Author Topic: What fans are actually saying when they express disappointment this offseason  (Read 13565 times)

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Offline Evantime34

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What fans who express disappointment are saying is that they think we could have done better. I think it has a lot less to do with not liking the moves we made (except for the Tatum/Fultz trade), but more about wishing we could have gotten George or Butler.

I love what we have done this offseason, but I can admit the offseason could have been better. The problem is, if you judge things by whether the ideal outcome occurred then you will be disappointed almost every time.

There is a large subset of people on this board who seem to hate every single move the Celtics make, but most of the time people react that way because they are comparing our moves to perfection and that's hard to achieve.
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Offline kozlodoev

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I see that as a misunderstanding when fans are expressing disappointment.
Of course they are right when they complain Horford or Hayward are not worth max. But it's a lack of understanding the market right now.
Given the situation, everybody should be happy to have them on max contract.
Same goes for trading #1. It doesn't matter who end up better between Fultz and Tatum, everybody has to realize the big picture (value of Tatum + a good future pick) and more cap space for FA planning.
So we should be happy we whiffed on Durant?

You don't know what "whiffing" means.

Ending up 2nd in the running for a first-ballot Hall of Fame free agent isn't a whiff. The Knicks whiffed. The Nets whiffed. There are 28 other teams who failed so miserably they weren't even in the discussion.

What Danny did was hit a deep shot to the warning track. And you know what? If you hit enough of those, some of them end up being home runs.
I got it. When we sign someone, massive success. But when we don't, oh well, no problem, we tried. I guess that makes it very hard to be disappointed.

Not to mention that your argument about the 28 other teams falls rather short. Not everyone strategized for being able to offer multiple max contracts last summer.

No, but there were no fewer than 22 who could have offered Durant max money.

I guess you're only happy when you're complaining...mostly about nothing.
I would advise you not to put too much stock in the highly unrealistic "maximum projected cap space" figure. There were perhaps half a dozen of teams who could have realistically offered max to Durant ($31 million).

That's of course largely tangential to the point that apparently we're supposed to be grateful that we were able to spend a quarter of our cap space on Hayward, but not disappointed that we missed on Durant. I guess criticism of the front office will be frowned upon until we revert to something as obviously bad as the Gaston days. Ah well.
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Offline moiso

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I see that as a misunderstanding when fans are expressing disappointment.
Of course they are right when they complain Horford or Hayward are not worth max. But it's a lack of understanding the market right now.
Given the situation, everybody should be happy to have them on max contract.
Same goes for trading #1. It doesn't matter who end up better between Fultz and Tatum, everybody has to realize the big picture (value of Tatum + a good future pick) and more cap space for FA planning.
So we should be happy we whiffed on Durant?

You don't know what "whiffing" means.

Ending up 2nd in the running for a first-ballot Hall of Fame free agent isn't a whiff. The Knicks whiffed. The Nets whiffed. There are 28 other teams who failed so miserably they weren't even in the discussion.

What Danny did was hit a deep shot to the warning track. And you know what? If you hit enough of those, some of them end up being home runs.
I got it. When we sign someone, massive success. But when we don't, oh well, no problem, we tried. I guess that makes it very hard to be disappointed.

Not to mention that your argument about the 28 other teams falls rather short. Not everyone strategized for being able to offer multiple max contracts last summer.

No, but there were no fewer than 22 who could have offered Durant max money.

I guess you're only happy when you're complaining...mostly about nothing.
I would advise you not to put too much stock in the highly unrealistic "maximum projected cap space" figure. There were perhaps half a dozen of teams who could have realistically offered max to Durant ($31 million).

That's of course largely tangential to the point that apparently we're supposed to be grateful that we were able to spend a quarter of our cap space on Hayward, but not disappointed that we missed on Durant. I guess criticism of the front office will be frowned upon until we revert to something as obviously bad as the Gaston days. Ah well.
Why should we want to be disappointed?  You mention it twice in this group of posts.  We are disappointed when we are actually disappointed at something, not when you tell us we should be disappointed. 

