What is Ainge's plan for 3, 4 or 5 years down the road?

[Havlicek17]

I think Danny's plan is to stay with the current title contenders for the next 2 to 3 years. Yeah, that means not participating in the FA class of 2010. But stop your whining, because the teams that are hoping that class will pay off are trying to get from being scrubs to playing competitively with our current team. Then in 2 or 3 years, most likely Danny will rebuild through trading the assets we do have. That's why drafting well is important. This notion of somehow getting a max FA to sign with the Celts may be possible, but to build a plan around it seems like a stretch to me. The odds are, it ain't going to happen. Let's say we have a 50/50 shot at Wade for example, is 50% good enough to build a plan around? I don't think so, and I think the odds of getting your FA target are actually much less than 50/50.

The current team was built by good drafting of assets, with a few keepers and trades. Most teams are built this way. You rarely get a franchise player through free agency. It just doesn't happen.

We have two young starters in Rondo and Perk. We don't need a whole remake of the team. If we could add one young max quality SG, SF, or PF through the draft or via trade, then I think we'd have a good solid core for the future, and could bridge the gap between now and then very well thank you.

[tfmiii]

how about sending ray to Phoenix
phoenix sending richardson and barbosa to Miami
and Miami sending wade and d wright to Boston

there's a plan for years 1-5

edit: at the deadline of course

[CelticFaninLBC]

An indication of the plan was when they let Posey walk and signed Sheed for 2 years. They're going to dip into free agency during Durant's year..

Actually that essentially supports what I think, which is that Ainges plans are very fluid. Last summer I would have said that he was targeting dipping into free agency in 2010 because he signed TA and House to 2 year contracts. If he was targetting Durants FA year, why wouldn't he have been signing those players on 3 year deals for that expiring year? Now we're going to end up with needing to replace RA, TA, House next year, and it's unlikely any can/will come back on 1 year Vet Minimum contracts. So Celtics will probably end up with 1 or more contracts out of the MLE to fill back in the roster, screwing up the Durant year cap space.

I don't think Ainge has a long range plan per se, other than to sort through the draft riff raff to come up with a couple usable parts once this peak we're in runs it's natural course. And I think as long as we can compete for championships, Ainge will be very fluid about adding whatever players he can to extend the run, while stockpiling other "tradeable assets" for whenever the run finishes.

House and TA never earned 3 year deals and they could bring back RAy on a $11 million deal for one year. How many teams will be offering more than a 2 year MLE for Ray??

[vct33]

The good thing about keeping Ray this year is not only the fact that we get to see his talent, but also the fact that we now have the option of signing a FA in a great class OR S&Ting Ray for a player.

We can either use him for free agency, or in a trade. Our options are actually better this way.

How can it possibly give us more options. We are 100% out of the free agent market for the next few years except for using the MLE. Even after Ray expires at the end of the year, we will be over the salary cap. I think you can get way more out of trading his expiring $19mil than you could trying to Sign-and-Trade him next offseason. What's somebody gonna want to pay him next year? $10mil maybe? So we S&T him for a guy whose making $10mil. Whereas if we trade him now (or before the deadline) we get can get two $10mil guys or some stud max-contract guy and a nice reserve.

[Jimmy103]

Wyc alluded to the fact that we are in a position to offer someone a full contract next year. How that will get done is beyond me, but we will get creative. I think PP opts out. I think we don't resign allen until we offer someone else a full contract, I think we sign Rondo after we offer someone else the full contract. Danny has always stated that he doesn't want to see the team get old...there is a future vision. desciphering what it is, is the hard part but I think it is a fluid vision.

Does it work like that though? Wouldn't we at least for Rondo have a hold on some money? If it worked like that than wouldn't every team that wanted to spend just make all their contracts come up in the same year, have no money committed, sign whomever they want and then resign their own guys?

Rondo's hold money would be low because of his draft position, correct?

I do believe that as constituted the C's could have Pierce opt out and be able to sign a max player, be it Wade/LeBron/Bosh and then re-sign Paul Pierce.

[Warspite]

Rondos QO is 3.7 mil

It looks like the Cs will have about 53 mil in salary in 2011 commited on just 8 players. The Celtics wont have anything other than the MLE untill the 11-12 season when Perkins and Pierce come off the books. However even then the Celtics only have KG under contract and its lottery picks and rebuild time.

The Celtics would have cap space in 2011 but Sheed just took it with his MLE deal.

If Pierce opts out then he has to signed 1st before you can sign any FA as he would count almost 30 million against the cap if he opts out. If he opts out and then signs for 3 mil per then you can sign a Max player but Ainge would have to trade away your 1st rd pick for cash again.

[GuyClinch]

It's not really worthwhile to plan that far ahead. You just go into acquire chips until you find another guy to build around..