CAN the Celtics be Fixed this year?

[jfs1000d]

Could be 2-1. Could be 0-3. It is the nba.


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Yeah this is the record we deserve. That miss evened out the bank shot.

This season is just NUTS already.

Cavs are 3-0. Orlando is 3-0. Indy is 3-0 (this is less surprising I guess).

Nets lost to the Hornets, who were on a B2B after losing to the **** Thunder. Bucks got BLOWN OUT by the KNICKS!! Sixers got throttled by Cleveland. Raptors are 0-2, losing to two non-playoff teams.

We should absolutely be very concerned with how we look on both ends, but apparently the Cavs are winning the title now so

Has definitely been a surprising early start to the season. Cavs undefeated, Kings playing surprisingly well, Toronto and Denver winless. Dallas only win coming against the Clippers where they had them down by as many as 50!

I feel like playing without fans is somewhat of an equalizer to some degree.

Yes. Also some teams are tired and didn’t get a full break while others had like 8 months.

Intensity level is different and weird.


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[playa-hater]

appreciate the comments. Thought I would have more time this afternoon to reply. Try again tonight.

[CeltsfanSinceBirth]

Hold the fort down until Kemba gets back. A lot of our guys in the rotation haven’t played many minutes.

Tatum/Brown/Smart/Teague/Thompson/Theis are our best players right now. After that, every single player afterwards have barely averaged 15 mpg. We are also asking Tatum and Brown to make up the slack of losing Hayward and Kemba. There will be growing pains this season.

[Bad-Thoma]

Preaching patience on this board is like preaching abstinence to a hooker but I'm not worried about fixing anything without even remotely knowing where the team is yet. Almost non-existent off-season, new guys in big roles and a really young core, might want to give it a bit before worrying about wholesale changes. We know our D isn't going to be this bad for long, that alone will drastically change things. Give guys like Tristan, Teague, and Pritchard a chance to gel, hope Robert continues to progress (i absolutely loved how hard he played last night and how mad he was about blowing coverage late), and most importantly get Kemba back. Then assess where we are at rather than panicking this early.

[BK_2020]

Imagine if instead of 2016 and 2017, the Celtics had #3 pick in 2018 and #1 pick in 2019.... We'd be watching Doncic throw lobs to Zion right now.

[Taget]

Supporting cast needs work. Javonte and Carsen should be waived. Javonte will play in Europe because no other team will sign him. Carsen might get a two-way contract. Waive Semi. Aaron Nesmith should be playing for the Maine affiliate right now until he's ready for our rotation. Get vets to replace them. Find what remaining retreads are available who can give you ten or fifteen minutes in a pinch. Not something I trust most of our bench to do right now.

Bring up Waters and see if he can outcompete Teague or Pritchard. The goal of drafting Waters or Pritchard is that might be able to be a second string point guard. If they can't rise to even be a third string we particularly need to re-evaluate Waters.

If our goal is to compete we need to divide our young guys into two categories. Those who might have star potential if given time and who can contribute now. We can't have half our roster being "projects." Romeo, Time Lord, and Nesmith I have patience with. Everyone else needs to be treated with a ruthless gaze. Except for Taco Fall because once Covid passes he will go back to printing money for the organization. It's okay to have one mascot at the end of the bench. Right now we seem to have far more than that.

Send out feelers to Masai Ujiri who mysteriously has yet to re-sign with Toronto and is rumored to have a "wandering eye." I've always been a Danny defender but business is business. And his eye for talent has been undeniable.

[captain green]

Here is the thing early season I never care much about wins and losses. I only watch games against the bad teams early. And then about 20 games I start to see the pretenders and contenders until then I'm not concerned. 3 decent teams at the start so 1-2 don't phase me.

[SMTBSI]

1.) Let Tatum and Brown learn to be #1 and #2 the hard way. Sometimes that's going to mean taking bad shots at the buzzer to lose us games. If they're the competitors we need them to be, they'll start to figure it out. If they can't get there, then we're in trouble no matter how you slice it. And if they can, some lost regular season games are a small price to pay for what it will do for our ceiling long term (especially this season, when seeding is less important due to no fans).

