Danny said he is not trading the pick for anyone in their 30s. Maybe you don't believe him and things can/do change but I hope he is being honest this time.
This is my point. In 2007, we had Pierce. Putting 30+ aged players around Pierce made sense. Putting 30+ aged players around anyone on this team makes no sense to me. We need to shoot for a longer horizon for a few reasons.
Well as others have said, Thomas is a 27 year old all-star... which is the same age Pierce was at when we traded for 32 year old Ray Allen.
If you could add Melo to this 48 win team, and have max cap space to sign a Horford/Howard/DeRozan ... how many wins could that team get? And keep in mind we'd still have a major bounty of assets available if a guy like DeMarcus Cousins finally becomes available or demands a trade.
As I said in another post, it's a unique situation, because the cap jumps another 20 million in 2017. So we're looking at a free agent class that would include guys like Curry, Westbrook, Blake, Chris Paul, Hayward, Lowry, and possibly even Durant if he stays one more year as expected. And even by trading for Melo and signing a max player, we'd still have room to go after one of those guys next Summer. Having a 55+ win team probably puts us in good position to lure one, right?
I wrote a piece two weeks ago where I basically rejected the idea that the team even needs to land a star to lure free agents:
http://clnsradio.com/boston-celtics-news/item/13678-boston-celtics-why-not-build-a-big-5To counter that, I now wanted to explore the alternative. If we really DO need a star to attract stars... and guys like Butler/George/Cousins aren't realistic - what would a realistic outcome actually look like? Well, I suspect it would look a lot like 2007 when we traded a top 5 pick for a 32 year old with injury problems. Thus... Melo or Marc Gasol are the two guys that come to mind when thinking of a 2016 doppelganger for the 2007 offseason.