Offline kozlodoev

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I see that as a misunderstanding when fans are expressing disappointment.
Of course they are right when they complain Horford or Hayward are not worth max. But it's a lack of understanding the market right now.
Given the situation, everybody should be happy to have them on max contract.
Same goes for trading #1. It doesn't matter who end up better between Fultz and Tatum, everybody has to realize the big picture (value of Tatum + a good future pick) and more cap space for FA planning.
So we should be happy we whiffed on Durant?

You don't know what "whiffing" means.

Ending up 2nd in the running for a first-ballot Hall of Fame free agent isn't a whiff. The Knicks whiffed. The Nets whiffed. There are 28 other teams who failed so miserably they weren't even in the discussion.

What Danny did was hit a deep shot to the warning track. And you know what? If you hit enough of those, some of them end up being home runs.
I got it. When we sign someone, massive success. But when we don't, oh well, no problem, we tried. I guess that makes it very hard to be disappointed.

Not to mention that your argument about the 28 other teams falls rather short. Not everyone strategized for being able to offer multiple max contracts last summer.

No, but there were no fewer than 22 who could have offered Durant max money.

I guess you're only happy when you're complaining...mostly about nothing.
I would advise you not to put too much stock in the highly unrealistic "maximum projected cap space" figure. There were perhaps half a dozen of teams who could have realistically offered max to Durant ($31 million).

That's of course largely tangential to the point that apparently we're supposed to be grateful that we were able to spend a quarter of our cap space on Hayward, but not disappointed that we missed on Durant. I guess criticism of the front office will be frowned upon until we revert to something as obviously bad as the Gaston days. Ah well.
Why should we want to be disappointed?  You mention it twice in this group of posts.  We are disappointed when we are actually disappointed at something, not when you tell us we should be disappointed.
I'm disappointed that our huge resource in the form of cap space, draft picks, and large expiring contracts to send out in a trade has only yielded two second-bananas on max contracts so far. This can of course change down the road, but so far we're almost at the bare minimum in my book.

How you feel is up to you.
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Offline Boris Badenov

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I got it. When we sign someone, massive success. But when we don't, oh well, no problem, we tried. I guess that makes it very hard to be disappointed.

Not to mention that your argument about the 28 other teams falls rather short. Not everyone strategized for being able to offer multiple max contracts last summer.

No, but there were no fewer than 22 who could have offered Durant max money.

I guess you're only happy when you're complaining...mostly about nothing.
I would advise you not to put too much stock in the highly unrealistic "maximum projected cap space" figure. There were perhaps half a dozen of teams who could have realistically offered max to Durant ($31 million).

That's of course largely tangential to the point that apparently we're supposed to be grateful that we were able to spend a quarter of our cap space on Hayward, but not disappointed that we missed on Durant. I guess criticism of the front office will be frowned upon until we revert to something as obviously bad as the Gaston days. Ah well.

The fact that other teams didn't have max room to pursue Durant (and another max free agent), and we did, is a point in Danny Ainge's favor and not something that diminishes how close we got. You understand that right?

As far as the other stuff, this shouldn't be hard to understand but it's possible for someone to, at the same time, be (a) grateful we got Horford, (b) really disappointed we didn't get Durant, (c) encouraged by the fact that we got closer to Durant than everyone except a team that's been averaging 70 wins a year, and (d) pretty happy that we ended up with the next season's best free agent who's a legit All-Star in his prime. We are clearly a top free agent destination at this point, and it's happened over the last two years, and "whiffing" on Durant was evidence in favor of it not against it.

Like Moiso said, you are more generally mind-reading about how everyone else feels, in a really binary and simplistic fashion, and making up hogwash like Gordon Hayward being "injury-prone" just to troll everyone. It's beyond tiring.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2017, 01:15:38 PM by Boris Badenov »

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I'm probably gonna get blasted for this but....

