1.45, 21st among PG).  That is a improvement of +5.43 when Smart is on the court, and +4.66 when Thomas is on the court.  Both are HUGE turnarounds, and that type of improvement at the Point Guard spot along is enough to generate a huge improvement as a team.

But if you look at stats shot that Jeff Green you'll see that there was a similar story at the SF spot too.   Green was statistically a major liability for us, with a a RPM of -3.56 ranking him right towards the bottom of NBA Small Forwards (68th out of 80).  When he was traded out his minutes went to a combination of Evan Turner (-1.37, 45th among Shooting Guards), Jae Crowder (-0.44, 29th among Small Forwards) and Jonas Jerebko (+2.6, 14th among Power Forwards).  This was basically a simple case of addition by subtraction, because even though not all of out players actually had a positive RPM, every one of them was a substantial improvemnt over Green regardless of whether it was Turner (+2.19), Crowder  (+3.12) or Jerebko (+6.16) - the improvement at the SF was drastic.

Now if you look at our other starters, we had no real liabilities at the other positions.  We were going just fine at SG (Bradley: -0.34), at PF (Sully: +1.66) and at C (Zeller: +0.58 / Olynyk: +3.50).

Now lets do a very rough calculation of the change between old and new scenario.

Old Roster:
Zeller: +0.58
Sully: +1.66
Green: -3.56
Bradley: -0.34
Rondo: -3.21
Net RPM: -4.87

Old Roster:
Zeller:+0.58
Sully: +1.66
Turner: -1.37
Bradley: -0.34
Smart: +2.22
Net RPM: +2.75

Not obviously this isn't the perfect scientific method for calculating this, but at a quick glance I think this easily demonstrates how the mid seasons trades made by DA could very easily have transformed this team from a really, really bad team to an actually pretty darn good one.

You may like or loathe RPM, but regardless of how you feel I think it's easy for any fan who actually watched the games to see from the eye test that the above makes a lot of sense.  Even when Rondo was on the team, we always seemed to play much better when he came off the court, and Smart came one - we tended to close gaps, build leads, etc.  Likewise I think we all felt like we played much better as a team when we had Turner, Jerebko or Crowder on the court as opposed to when Green was out there.

Now lets look at the Brooklyn trade. 

Brooklyn traded Kevin Garnett to the Timberwolves in exchange for Theddeus Young, right?  Well Kevin Garnett had an RPM last year of  +0.90 (25th among PF) while Theddeus Young had an RPM of +1.20 (18th among Small Forwards). 

So Brooklyn have essentially traded one plus contributor for another slightly more plus' contributor.  This trade improves Brooklyn as a team, but only by +0.3 which is barely (if at all) significant.

Ultimately, that was really the only significant trade that Brooklyn made last year, so that move alone is nowhere near enough (according to stats) to account for Brooklyn's late season surge. 

Now even if you completely ignore the statistics, it's pretty blatantly obvious that Boston made far more in the way or roster changes (trading away two starters) than Brooklyn trading away one starter) did, so no matter how you look at it I cannot understand how you can possible try to argue that Brooklyn's late season surge is a result of roster changes, while Boston's was just a result of "last minute increase in hustle". 

It just makes no sense whatsoever.

Boston clearly made more drastic changes to their roster mid-season than Brooklyn did, so the "roster changes" argument is far more justifiable for Boston than it is for Brooklyn.  It is far more believable that Boston could have made a huge turnaround as a team after all those roster changes, then it is that Brooklyn could have made such a big turnaroud after one small roster change.  Especially if you're only real argument for Brooklyn is based on the the supposed new-found bond between Lopez and Young - yeah, that's very sustainable!

No matter how you look at it, Boston had a better season AND that did more to improve this season.  There is absolutely not a single rational justification as to why anyone would believe that Brooklyn would finish with a better record then Boston this year.  Even if injuries come in to play, Boston has so much depth that their impact would be minimal - while one or two injuries could absolutely cripple the nets.

Neat. I anticipate both brooklyn and Boston to be in the hunt for the last couple playoff seeds in the Least.  It would be a surprise to see either in the bottom 5, but I'd say Boston's success last year was the most flukey for a variety of reasons... thus they are the most likely candidate for a disaster season of the two teams. Of the two teams, Boston's success is the least repeatable.  I think we can all acknowledge that winning games without NBA starters is a heck of an achievement.  Much easier to finish .500 with an all-star low post scorer, 7x all-star shooting guard, and additional veteran starters.

