First time poster but longtime fan and follower of celticsblog.

Many are familiar with the time value of money concept - the idea that generally speaking a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. 

I've always been interested in how this applies to sports.  In football, the general rule of thumb seems to be that if you want my 4th round draft pick now (let's say the middle pick of the middle round), you would have to give me a 3rd round pick next year.  I've always found this cost to be prohibitive but that is another topic.  In football this is particularly meaningful where depth is very important and there are roughly 22 starters. 

So how about in basketball.  I would suggest that in basketball it is possible that there is no curve/discounting/time value at the top of the draft and sometimes even a negative time value.  It depends on the quality at the top of the draft.  In basketball there are only five starters and in the playoffs it seems they play a lot of the minutes.  Also one player can have a huge impact on the outcome of the game.  Westbrook, Harden, LBJ, Curry, Kawhi, and Durant were all on playoff teams and a couple of them have won titles.  This is not to say that one player = championship.  But it seems the object of the draft is to get a franchise dominant player.  The web-site fivethiryeight.com had an interesting article that addressed this "Do the Celtics have enough star power to win a title? Not yet."

 https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do-the-celtics-have-enough-star-power-to-win-a-title-not-yet/

Their point, the C's have a bunch of very good players but not enough great players.

So it seems to me that if the goal is to only go after studs, what really matters is getting lottery picks in drafts where there are transformational prospects.  I think it is perfectly logical in basketball to trade the #3 pick this year for the hypothetical #4 pick next year if you feel next years draft gives you a meaningful shot at the next great player.  It is still hard to do because the average fan doesn't want to wait.  Many of us including me crave instant gratification on some level.  Based on this, I'm a fan of what Ainge has been doing.  I don't think the C's can win their current big 3 and Ainge seems to keep putting the team in a position for a shot at a great player (Brown, Tatum, Net's '18, Lakers/Sac '18/'19).

In any case I'm curious if other Celtic fans think about the value of a top draft pick this year vs a potential top draft pick next year and that maybe the general strategy should be geared around finding the next great player.