soxfan2003 wrote:themoneyteam2 wrote:BostonCouchGM wrote:much of Danny's success is fortuitous timing. Lucky that his bff McHale gifted him MVP candidate KG, lucky an inpet Owens couldn't talk his Russian owner, desperate to make a splash, out of the massive haul they gave up for KG and Pierce and that his own owner kept making Danny go back to the table with more and more demands after Danny would have stopped. And then lucky Colangelo is such a horrible G.M. that he a) didn't realize what a fraud Fultz was and that Tatum was the best player from that draft b) gave a division rival a 1st rounder to move up 2 spots when Fultz was going to still be there at #3. He's mostly a bad drafter but good with trades. There's much worse out there but this is an industry rife with buffoons in front offices so it's not saying much tbh.
Exactly. If only NBA teams hired you as their GM instead of those buffoons. After all, you would rather have Lonzo, Bridges, and RJ freaking Barrett over Jaylen Brown so your eye for player evaluation is obviously great.
Thanks for the laugh!
To be fair, Ainge himself may have drafted Lonzo if Lonzo was willing to work out for the Celtics and the Celtics weren't in desperate need of shooting. Celtics had core pieces of Smart/Brown so drafting Lonzo didn't make sense unless the Celtics were willing to move Smart or Brown.
It is really fit and Fultz just being overrated as a PG prospect -- I said it before the draft on this forum -- that made drafting Tatum the logical choice in the absence of a trade.
The skill that Ainge/Zarren/Wyc showed is timing the trade with Philly in such a way to minimize the chances Philly would back out and select Tatum for themselves. If Philly did that, it would have been disastrous but not many people like to admit mistakes and Ainge probably recognized that. Ainge took a calculated gamble there since after Fultz worked out for Philly, even Colangelo himself reportedly was having 2nd thoughts. He had to because no one from Philly denies the workout like Fultz workout in Boston was another disaster and several members of their basketball ops were telling Colangelo to go in another direction (probably Tatum but not guaranteed to be him).
Reportedly, Tatum's first workout with Boston wasn't that good but just not a disaster like Fultz and so if memory serves the Celtics invited him back for a 2nd workout in which he cemented that he was at the top of the Celtics board.
When NBA teams suggest they don't draft for need, they are lying since if its close, need becomes a factor like it probably should.
You know it's funny (like the post above yours) that people kill Danny and say it was luck. Conversely, a point argued about vociferously here was what to do in 2015. There were plenty on both sides of the line of the IT trade - ie, was it a good idea to compete or should they bottom out again. Iirc we were on different sides of that line.
While Ainge might have gotten lucky at times, something I don't often see pointed out in retrospect - that 2015 draft totally freaking sucked. Now that's clear with hindsight.
Maybe it was luck but maybe the FO had an inkling that was the case and decided the benefit to sucking that year just didn't look like a good risk/reward profile.