Blaming management for not picking a direction as to why fans are disappointed is a bit delusional. Ainge and co. want to win, plain and simple. They are putting together a team that is competitive now and hopefully in the future. They are gonna try and keep putting together the most complete team they can every single season. To expect them to put all their eggs in a single basket of now or later is silly when they can have their cake and eat it too! I don't believe there is some magic formula of trading for a superstar or tanking your way to young superstars. Maybe one of those paths becomes more evident as time progresses but right now the Celtics are dealt a hand that allows them to have the best of both worlds. A shot at being in the finals and a bright future. And who knows... maybe both of those worlds come together in a couple years for a title.

The real reason fans are disappointed is because they are Boston based sports fans. Pretty whinny bunch. Boston sports fans have a long of history of whoa is me syndrome and no number of recent championships seems to be able to stem that attitude. I'm never embarrassed to be rooting for the Celtics or Patriots or Red Sox, but I'm often embarrassed to be lumped into the fan base. Sorry, if that insults some of you.

Or perhaps its just really hard to guess what Ainge is gonna do and people are dissaponted when he doesn't do it their way  :)

Offline Atzar

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I'm probably gonna get blasted for this but....

Blaming management for not picking a direction as to why fans are disappointed is a bit delusional. Ainge and co. want to win, plain and simple. They are putting together a team that is competitive now and hopefully in the future. They are gonna try and keep putting together the most complete team they can every single season. To expect them to put all their eggs in a single basket of now or later is silly when they can have their cake and eat it too! I don't believe there is some magic formula of trading for a superstar or tanking your way to young superstars. Maybe one of those paths becomes more evident as time progresses but right now the Celtics are dealt a hand that allows them to have the best of both worlds. A shot at being in the finals and a bright future. And who knows... maybe both of those worlds come together in a couple years for a title.

The real reason fans are disappointed is because they are Boston based sports fans. Pretty whinny bunch. Boston sports fans have a long of history of whoa is me syndrome and no number of recent championships seems to be able to stem that attitude. I'm never embarrassed to be rooting for the Celtics or Patriots or Red Sox, but I'm often embarrassed to be lumped into the fan base. Sorry, if that insults some of you.

Or perhaps its just really hard to guess what Ainge is gonna do and people are dissaponted when he doesn't do it their way  :)

In fairness, every fanbase that actually cares is unreasonable.  It's not just a New England thing. 

Offline ThePaintedArea

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Hayward is ... a two-way player, a good shooter/passer, rebounds solidly, has prototypical size, and can playmake a little.

I think that you've both underestimated and overestimated him here.

Two-way player? Not really, but he's adequate/average on defense.

Good shooter/passer? I'd say outstanding/very good.

Rebounds solidly? Nothing special.

Prototypical size? In some ways better: 7-foot wingspan.

Can playmake a little? Here I think you are drastically underestimating him.  He's very good, and does it with an extremely low turnover rate. Combine that with his ultra-efficient scoring, and he's someone you want to give the ball to; he makes his teammates better.

Maybe he's not going to be the primary option on a great team, but he can certainly be the 2nd one. He doesn't have any obvious flaws, he just doesn't happen to be a full-time SG or PF.

Since we've apparently entered the world of ball-handlers/wings/swings and bigs, the need for a full-time SG or PF does not appear to be urgent; in fact Avery Bradley, who does not have good position versatility, became a casualty of the revamped roster.

As for primary and secondary options, again I think that you are underestimating Gordon, since so many good things happen when he's got the ball.  But the reality in the NBA in 2017 is that the hierarchy of "options" is less relevant than it ever has been, the value of ball and man movement being now at its peak in the history of the pro game.


Offline kozlodoev

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I'm probably gonna get blasted for this but....

Blaming management for not picking a direction as to why fans are disappointed is a bit delusional. Ainge and co. want to win, plain and simple.
No-one is blaming the management for picking a direction, we're talking about how well the management is doing in the use of  the resources they have at hand.
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Offline obnoxiousmime

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If you want to criticize, I wouldn't look at the problem of current stars. I'd be worried that the BKN pick honeymoon would have passed without us getting at least one superduper star. Sure, we love Brown and Tatum (the less said about James Young the better) but it's not clear either has the ability to become a top 10 guy in the league. At least those two have shown enough so you could make a case both could be a piece in a deal for a star, I guess. Yay, we've got two Al Jeffersons!