Im going to go ahead and do this for crimson stallion. Lar you just got absolutely owned. Your response is laughable, you make assertions based on nothing in the face of solid rationalized, and quantified observations. TP to you stallion for throwing this in the face of this good old fashioned attempt at a troll.

[TheSundanceKid]

Lopez is 20/10 impact player. Johnson is a borderline all star.

Lopez has NEVER averaged 10 boards a game and in four of the last five seasons, he's pulled down fewer than 7 boards a game.

Last season, Johnson averaged 14.4 pts, 4.8 boards and 3.7 assists.
Jimmy Butler, who did make the all-star team as the third forward after Melo and Bron, averaged 20 pts, 5.8 boards and 3.3 assists.
Johnson isn't a bordeline all-star and hasn't been one for years.  The only thing Johnson was ever exceptional at was scoring and that has been on a serious decline over the past three seasons.

Mike

Whatever fellas.  This is a tired debate.   The "Brooklyn will be a bottom 5 team" thing seems contingent on the idea that Brook lopez will get injured again.  Otherwise, it's not happening.   I'll tell you one well-known NBA executive who apparently agrees with me on this debate... Danny Ainge.   If Ainge believed Brooklyn was a bottom 5 team next year, there's no way he'd be willing to give up that pick (along with a multiple other 1st rounders) to move up a few spots in the 2015 NBA draft... but reportedly, at least one Brooklyn pick was on the table and reportedly Charlotte still didn't think it was enough to move from #9 to #16.   I tell you what, if either Boston or Charlotte believed that Brooklyn was likely to finish bottom 5 this year... Boston was insane to offer that package and Charlotte was even more insane for turning it down. 

This "Brooklyn is terrible" thing is overblown.   THere's a chance it happens, but it's no more likely than Boston itself bottoming out.  I'd guesstimate based on rosters alone, the unprotected Boston pick is more valuable than the unprotected Brooklyn pick.

The offer of the Brooklyn pick was made before Brooklyn's summer moves, which in the opinion of most people has strengthened the value of the pick. That is of course assuming it was the 2016 pick and not the 2018 one, which has far more uncertainty around it.

On the topic of the pick, I'm confident it'll be a lottery pick, probably in the 8-12 range. THe Nets are in the Atlantic division and as such will probably grab a few extra games from people like Philly and New York.

[positivitize]

lets not confuse 'rational, grounded thinking that arrives at a positive result' with 'wishful thinking.'

Just because both are positive doesn't mean they are equivalent.

[Eja117]

Part of the issue is that in the current climate of the NBA a roster like the Nets is good enough to either go to the playoffs or to finish very badly. Not a lot of us would have picked the Heat to miss the playoffs last year or would have foreseen Paul George's injury. Normally we're used to a team with a less good roster tanking but since they don't have their pick it will be very interesting to see what happens.

[MBunge]

Lopez is 20/10 impact player. Johnson is a borderline all star.

Lopez has NEVER averaged 10 boards a game and in four of the last five seasons, he's pulled down fewer than 7 boards a game.

Last season, Johnson averaged 14.4 pts, 4.8 boards and 3.7 assists.
Jimmy Butler, who did make the all-star team as the third forward after Melo and Bron, averaged 20 pts, 5.8 boards and 3.3 assists.
Johnson isn't a bordeline all-star and hasn't been one for years.  The only thing Johnson was ever exceptional at was scoring and that has been on a serious decline over the past three seasons.

Mike

Whatever fellas.  This is a tired debate.   

One of the things that tires everyone is when you support your arguments with claims that range from exaggerations to total nonsense.

If you want to be a contrarian wet blanket, is it too much to ask that you AT LEAST base it on facts?

Mike

[Jon]

Well, I think at the very least we can all agree that we hope the Nets will suck and that they have plenty of misfortune. 

If so, the KG/Pierce deal that Ainge pulls off blows up to Auerbachian proportions. 

[GC003332]

I wouldn't count on Brooklyn sucking.  They finished the season strong.  Brook Lopez and Thad Young made a difference.  I think our pick from them will end up in the 12-17 range.

So...

Boston made a ton of trades around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season as the second hottest team in the Eastern conference.  That was a total fluke, so that success will not carry over to next season. 

Brooklyn made a trade around the All-Star break, and then went on to finish the season strong.  That was because the trade made the team better, and so as a result that success full carry over to next season. 

Got it, sound logic.