2.) Wait to use the TPE until you can see the whites of their eyes. If you wait too long, you risk losing it for nothing, but if you pull the trigger too early, you'll have to overpay in picks, since we don't have any good trade chips to send out with it. We need some young players to up their stocks so we don't have to send out all our future picks and really lock ourselves out of any future maneuverability. The folks complaining about "wasting assets" will like it a lot less when we're in pick debt and still don't have a prime contender to show for it.

3.) Play the kids. The biggest casualty of our ascension to "contenders" ahead-of-schedule was, imo, an incentive to hunt for every regular season win, and therefore not play the kids as much as we should have. Pritchard, Timelord, Grant, and at least one of the Langford/Nesmith duo should be in the real rotation. Not all of them will pan out, and some fans will go batty that we keep playing the ones that are sucking. But there's no easy shortcut to finding out about a player. And we need to find out.

4.) Take it to the all-star break, and decide the direction. If Kemba's back and looking good, the Jays have stepped it up, a young player or three has played himself into a real trade chip, and there's a name out there that will help, go get it done. If Kemba's nowhere close to his old self, the Jays are crumbling under the pressure, and no youths have stepped up, we may have to go another way. But, there's absolutely no sense at all to making that call right now. There's way too much we don't know yet.


tl;dr: First step to fixing us is not to overreact and try to fix us all at once. It's a long season, and we need to make good use of all of it.

[reload141]

This board is getting annoying. Not every loss is evidence the team sucks.

We lost Hayward and Kemba, 37 PPG there. What did y’all expect?

Long term, team is fine, but we have had too much talent exodus last 2 year. Only way we are a top 2 team in the east is if Tatum becomes a playmaker. We really miss Hayward’s skills and kemba’s shot making.

The people who are whining now are the same ones who didn’t want Hayward and think Kemba isn’t good.


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Love when jfs1000d posts, people need to take note. All of the above.

The fact is, is that after our top 7 players we have no one else. They are all rookies basically and have no idea, so as soon as one of our top players goes down (in this case one of our top 3 players) we are expecting these young guys to step up....which they can't.

[titlebound1]

I really think Brad is playing around with the roster right now to figure out what works. A lot of good teams are struggling..so no...it's not time to do anything crazy. That said, aside from making a trade for another all star, I think what we are really lacking are good veteran role players.

Our bench is bad. If we added a few solid bench players and get Kemba back (to move Marcus back to the bench), I think we will be okay. I would love to see us absorb Draymond Green into our TPE. I know him and Thompson have a bit of a past...But that front court would be brutal. Then try to pick up another vet wing who can score. There is such a massive drop off from Brown/Tatum to their replacements.

Adding Kemba + some solid role players would solve a lot of our problems. Young up and coming super stars are going to struggle at times when they are asked to carry the load.

[BostonCouchGM]

Everyone gets fired and I trade everyone except Tatum, Pritchard and Nesmith who I keep as my ground floor core going forward. I think I could get a handful of 1st rounders by trading Brown, Smart, and taking back awful contracts. I'd try to trade for under appreciated vets and RFAs to see if with more playing time they can be someone to keep. I would hire a G.M. well versed with the cap but who would not be in charge of drafting since that's what I'd insist on handling. I'd hit on the draft picks and be right back to our present state within 2 years except as real contenders. Hire a non-system head coach who can develop young talent and hold players accountable. This isn't that hard. It only seems so because most front offices are run by imbeciles who can't draft and hire good coaches.

[BK_2020]

I reverse engineer Larry Bird and KGs DNA which I combine into one complete wing, also add a bit of Antoine Walker for the shimmy. Then win all the rings.