Good Post. Your last paragraph nails it as far as I am concerned.  The "Promise" ever since the painful (at the time) trading of PP and KG was about acquiring assets which could then be be used to create a new "Big 3".  The problem is that even picking top 5 in the draft year after year, does not always pay off.  Not every draft has a KAT and it really is a crapshoot when dealing with 18 and 19 year olds.

I think Ainge has drafted fairly well at the top of the draft.  I like Smart, Brown and Tatum.  None look close to being potential franchise players (yet) though. In fact none may even be starters this year.  Just last week we had people on these very boards talking about "dumping Smart's salary" to accomodate Hayward's salary. I read the reports about Danny shopping Smart around to the Knicks and other teams.  He is 23 years old, and a pure warrior trying find consistency in his shot. Giving up on him at this stage is ridiculous.

So if we are in a cycle of hype pre-draft ... only to start slagging players through trade rumors after 2 or 3 years .... and worse, to not nett a true superstar back in these efforts .... becomes a very frustrating experience.

At some point Ainge needs to define the team and hand the reigns over to CBS.  Let CBS foster a team identity, and the players grow into it.  This is very hard to do,  when nobody, including the players themselves, know who will be on the roster next month, week or year. 

I can understand Jae Crowders frustration. The guy busts his butt every game, but is not appreciated because every rumor has him being replaced for something new and shiny. I suspect a lot of players feel that way.

Ainge either needs to either make his move and then sit back and watch CBS do his thing or he needs to sit back, stop feeding the rumor mill and let CBS develop the younger players, and commit to those who perform.

The constant chaos is not good for the organization and leads to cycles of raised expectations followed by disappointment within the fan base.

You're right, and that's why not drafting Fultz was such a disappointment. Finally we were in position to draft someone everyone deemed as actually being a special player and Ainge decided to go in a different direction. We won't know for sure if it was a good move for a few years, especially since the pick hasn't been conveyed. I actually do believe next year's draft is better at the top, but we'll see.

In terms of continuity, I think the Celtics have been allright when you consider the team is still only a few years past from starting the rebuild. He traded Rondo, but that was expected. Turner priced himself out. He got an unbelievable 1st rounder for Crawford. Guys like Smart, Olynyk, and Sullinger played/will play out all four years of their rookie deals. Everyone else was always temporary, which is why they were on short-term deals with options (Zeller, Johnson, Jerebko).

I think now the team is pretty much set for two years with the exception of someone like Anthony Davis unexpectedly becoming available. After that, Hayward, Horford, and Brown's contracts will all have only a year remaining, so some decisions will have to be made.

Offline kmart12

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I see that as a misunderstanding when fans are expressing disappointment.
Of course they are right when they complain Horford or Hayward are not worth max. But it's a lack of understanding the market right now.
Given the situation, everybody should be happy to have them on max contract.
Same goes for trading #1. It doesn't matter who end up better between Fultz and Tatum, everybody has to realize the big picture (value of Tatum + a good future pick) and more cap space for FA planning.
So we should be happy we whiffed on Durant?

You don't know what "whiffing" means.

Ending up 2nd in the running for a first-ballot Hall of Fame free agent isn't a whiff. The Knicks whiffed. The Nets whiffed. There are 28 other teams who failed so miserably they weren't even in the discussion.

What Danny did was hit a deep shot to the warning track. And you know what? If you hit enough of those, some of them end up being home runs.
I got it. When we sign someone, massive success. But when we don't, oh well, no problem, we tried. I guess that makes it very hard to be disappointed.

Not to mention that your argument about the 28 other teams falls rather short. Not everyone strategized for being able to offer multiple max contracts last summer.

No, but there were no fewer than 22 who could have offered Durant max money.