From a talent standpoint, Brooklyn's late season success made a lot more sense than Boston's.  Brooklyn played well down the stretch because of allstar talent.  Boston played well down the stretch because of effort and execution driven by a wonder-coach.  Which is more sustainable?   I don't think either will be bottom 5 next year.  But if forced to guess which of the two is most likely to bottom out, it has to be the shakey Boston lineup.  Both picks probably end up 12-17.  Injuries can derail Brooklyn, but if they are healthy they should be a playoff team.  A lot has to go right for Boston to sneak into the playoffs again in spite of their blatant lack of talent, imo. 

On paper, Brooklyn looks solidly mediocre. Lopez is 20/10 impact player. Johnson is a borderline all star. There's talent there.  On paper, Boston sucks. Stevens proved last year he could MacGyver a .500 team out of paperclips and superglue, but it's hard to sustain quirk success.  I'll admit I'm a bit enthusiastic about the David Lee addition (though we already had a handful of borderline starter power forwards) , but how excited can you really get about a team when the best player is coming off a playoffs appearance where he averaged 8 minutes off the bench and had 8 coach decision DNP's?  Stevens has his work cut out for him and he struggled early last season finding success while balancing an overloaded roster filled with redundancies.

With all due respect, there is absolutely no sense in any of the points / arguments you're trying to make here. 

What All-Star talent did Brooklyn have at the end of the season, that they didn't have in the first half of the season? 

The only guy on the Brooklyn roster who is even CLOSE to being an All-Star talent is Brook Lopez, and for the first time in recent memory he actually played starters minutes  (72 games @ 30 MPG).  You certainly can't try to argue that Thaddeus Young (14 and 5 last season) is an All-Star talent, because that would just be plain trolling.

Also how on earth is Lopez a 20/10 player?  He's he's not averaged 20/10 once in his entire career. The closest he ever came was in 2009/10 when he averaged 18.8 points and 8.6 rebounds.  That 8.6 rebounds was also (for the record) a career high for him, and still is.  Which is downright embarrassing for  a guy with his physical profile (7'1" / 260 pound / 7'5" wingspan) who's entire game is based in the paint.  Once you factor in his size and his style of play, he must seriously be one of the worst rebounding bigs ever to play the game.

Also, if you're going to label Lopez (with his 17 / 7 in 29 minutes) as All-Star talent, then you can't really get away from awarding Isaiah Thomas (with his 19 / 5 in 29 minutes) with the same label.  If you don't then I would love to hear your reason why, since neither player actually made the All-Star team and both put up similar numbers over the course of the season.

Likewise your claim that Joe Johnson is a borderline All-Star is might have been a respectable claim back in 2013/14, but trying to make that argument for last season is quite honestly laughable.  He's 34 years old and his his Per-36 stats from last year (14.9 points, 5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists) were the worst of his career.  He's clearly on the decline and a shadow of his former self, and if those are 'border All-Star' numbers, then you must love our Celtics, because that would mean that Tyler Zeller (17 / 10 / 2.4), Jared Sullinger (17 / 10 / 2.5), Avery Bradley (16 / 3.5 / 2), Kelly Olynyk (16.5 / 7.7 / 2.8 ), Jonas Jerebko (14.1 / 9.6 / 2.0), David Lee (15.5 / 10 / 3.4) and Evan Turner (12.4 / 6.6 / 7.2) are all borderline All-Stars too.

It's simple - Boston turned their record around because they traded out their two greatest on-court liabilities and re-allocated those minutes to guys who had far, far more positive impact.

Advanced stats show that Rondo was one of the NBA's biggest liabilities at his position, with a Real Plus Minus of -3.21 (ranking him 69th out of 84 NBA Point Guards).  When Boston traded him out, they gave those minutes to Marcus Smart (+2.22, 12th among PG) and Isaiah Thomas (+1.45, 21st among PG).  That is a improvement of +5.43 when Smart is on the court, and +4.66 when Thomas is on the court.  Both are HUGE turnarounds, and that type of improvement at the Point Guard spot along is enough to generate a huge improvement as a team.

But if you look at stats shot that Jeff Green you'll see that there was a similar story at the SF spot too.   Green was statistically a major liability for us, with a a RPM of -3.56 ranking him right towards the bottom of NBA Small Forwards (68th out of 80).  When he was traded out his minutes went to a combination of Evan Turner (-1.37, 45th among Shooting Guards), Jae Crowder (-0.44, 29th among Small Forwards) and Jonas Jerebko (+2.6, 14th among Power Forwards).  This was basically a simple case of addition by subtraction, because even though not all of out players actually had a positive RPM, every one of them was a substantial improvemnt over Green regardless of whether it was Turner (+2.19), Crowder  (+3.12) or Jerebko (+6.16) - the improvement at the SF was drastic.