[djFan71]

It's a little late and a little early. We traded this rotation:

Kyrie, Rozier, Hayward, Morris, Horford
Wanamaker, Dozier, Baynes

+ 1st we used to dump Baynes

FOR

Kemba, Thompson, Teague
A couple MEM 2nds (from the 30th pick we got back for dumping Baynes)


Rationalize the reasons, etc, but that's what happened. You don't come through that loss of talent and expect to be title favorites still. We're asset poor until some of the non-Tatum rookie deal guys show something. So, you kinda have to wait til the deadline at this point. Maybe a Williams, Romeo or Nesmith shows enough to have value. I think that's why you don't add a vet wing even though the team needs it desperately. You really just need to build their value.

There's no move that puts us into the title favorites group this year - maybe he who shall not be named, but that needs some vet follow on moves as well. Beyond that, literally everyone on the team is trying to learn a new role:

Marcus - lead facilitator
Jays - go to guys
Theis - stretch 4
Teague/Thompson - new team
non-Tatum rook contracts - how to play in the NBA
Kemba - how to get & stay healthy / not be the guy


So, take your lumps develop everyone. Use the TPE to add another long term piece. If everything rolls right, you can still get to the Finals while doing it. Adjust at the deadline if things are trending in that way.

But, mainly, this ain't the year.

[LarryBirdsFingr]

Frankly I think they need to show the 2008 Celtics championship dvd special and get kg the **** down here to blast these fools into shape

[GoCeltics123]

Frankly I think they need to show the 2008 Celtics championship dvd special and get kg the **** down here to blast these fools into shape

Put everyone in the KG boot camp.

God he says he never wants to coach but I wish he did

[playa-hater]

After reading all the responses, it seems like the general consensus is, give it time or wait and see. I by all means don't want a panic response to our record etc.. But I really don't care how many games we win or lose early. I rather focus on the bigger picture. Are we better than last year?

We were quite close to the Finals. We could have and some say, should have, made it there. Since then in our offseason we had 4 draft picks and GH to either sign, trade or in this case S+T.

We managed to lose GH, not trade him, all while being razor thin on talent/depth. We had 4 draft picks, managed to get 2 hopeful talents, while the other 2 we basically wasted. On a team that has some absolute holes and needs on our roster.

Ainge/Stevens have decided to "stick with" our younger players and try to develop them. Grant Williams, Romeo, C Edwards, Tremont Waters, J Green and Tacko. As well as keep Theis and Semi O playing in the Rotations.

Ainge managed to get 2 pretty decent veterans with Teague and TT. both needed, but neither makes up the difference for what should be our ultimate goal.

#18

And Yes I know we still have a TPE.

So the big question I ask again. Are we better than last year? I guess the fairest answer is, time will tell.

But along the way, it still appears to be painfully obvious that a bench relying on Grant Williams, Semi, Ja Green, C Edwards, T Waters and never show a sign of shooting ability Romeo Langford with 2 rookies seem to be far off what a good supporting cast Boston has to be a real contender.

Are you guys OK with another good but nothing special season. Are you OK with the potential "treadmill" of making it to the final 4 or less? Is standing "Pat" now the status Quo?

Not saying Boston should Go All in (Harden) but the constant just let things ride out has knarred my insides out. We are NOT far off, but something has to change. Watching the same limited or even bad players over and over again, year after year, while NOT doing anything, yet justifying it somehow is as BIG a problem as anything else.

What is the definition of insanity? You know, Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

Basically this is just how I feel.

[playa-hater]

1.) Let Tatum and Brown learn to be #1 and #2 the hard way. Sometimes that's going to mean taking bad shots at the buzzer to lose us games. If they're the competitors we need them to be, they'll start to figure it out. If they can't get there, then we're in trouble no matter how you slice it. And if they can, some lost regular season games are a small price to pay for what it will do for our ceiling long term (especially this season, when seeding is less important due to no fans).

