Once Hayward went down, I was actually thinking to myself that the Celtics should tank and wanted to start a topic about it.. Just figured people would go ballistic on me around here.
This is my reasoning, we have no shot. People could argue we never had a shot, which I agree with, difference being finishing 1-2 in the east and losing in the ECF (or finals) still would be a great season for us and make Boston a 'go to' destination.
Now we're looking at a 5-7 seed (IMO) and a possible first round exit. So what did we achieve? Young guys got experience yadda yadda yadda. Boston might still be a desirable destination in this scenario, but at the same token a lot of teams got stronger and we got worse, so maybe in that regard we take a step back in the free agent market. Oh wait "but Gordon is coming back next year, we'll be at the top again, players will want to come here" Who knows if he'll ever be the same player again.
Reason for tanking, we get a good draft pick, young guys are still getting a ton of minutes albeit not playoff minutes. We now have another desirable asset to move (our own pick) for a guy like AD if and when he becomes available, and if he doesn't we have another high draft pick to make up for the one we just gave to Cleveland in the Kyrie trade. If Hayward doesn't come back at full strength thats 130mil we have tied up for another 3 years. We need to go back and consider building this team through the draft. Essentially the new big three attempt is done, do you think Kyrie is going to keep his word and resign with a hobbled Hayward and a aging Horford as our core? and now we have a Chandler Parsons situation on our hands with Hayward.
Obviously I don't want to tank, nor do I think this team would.. but there are legitimate reasons why we should.