I guess you're only happy when you're complaining...mostly about nothing.
I would advise you not to put too much stock in the highly unrealistic "maximum projected cap space" figure. There were perhaps half a dozen of teams who could have realistically offered max to Durant ($31 million).

That's of course largely tangential to the point that apparently we're supposed to be grateful that we were able to spend a quarter of our cap space on Hayward, but not disappointed that we missed on Durant. I guess criticism of the front office will be frowned upon until we revert to something as obviously bad as the Gaston days. Ah well.
Why should we want to be disappointed?  You mention it twice in this group of posts.  We are disappointed when we are actually disappointed at something, not when you tell us we should be disappointed.
I'm disappointed that our huge resource in the form of cap space, draft picks, and large expiring contracts to send out in a trade has only yielded two second-bananas on max contracts so far. This can of course change down the road, but so far we're almost at the bare minimum in my book.

How you feel is up to you.

TP and this is a great way to sum up how I feel about the situation as well. I get that we want to win but it's okay to be realistic and understand that we've utilized our "assets" to acquire an underwhelming cast of supporting stars.

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I'm probably gonna get blasted for this but....

Blaming management for not picking a direction as to why fans are disappointed is a bit delusional. Ainge and co. want to win, plain and simple.
No-one is blaming the management for picking a direction, we're talking about how well the management is doing in the use of  the resources they have at hand.

At some point Ainge needs to define the team and hand the reigns over to CBS.  Let CBS foster a team identity, and the players grow into it.  This is very hard to do,  when nobody, including the players themselves, know who will be on the roster next month, week or year. 

This is a quote from mutineer and obnoxiosmime conversation. Sounds like they want Ainge to pick a direction so... speak for yourself. When you state "no-one" in the future I will read it as "kozlodoev"

That being said, how you use resources and picking a direction are two sides of the same coin. The Celtics have resources. They use them in a certain way, i.e. drafting, trading or free agent spending. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

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I'm probably gonna get blasted for this but....

Blaming management for not picking a direction as to why fans are disappointed is a bit delusional. Ainge and co. want to win, plain and simple. They are putting together a team that is competitive now and hopefully in the future. They are gonna try and keep putting together the most complete team they can every single season. To expect them to put all their eggs in a single basket of now or later is silly when they can have their cake and eat it too! I don't believe there is some magic formula of trading for a superstar or tanking your way to young superstars. Maybe one of those paths becomes more evident as time progresses but right now the Celtics are dealt a hand that allows them to have the best of both worlds. A shot at being in the finals and a bright future. And who knows... maybe both of those worlds come together in a couple years for a title.

The real reason fans are disappointed is because they are Boston based sports fans. Pretty whinny bunch. Boston sports fans have a long of history of whoa is me syndrome and no number of recent championships seems to be able to stem that attitude. I'm never embarrassed to be rooting for the Celtics or Patriots or Red Sox, but I'm often embarrassed to be lumped into the fan base. Sorry, if that insults some of you.

Or perhaps its just really hard to guess what Ainge is gonna do and people are dissaponted when he doesn't do it their way  :)

In fairness, every fanbase that actually cares is unreasonable.  It's not just a New England thing.

Fair enough. Every fan base has expectations and standards. TP to you friend. The difference is that when things go well most other fan bases are happy. New England fans almost always have something to complain about.

90% of NBA fan bases would love to be in the situation the Celtics are in. Celtics fans would rather whine about what management has done wrong putting together a top two team in it's conference that has the potential to stick for years than be happy and excited.

Offline Scintan

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When people say Hayward isn't worth a max deal, or that we should have gotten both him and George, or that we should have drafted Fultz, or wonder why we didn't keep Bradley, what they're really saying is that they don't see our present core as being good enough to win a title. To go further, what they're saying is they don't see Thomas, Horford, and Hayward on max deals as being enough to legitimately challenge the Cavs, much less the Warriors. To that I ask, what available magical player would have turned this team into a contender?