2.) Wait to use the TPE until you can see the whites of their eyes. If you wait too long, you risk losing it for nothing, but if you pull the trigger too early, you'll have to overpay in picks, since we don't have any good trade chips to send out with it. We need some young players to up their stocks so we don't have to send out all our future picks and really lock ourselves out of any future maneuverability. The folks complaining about "wasting assets" will like it a lot less when we're in pick debt and still don't have a prime contender to show for it.

3.) Play the kids. The biggest casualty of our ascension to "contenders" ahead-of-schedule was, imo, an incentive to hunt for every regular season win, and therefore not play the kids as much as we should have. Pritchard, Timelord, Grant, and at least one of the Langford/Nesmith duo should be in the real rotation. Not all of them will pan out, and some fans will go batty that we keep playing the ones that are sucking. But there's no easy shortcut to finding out about a player. And we need to find out.

4.) Take it to the all-star break, and decide the direction. If Kemba's back and looking good, the Jays have stepped it up, a young player or three has played himself into a real trade chip, and there's a name out there that will help, go get it done. If Kemba's nowhere close to his old self, the Jays are crumbling under the pressure, and no youths have stepped up, we may have to go another way. But, there's absolutely no sense at all to making that call right now. There's way too much we don't know yet.


tl;dr: First step to fixing us is not to overreact and try to fix us all at once. It's a long season, and we need to make good use of all of it.

For the most part this reply is my favorite. My big difference of opinion is that I don't need to wait until whatever for whatever to realize that an upgrade of talent (TPE + draft pick/s) needs to happen THIS year. Riding this current team out till the season ends, will leave us short of what I actually do think we can do, with a little luck and a upgrade.

[playa-hater]

The pro’s:

-Brown absolutely leveled up. His improved passing vision is much needed

-Smart is playing under control

-Time Lord is healthy

The con’s:

-Tatum completely stopped attacking the basket and stopped passing the ball. He was awesome at both in the bubble. Needs to get back to being that guy

-Grant Williams looks out of shape to me. Tired of seeing our undersized 4’s continue to trend this way. Team needs to look at itself and realize theyre doing something wrong— this **** doesnt happen in Miami.

-Theis looks pretty bad. Dont think he’s recovered from his surgery.

-Stevens cant keep playing two big lineups. I mean, between this and our jumper heavy offense, its like watching Jim O’Brien all over again

-Danny needs to add some talent.

agree with this. Other than trade for Harden, any suggestions?

[playa-hater]

[quote="jmr07019"]Tatum not being a true top 5 and maybe not a true top 10 guy is the biggest problem. Last night he was cooking in the second quarter to the tune of 14 points and 4 assists. The rest of the game? 11 points and 1 assist. He needs to be more consistent throughout the game. Yes I realize this is a ridiculously high bar to set for a 22 year old. I do think he will continue to improve with time.[/quote]

While it would help if Tatum was a true top 5-10, I disagree that is the biggest problem. Lebron was number1 or 2, 2 years ago and didn't make the playoffs then LAL added AD and overhauled the roster.. Then Title.

Our biggest issue is we need more talent. Not making the right trade and/or drafting the last 3 years or so has killed this team more than anything.

[return2glory]

This board is getting annoying. Not every loss is evidence the team sucks.

We lost Hayward and Kemba, 37 PPG there. What did y’all expect?

Long term, team is fine, but we have had too much talent exodus last 2 year. Only way we are a top 2 team in the east is if Tatum becomes a playmaker. We really miss Hayward’s skills and kemba’s shot making.

The people who are whining now are the same ones who didn’t want Hayward and think Kemba isn’t good.


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This!

Not sure why people don’t see this. I’ve been saying the same thing for over a week.

Kemba is an all-star and the great leader. Not having him is a huge loss. Hayward walking and losing his 17, 5 and 5 is another huge loss. Hayward’s production has to be replaced.

I expect this team to be a .500 team or below .500 without Kemba.

Wins and losses aren’t important to me right now. I want to see progress, especially the overall defense.

I want to see progress from Pritchard, Grant and Rob.

Keep in mind that Theis and TT were slowed by injuries and will take a few more games until they are fully back to normal.