I'd feel a good amount worse. The concern that the team was heading towards a plateau or becoming a "treadmill team" would be much greater & real.
So are you guys telling me that without the Brooklyn picks, you'd have wanted Boston to tank this past season ? You'd be unsatisified with tying for 3rd seed in the East and potentially adding 50 million dollars worth of talent to a team that already is loaded with youth, has multiple picks (16, 23, 31, 35, etc) and sent one player to the allstar game?
Where the hell did I say that?
You didn't explicitly say it. But if folks would feel bad about a non-Brooklyn picky team that is in the midst of being in a treadmill situation, it sort of connotates that the team would be better off tanking for high draft picks.
We know that's silly though. Even in a potential treadmill situation, Boston would still have trade assets like #16, #23, #31, #35, all their future 1sts, the future Memphis pick, Marcus Smart, and a host of recently selected youth in the 1st round (Rozier, Mickey, young, Hunter) to trade for a star + 50 million dollars in cap space to sign talent with.
Compare that to the treadmill Celtics of the early 00s. No quality youth outside of Walker/Pierce. Limited draft picks. No cap space. It's only a treadmill situation if there's no path to improvement. And even without that path, Ainge turned it into a champion within 3-5 years.
Even without the Brooklyn picks, we'd be in arguably better position than the team had been prior to KG. It would be hard to be down on a team that tied for 3rd, had tons of trade assets, and massive space to sign impact talent.
Overall point is, I'm not going to lose sleep over the pick ending up 6th tonight. Whatever. We don't even need that pick to make upgrades.
The early 00's Celtics had Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker. Two players better than anyone currently on the team. Boston had the 10th, 11th, and 21st picks in the 2001 draft. Wasted two of those picks on Kedrick Brown and Joseph Forte and gave up on the other mid way through his rookie year. That player was Joe Johnson. The three players selected after Brown were in order, Vladimir Radmanovic, Richard Jefferson, and Troy Murphy. Many people on this board and within the Celtics organization wanted to draft Tony Parker instead of Forte. It is believed that Red loved Forte and Boston went with him to appease Red.
Fwiw, they only won 36 games before ending up with picks 10, 11 and 21. They won 49 games in-part, because they traded guys like Joe Johnson midway through that season for contributors like Rodney Rodgers. I hated the move at the time, but it highlights how worse they were than this team. They needed to give up prospects like Johnson (as well as their 2002 1st rounder) to get vets like Rogers and Delk in order to reach 49 wins. By the time they go there, they had little to show for it... Rogers left within a year and Phoenix had our 2002 1st round pick.
So actually, by attempting to show how much better off that 2002 team was, you actually just magnified just how significantly worse it was.
Outside of Walker and Pierce, the best player was 31 year old Kenny Anderson, 29 year old Eric Williams and 25 year old Tonnie Battie. Rodney Rogers was no longer on the roster. The only player under the age of 24 was 20 year old bust Kedrick Brown (who was a reach even when we selected him) and the aforementioned Joe Forte. The team was over the cap. They had no 1st round picks. They lost Rogers to free agency. Just to tread water, they moved Forte, Potapenko and Kenny Anderson for alcoholic Vin Baker.
SO yeah... compare that to this 48 win team built around all-star Isaiah Thomas and capable players like Bradley and Crowder... Our core will remain mostly in-tact. We have oodles of youth, multiple first rounders, 50 million dollars in cap space - all without the Brooklyn picks. It's no context... this team is in DRAMATICALLY better shape than the 49 win Celtic team that entered the Summer of 2002.
Your are going from the wrong point though. You need to go before the 2001 draft. T
Why would I go before the 2001 draft (in which the Celtics came off a 36 win season and had finished in the lotto for 8 straight years), when I'm attempting to compare this team to the one that finished with 49 wins in 2002?
The team that finished the season with 49 wins had:
Antoine Walker, Paul Pierce, Kenny Anderson, Eric Williams, Tony Battie, Vitaly Potapenko,
Rodney Rogers, Tony Delk, Walter McCarty, Joe Forte.
No first round pick in the draft.
No cap space.
Rogers left in free agency. Potapenko, Forte and Anderson were traded for Vin Baker, but that was in the middle of the Summer.
I'm not talking about "coulda/shouldas" of keeping Johnson. That negates the entire point of highlighting that 49 win team. If we're dealing in "coulda/shoulda's" I could just say "what if Boston had landed the #2 pick in 2007 and selected Durant... then blah blah blah". Or more accurately, I could say "What if in 1996, the Celtics had traded #6 to Charlotte for #13 and #16 and selected Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O'Neal... and then the next year kept Billups at #3 and traded down #5 to select Tracy McGrady and then, blah blah blah". It's irrelevant. The point was to highlight the team that finished with the best record in the 1993-2007 stretch - that team no longer had Johnson and their only outlet for "improvement" was to trade their best prospect (Forte) and their starting PG (Anderson) for Vin Baker.
My point is that we are coming off a 48 win season. If you want to find the best season of the 1993-2007 Celtics, it's the 2002 team that finished with 49 wins. That team had no first round pick. That team had no cap space. That team had traded away Joe Johnson for Rodney Rogers. That's the team that finished with 49 wins. And this team is in better position than that team. Multiple 1st round picks, multiple youth (including Marcus Smart, who was significantly more valuable than any under-24 year old player left on the 2002 Celtics as they entered the offseason), and 50 million dollars in cap space.
As mkogav points out, it's unlikely we sign a 1st-tier star with the 50 mil in cap space, but 2nd-tier talent is certainly in play. He suggested Derozan and Horford. Consider a player like Derozan for a minute. He's a 26 year old coming off a season averaging: 23.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal with 45%/34%/85% shooting in 35.6mpg
Compare that to what Paul Pierce (a player who was necessary to win 49 games in 2002) did at age 26 (with minutes dropped to a Derozan-esque 36): 21.3 points, 6.1 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.5 steals with 40%/30%/82% shooting
Could Derozan give you 80% of what 26 year old Pierce Pierce had? 70%? It doesn't matter... because what happens if you add 70% of Paul Pierce to a team that already was arguably better than the 2002 team Pierce played for?
What happens if you then add a guy like Al Horford?
What happens if you then trade #16, #23, #31, #35, Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier (all of which are better trade assets than the 2002 Celtics had at their disposal) for an "upgrade"?
Yeah... even without the Brooklyn pick, this team is in significantly better position than the one that won 49 in 2002.
Topic: How would you feel about the team if we had no Brooklyn picks (Read 6738 times)