We couldn't keep Bradley and Thomas - it wasn't going to happen, but then we need Bradley because he guards opposing PGs and protects Thomas. Why doesn't anybody criticize Thomas for this? Guards who can shoot and also defend at a high level are very rare and expensive, so if playing Thomas always requires that kind of player next to him, having to build a contender around Thomas is always going to be difficult.

The disappointment in not getting Fultz is also tied to this. He had the shot and body/athleticism to eventually become a well rounded guard.

Horford was an important signing, because he was the first free agent to come here. That makes him absolutely worth the money. Whether we can build a contender around his contract is a separate issue, one we didn't have to consider a year ago. When people say we need a rebounder, we need a power forward, we need someone who can score more consistently inside/out, and what about switching 1-5 defensively, what they're really saying is we need somebody to make up for what Horford doesn't bring.

That, in the end, is the problem: We need certain types of players next to Thomas and Horford that make up for their deficiencies. Without those players, there is a ceiling on how good this team can be.

If anything, Hayward is the MOST worthy of a max deal of the three. He's a two-way player, a good shooter/passer, rebounds solidly, has prototypical size, and can playmake a little. Maybe he's not going to be the primary option on a great team, but he can certainly be the 2nd one. He doesn't have any obvious flaws, he just doesn't happen to be a full-time SG or PF.

I know that a lot of teams are now going into luxury tax territory in a bid to compete with the elite teams and there may be that expectation the Celtics do as well. However, I don't see any of the teams that made moves as having a realistic shot at beating the Warriors, barring a serious injury. When they're met with that reality and cannot improve their team anymore, they'll be stuck. The Celtics won't be stuck for the next few years because of the asset pool they've accumulated.

The other issue is we're basing our standard of a contending team on the Warriors, which quite frankly is an unrealistic bar to reach. The Warriors already won this battle when they locked up Green, Thompson, and Curry to long-term below-market deals BEFORE the cap spike, then added Durant who is also taking a $10 million haircut next season. Trying to match up with them now is like entering a game midway and having to play with different rules than your opponent. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that trying to be competitive with them is really a battle plan you needed to have started 5 years ago, not today.

It's not just the cap spike, but because we're trying to cheat the traditional "rebuild." Golden State built "correctly" by drafting well and locking up their guys long term, then adding one star FA. Because those 3 players were drafted by them, they were able to sign them long term to favorable deals while they were still in their early-mid 20s. The Celtics are trying to build a team of stars already on their third contracts, at 30% maxes and older than a guy on his post-rookie second contract. That's always going to be harder, especially if you start paying too much for multiple guys in their 30s, when players generally start to decline. This also typically makes your window a lot smaller.

OK, so if we've established that the Warriors standard is unrealistic and greatly assisted by an anomalous cap spike that won't happen anytime soon again, then all of a sudden the Celtics are looking downright miraculous in their rebuild. Out of the other teams contending for 2nd place, we are in a great position.

If you want to criticize, I wouldn't look at the problem of current stars. I'd be worried that the BKN pick honeymoon would have passed without us getting at least one superduper star. Sure, we love Brown and Tatum (the less said about James Young the better) but it's not clear either has the ability to become a top 10 guy in the league. At least those two have shown enough so you could make a case both could be a piece in a deal for a star, I guess. Yay, we've got two Al Jeffersons!

No, that's not it.


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Offline PickNRoll

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Fans can whine about the particulars of a given deal, but the fact is that Ainge and management have knocked it out of the park during this insta-rebuild.  The Celtics are in the most enviable position of any team in the league, IMO, and that includes GSW.

We get to watch Hayward, Tatum, Horford and Brown for at least the next 3 years -- Tatum for the better part of a decade and he looks like a shoe-in All-star.  We have 7 first round picks over the next 3 years.  We have a roster full of selfless, high-character guys.  We have a top-3 coach who is committed long-term.  We have zero bad contracts and a couple of the best contracts in the entire league.  A+++ job by Ainge.  Fans that are disappointed are just filling the empty idea space.