Now if you look at our other starters, we had no real liabilities at the other positions.  We were going just fine at SG (Bradley: -0.34), at PF (Sully: +1.66) and at C (Zeller: +0.58 / Olynyk: +3.50).

Now lets do a very rough calculation of the change between old and new scenario.

Old Roster:
Zeller: +0.58
Sully: +1.66
Green: -3.56
Bradley: -0.34
Rondo: -3.21
Net RPM: -4.87

Old Roster:
Zeller:+0.58
Sully: +1.66
Turner: -1.37
Bradley: -0.34
Smart: +2.22
Net RPM: +2.75

Not obviously this isn't the perfect scientific method for calculating this, but at a quick glance I think this easily demonstrates how the mid seasons trades made by DA could very easily have transformed this team from a really, really bad team to an actually pretty darn good one.

You may like or loathe RPM, but regardless of how you feel I think it's easy for any fan who actually watched the games to see from the eye test that the above makes a lot of sense.  Even when Rondo was on the team, we always seemed to play much better when he came off the court, and Smart came one - we tended to close gaps, build leads, etc.  Likewise I think we all felt like we played much better as a team when we had Turner, Jerebko or Crowder on the court as opposed to when Green was out there.

Now lets look at the Brooklyn trade. 

Brooklyn traded Kevin Garnett to the Timberwolves in exchange for Theddeus Young, right?  Well Kevin Garnett had an RPM last year of  +0.90 (25th among PF) while Theddeus Young had an RPM of +1.20 (18th among Small Forwards). 

So Brooklyn have essentially traded one plus contributor for another slightly more plus' contributor.  This trade improves Brooklyn as a team, but only by +0.3 which is barely (if at all) significant.

Ultimately, that was really the only significant trade that Brooklyn made last year, so that move alone is nowhere near enough (according to stats) to account for Brooklyn's late season surge. 

Now even if you completely ignore the statistics, it's pretty blatantly obvious that Boston made far more in the way or roster changes (trading away two starters) than Brooklyn trading away one starter) did, so no matter how you look at it I cannot understand how you can possible try to argue that Brooklyn's late season surge is a result of roster changes, while Boston's was just a result of "last minute increase in hustle". 

It just makes no sense whatsoever.

Boston clearly made more drastic changes to their roster mid-season than Brooklyn did, so the "roster changes" argument is far more justifiable for Boston than it is for Brooklyn.  It is far more believable that Boston could have made a huge turnaround as a team after all those roster changes, then it is that Brooklyn could have made such a big turnaroud after one small roster change.  Especially if you're only real argument for Brooklyn is based on the the supposed new-found bond between Lopez and Young - yeah, that's very sustainable!

No matter how you look at it, Boston had a better season AND that did more to improve this season.  There is absolutely not a single rational justification as to why anyone would believe that Brooklyn would finish with a better record then Boston this year.  Even if injuries come in to play, Boston has so much depth that their impact would be minimal - while one or two injuries could absolutely cripple the nets.

Neat. I anticipate both brooklyn and Boston to be in the hunt for the last couple playoff seeds in the Least.  It would be a surprise to see either in the bottom 5, but I'd say Boston's success last year was the most flukey for a variety of reasons... thus they are the most likely candidate for a disaster season of the two teams. Of the two teams, Boston's success is the least repeatable.  I think we can all acknowledge that winning games without NBA starters is a heck of an achievement.  Much easier to finish .500 with an all-star low post scorer, 7x all-star shooting guard, and additional veteran starters.

Im going to go ahead and do this for crimson stallion. Lar you just got absolutely owned. Your response is laughable, you make assertions based on nothing in the face of solid rationalized, and quantified observations. TP to you stallion for throwing this in the face of this good old fashioned attempt at a troll.

TP  for calling out LarBrd33

It's view on whether David Lee had 8 DNP's or David Lee Roth had 8 DNP's or Macgvyer cut his fingers with paperclips or developed a glue sniffing addiction , or Boston has no starters or Marty Macfly used a time machine to transport the 85 Celtics starting lineup to the present day has no relevance to whether Brooklyn will be terrible enough to give the Celtics a top 5 pick. I got a good laugh out of it too
I am slightly disappointed that it failed to give mention of Jerry Hozier though ha ha